I have been to dave's studio in scottsdale bought and sold with him. I trust in
his posters 100 percent Him Bruce and Dan Rickard are the
most trusted poster sellers I know. So before people want to make comment's
about dave or any other seller have proof that they are
selling a fake. Also Dave offers a 100% Money Back on any poster so if he is
selling fakes why make such an offer.
Thank you for that, very nice!!
<<<< So what can be done? I would say the best course for now is for everyone
to spread the word about these as much as possible, so that fewer and fewer
collectors get tricked into buying them (I give everyone reading this the
permission to quote it on any newsgroup or website, AS LONG AS IT IS QUOTED IN
FULL, AND AS LONG AS IT IS CLEARLY CREDITED AS BEING EMOVIEPOSTER.COM
Buyers Beware!! Dave Lieberman of Cinemamasterpieces is selling a Jaws Insert
with cropped art work for 500.00
Dario.
>>>>
Bruce Hershenson wrote:
I told you all last week I had started a poll in my Weekly E-Mail Club (1823
members) about the hobby's opinion of the authenticity of the "minty white"
inserts that flood our hobby. Here are the results (taken from the latest club
message) plus my views on them:
Here are the poll results (note that the 20 people who voted for "Other" all
had differing reasons for doing so and you need to read those comments to see
why they voted as they did):
I believe the "minty white" inserts are genuine posters that were printed at
the time of release. 4
I believe the "minty white" inserts are re-strike posters that were printed at
the time of release. 2
I believe the "minty white" inserts are re-strike posters that were printed
after the time of release. 22
I believe the "minty white" inserts are reproductions that were printed long
after the time of release. 82
I believe there is not enough evidence to make an absolute decision on these
either way. 20
Other (please explain what your other opinion is) 20
IN THIS POLL, MORE SO THAN IN ANY PREVIOUS ONE, it is really vital for you to
read the voters' comments which explains why they voted as they did (but of
course you must be a club member to do so; if you are not already a member, you
should consider joining it). This club will keep you informed about everything
we are selling through just ONE e-mail a week, and many weeks we make great
bonus offers to club members who buy multiple items from us on eBay! So if
there is ANY chance at all that you might end up buying a number of items from
us on eBay in future weeks, then you have a LOT of incentive to join the club
(if you are not already a member) because we will keep on giving away excellent
prizes to those members of the club who buy multiple items. Note that we have
recently revamped and greatly improved this club! It no longer is a very long
e-mail (it is now just a very brief e-mail, with a link to the message on our
site), and we now run fun weekly polls, which a coupl
!
e of hundred participate in each week, with great prizes for randomly selected
members!
Why not join the club today (if you are not already a member)? You'll at
most receive ONE e-mail a week, and your e-mail address is NEVER given out to
anyone, and you have a great chance to win great prizes, and you can quit
anytime! Just go to
http://www.emovieposter.com/mail/clubsignup.php<http://www.emovieposter.com/mail/clubsignup.php>
and fill out the super simple form, and you will be a member, and qualify for
the great club bonuses!
Back to the poll results: As you can see by the above results, it is clear that
an overwhelming percentage of those with an opinion think the "minty white
inserts" are either repros or "re-strikes", and that they were created long
after the fact. I promised to give my opinion on these "minty white inserts"
this week, and here it is!
I first heard of these posters somewhere in the late 1990s. A very
prominent dealer (a longtime friend) called me to warn me that two dealers from
the same city had approached him about buying a "warehouse" find of inserts. He
told me that they told him they had several hundred of each, with exact varying
quantities of each, like 246 of one, and 371 of another, exactly the kind of
numbers you would expect from a real "find" of this sort. But he also told me
that the "find" seemed to consist ONLY of mostly all top titles, which at first
got him excited, but, after reflection, it bothered him, for he knew (as I do)
that "warehouse" finds virtually always consist of "the good, the bad, and the
ugly" and, if anything, they usually have far MORE lesser or lousy titles,
partially because these were the ones that were in the least demand and
partially because, if any knowledgeable person had ever gone through them, they
would likely have removed those titles. He also stated tha
!
t he was bothered by WHO the people were who approached him, because he knew
them to be "ethically challenged".
But he went ahead and met with them, hoping against hope that somehow this
WAS a wonderful "find", but he felt convinced otherwise the moment he saw them,
for he is someone who had handled tens of thousands of posters, and these were
clearly "too new" and somehow "not right", and so he "passed" on buying them,
doing so as diplomatically as possible. His purpose in calling me was to warn
me about them, and possibly save me some time and money if they would contact
me and I might either go see them, or worse yet buy them. I clearly remember
him telling me that they were "not right", and kind of "fuzzy and blurry" and
also I remember him saying the paper was all wrong.
Now at this time I was primarily selling pre-1970 posters and lobby cards
(both in my auctions and sales lists), and so this topic seemed only marginally
interesting to my business (at that time there were also fakes of one-sheets
starting to turn up, and I was very glad that I did not sell what I then
referred to as "newer" posters!). But a short time later I began selling on
eBay, and I quickly saw that several dealers had endless supplies of the very
same insert titles my friend had warned me about. I called him up and he told
me that, at the same time he was offered the "find", other major dealers he
knew well had also been contacted buy the same individuals, and that,
interestingly, the quantities they were offered varied quite a bit, as though
there truly was an endless supply, and that the numbers seemed to be just made
up to make the story "look good".
My best guess of what happened is this. Those two dealers printed up repros
of the inserts in question, and then tried to sell large quantities of each to
many major dealers, and make a quick "score" (the most important thing to
remember is that the bulk of color printing costs occurs during "set-up"; it
costs little more to make 5,000 of each repro as it does 500 of each, so it is
EXTREMELY likely LOTS of each were printed). They may well have misjudged the
size of the collecting community and the naivete of the major dealers in being
able to spot repros (or their willingness to participate in major fraud), and
they likely THOUGHT they could quickly "wholesale" out thousands of each and be
done with them, having made a substantial profit.
But it seems that very few (if any) major dealers were willing to buy any
of these. It seems likely that at this point, the people who created them went
to several individuals who had acquired the remnants of a poster exchange, and
TRADED them huge quantities of the "minty white" inserts for huge quantities of
lesser posters these fellows had sitting in storage, items which had barely
sold in decades.
I am sure that if this occurred (and circumstantial evidence seems clearly
to say it likely did) then it seemed at the time like a giant "win-win" for
both sides. The makers of the repros got rid of lots of them, and acquired lots
of lesser titles that could then be mixed into their inventory, giving the
image that they themselves had the remnants of an exchange, thus further giving
credibility to the possible legitimacy of the "minty white" inserts. Those who
traded for the "minty white" inserts got rid of pretty dead inventory, and got
titles that were in super-high demand.
Then eBay came along in full swing (I can't remember if the "minty white"
inserts showed up right before eBay took off or right after, but either the
"minty white" inserts were created to take advantage of the huge eBay demand or
they were created first, and the eBay coming along was just wonderful good
fortune. But suddenly all of these dealers (the ones who created the "minty
whites" and the ones who traded for them) suddenly had a HUGE new market both
for the "minty whites" AND for the pretty dead inventory that all of these
dealers now had, and the new eBay buyers were EXTREMELY unsophisticated and
they paid top dollar for just about everything.
Suddenly, just about all of the "minty whites" were on eBay every day,
often several of each, and they often went for super-high prices. At this time
I was becoming the foremost eBay seller, and it wasn't long before the first of
these were consigned to me. They jumped out at me as being "not right", just as
they had to my longtime dealer friend who had first alerted me to them.
Exactly what was wrong with them? Most noticeably, the paper stock was
clearly different from that of any other insert I had ever seen. It seemed to
be around the right weight as other inserts, but the paper was "whiter than
white" (which means it is a brighter white than regular insert paper, even mint
ones), and the stock was glossy on the front (with a similar amount of gloss to
that of genuine inserts from the same period), but the paper had the SAME
degree of glossiness on the back, something that was never true for genuine
inserts of this period (genuine inserts from this period have a somewhat flat
finish on the back, with only a small degree of glossiness). THIS DIFFERENCE IS
SO SIGNIFICANT THAT I CAN TELL A "MINTY WHITE" FROM A GENUINE INSERT IN TOTAL
DARKNESS, JUST BY FEELING BOTH SIDES OF THE POSTER WITH MY FINGERS!
There are other differences as well. All of them have a varying amount of
"fuzziness" or "blurring" to the printing. It is something you can't easily
describe in words, because your eyes pick it up subliminally. This is best seen
when you look at a genuine insert and a "minty white" of the same title side by
side (and some people, usually those with a printing background, are far better
than seeing this than others). There is also a problem with some of the "minty
whites" where the art is slightly cropped as opposed to known originals.
To me, the fact that they are on a different paper from that of ANY known
originals says that there is no chance these were created by any printer who
printed for the studios, for why, for this one time, would they turn to a
different type of paper? And the fuzziness" or "blurring" to the printing, plus
the different tighter cropping eliminates ANY chance of these being any sort of
"re-strikes", for this is EXACTLY what would happen if you reproduced them off
of known originals, and this NEVER would happen if you had the original
printing plates (authorized or not).
Then why do some people have trouble accepting what seems so painfully
obvious to me? First, I have had 35 years of printing experience, having
printed 43 movie poster books, 12 exact comic book reproductions (authorized of
course!) and lots of fan publications and sales catalogs, printing on all sorts
of paper stocks, from the cheapest pulp paper to the very finest 100 pound
paper. While most people can easily see major differences between paper quality
and printing, MANY have trouble seeing subtle differences between quality of
printing and paper weight (for example, most full-color books are printed in
Hong Kong these days, and I personally can quickly tell if most art books were
printed there, but many people can not).
Another reason some people think we need to "keep an open mind" when it
comes to the "minty whites" is because they have a vested interest in their
being "real"! There are those who created them and those who traded for or
bought them in large quantities, of course, and these people have the most at
stake, for if they are established as being repros, they may well face criminal
or civil prosecution. But there are also many others who either own some or
many of these in their collection, or those who bought them and re-sold small
numbers of them, and these people too very much want them to be "real" as well.
The very same people who sell the "minty white" inserts also sell a "minty
white" half-sheet to The Enforcer (1977, Clint Eastwood). An image of this
poster can be found on my site at
http://www.emovieposter.com/imagearchive/poster/90085.html<http://www.emovieposter.com/imagearchive/poster/90085.html>
Now I have recently had a chance to examine a known original side by side
with a "minty white". First off, there are the paper differences, just like
with the inserts. But there are MASSIVE printing differences too! On the known
original, the windshield has several long fine cracks which run to the right
side of the poster, past Eastwood's face. The left of the dashboard of the car
has a fine grid of metal on the left that looks like chicken wire. On the
"minty white" , the fine cracks in the windshield stop several inches before
those of the original, and on the "minty white", the grid in the left of the
dashboard is mostly just
a black blur!
Why are there these differences? Because the missing lines are very fine,
and the original that was used to create the "minty white" had them, but the
photographer that shot it did not use a fine enough image, and the printer did
not use a fine enough "screen" during printing and so these fine details were
lost. Of course, it would be great if ALL the "minty whites" had these
differences, but many do not have such obvious "markers" (although all show
some clear slight signs of these kinds of differences, and they all can be seen
under magnification). But given that some of the "minty whites" have
substantial differences, and given that all are printed on the same sort of
paper, I think this is more than enough reason to accept that all are clearly
repros that were reproduced from originals, and NOT from original printing
plates. They are copies, and should have no more value than any other
reproduction, like those from Portal Publications.
What can be done about this? I really can't say exactly, but here are my
thoughts. Some of those commenting on the poll asked why scientific methods
could not be used to absolutely tell when these were created, but sadly science
is not yet up to finding differences of just 20 years (regardless of what you
see on CSI type shows!). So that is out. If the FBI were to get involved, they
could likely quickly get to the bottom of this, for they could spend much time
and money going to the possible printers, and it is VERY likely that there
would be many of the people who were only slightly involved in this who would
cooperate, rather than risk possible prosecution, so it might just take a short
time for the full truth to come out,
But this is very unlikely to happen, for most of these have sold for
$25-$100 each, and I would say that any law enforcement agency would put this
very low on their list of priorities (there have been many similar scandals in
other collectibles fields, and the authorities rarely take the slightest
action, other than telling those involved to stop). And I feel certain there is
NO chance eBay will get involved, for they would want to see some sort of
"smoking gun" proof, which does not exist as of yet.
So what can be done? I would say the best course for now is for everyone to
spread the word about these as much as possible, so that fewer and fewer
collectors get tricked into buying them (I give everyone reading this the
permission to quote it on any newsgroup or website, AS LONG AS IT IS QUOTED IN
FULL, AND AS LONG AS IT IS CLEARLY CREDITED AS BEING FROM EMOVIEPOSTER.COM).
Certainly this will help a lot to spread the word, and one would hope that,
eventually, as those who sell these reproductions as originals are stigmatized,
at least some of them will stop selling them, for any profits they make from
continuing to do so is likely more than outweighed by the fewer number of sales
of legitimate posters, and the lower prices they get for legitimate posters at
auction. Once there are just a couple of people left selling them, they will
become less and less of a problem.
I WISH that the sellers of the "minty whites" would realize that these are
hurting their business, and that continuing to sell them opens them up to more
and more potential legal liability (it is going to be harder and harder to use
a "I didn't know they were repros" defense as more and more time goes by). I
wish they would just trash (or put away) their remaining "minty whites" (or
sell them as likely repros), and then they could "clean up their act" and over
time completely rehabilitate themselves in the collecting world (they can say
they didn't know they were repros and that once they found out they stopped
selling them; they can boast of how much they lost, using a "we're a victim
too" defense!).
But sadly, there are lots of signs that they are going in exactly the
opposite direction! They have suddenly made "warehouse finds" of many popular
1970s and 1980s lobby card titles (complete sets) and they have learned the
wrong lesson from the "minty white" insert episode. These lobby cards repros
are on a much better paper stock than the inserts, and are not nearly as easy
to tell from known originals (but once again, these were reproduced from
originals and not from original printing plates, so there are subtle
differences, but you need some education or time in the hobby to see them.
So please, everyone do your part and spread the word of what is written
here. If this is not stopped (at least to some degree), then our entire hobby
will be much the worse for it. If you own any of these "minty whites", please
DON'T sell them as originals (but don't throw them away either; but rather sell
them as repros, and if you were sold them as originals, say so when you list
them, and that would do LOTS towards spreading the word! If we all work
together, we can do as I outlined above and get every collector the knowledge
they need to avoid buying these, and we can also ostracize the dealers who
continue to sell them, so that hopefully they will see the wisdom of stopping!
BRUCE HERSHENSON P.O. Box 874 West Plains, MO 65775 phone 417 256 9616, fax 417
257 6948, e-mail <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]><mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL
PROTECTED]<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, website
<http://www.emovieposter.com><http://www.emovieposter.com/>http://www.emovieposter.com<http://www.emovieposter.com/>
eBay user ID emovieposter.com and our new ID, movieposter
Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at
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