This ties in closely with something I have found the past five years or so. Before that time, I would get a call every month (or more often) from someone who found a bunch of lobby cards or posters. Sometimes it was from a former theater owner, sometimes in walls or floors, sometimes in the closets of a closed theater, etc.
Around 10 years ago, the calls slowed drastically, and then around 5 years ago they pretty much ended. I think this is because most of the theaters, houses (and people!) who were adults in the 1920s and 1930s were pretty much gone. But those many "finds" added a great deal of new items to our hobby. NOW, all the calls I get are from the old time collectors (in their 50s to 80s) who are ready to sell their collections. They may have lots of material, but it is not material newly added to the hobby (as in the above mentioned many finds), but rather material "re-entering" the hobby. I think this has caused a great increase in scarcity of older items. It is like a bathtub where the faucet is now permanently off. Some water goes out of the tub and is replaced, but the main source of the water (great poster finds) has pretty much ended. Bruce On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 2:15 AM, Robert D. Brooks <[email protected]> wrote: > As always, I'll try and give a (somewhat) dissenting opinion... > > eBay didn't just die when they stopped caring about the small auctions and > started courting wholesalers instead... That was only part of it, and the > fact that it just so happened to coincide with the following made it seem > like that was the only explanation. But, it was only part of it. Let me > explain... > > One of my biggest complaints about the poster collecting hobby is that > there is no wholesaler. There's no one who has everything. There's no one > who even has a good portion of everything *in one genre*... There's no > easy-access to specific titles. Posters are way too rare. And, the most > sought-after posters are fought over by the collectors tooth and nail. If > the hobby had even one major retailer, it would eat up the entire hobby. > Whenever a nice collection comes on the market, it's gone in a month (well, > all the most collectible posters anyways). If it's an especially great > collection, it might last a year or two. The phenomenal warehouse-finds > might last a decade, but those have been few and far between (and all seem > to be long past their best-before date today). A true wholesaler would need > a new warehouse-find of material every few years. And, those just don't > exist... A decade ago or more, I used to subscribe to MCW, and eagerly > anticipated receiving each issue as it was about the only place to find > posters for sale. There was only one problem: I lived in Canada - so the > magazine would come a few days later than in the States. So, at least 95% > of the time I tried to buy an advertised poster, it was already sold a few > days before! Virtually every freakin' time! It was so ridiculous that I > didn't renew my subscription past the first couple years, just to save me > the grief. > > If you've purchased posters on the internet for the last 10 years, you'll > have noticed what I call 'poster disease.' A new web site opens up with a > great collection of posters. So you watch it as the site gets worse and > worse, year by year, as all the good posters are sold off, and never > replaced, leaving nothing but the chaff. There's no new source of original > posters, so the web sites/galleries/poster-stores have nowhere to replenish > their material. So, they just wither away and die eventually. The good > posters are too rare. Think of all the best web sites and stores to buy > posters 5 or 6 years ago - are any of them more than a ghost of their > former-selves? Not many. I went to LA a year ago, and took a morning off > to go poster buying. So, there I was, ready to spend a fortune at the few > decent (and few not so decent) poster shops in the area. Virtually all of > them were dead or dying. I didn't get to spend a dollar. > > Just to give you an idea of how rare original posters are, here's a little > anecdote (remember, I only collect modern posters [last 40 or 50 years], so > nothing I'm looking for should be that hard to find)... About 10 years ago, > I made a list of the posters I most wanted on a sheet of paper. I filled > the sheet of paper, both sides, in three columns, hand-written. So, > approximately one or two hundred of the rarest one sheet posters I hoped to > one day acquire. You know, the one's where price doesn't really matter. > The rarest of the rare. Your most sought-after pieces. The ones you just > have to have (within your price range, naturally). I made the list in the > days before you could search for long strings on eBay, so I could just pull > out the list and search for everything one by one each week. Every year I > would add a couple titles and cross off whichever ones I managed to > purchase. I just moved recently, and came upon the list, having not looked > at it in years. I was actually kind of giddy, as I figured: hey, it's been > years, I'll probably get to cross off a ton of posters from my list, I must > have found tons of them recently. Years worth, getting crossed off all at > once. When I was done, I looked over the sheet and was saddened to notice > that in the decade or more since I first wrote the list, I'd probably only > crossed off about a dozen posters - total. And, it wasn't like I was outbid > on most of them - in all that time, most of them just never came up for sale > (or they only showed up at major auctions and went for ridiculous prices)! > Like 98% of my most desired posters just don't exist in the marketplace (for > all intents and purposes). And, if it's that hard for me to find more > recent posters, I shudder to think how frustrating it must be to collect > silent posters - or 6-sheets - or 40 by 60's - or Universal Horror - or 50's > exploitation... Again, there's no wholesaler - there's not even the little > specialty shop that has everything. Posters are too rare to allow those > kind of places to exist. And all the sellers are running out! Heck, > they've pretty much run out already... > > The same thing just happened with eBay. A decade ago, eBay was new - and > revolutionary - in the poster hobby. There was finally an easy way to sell > posters. No more trade magazines, buying sight-unseen. Now you had images, > and better yet, cheap auctions. Anybody could sell to anybody. Buyers > weren't constrained any more. Collectors flocked, and all their material > went online at once. As that original mass of posters was sold off, prices > started off low and continued to rise and rise and rise. Then, a few years > ago, it all seemed to stop. The new material stopped coming. eBay ran dry > (their policy of ass-raping their best customers didn't help much, but hey, > we're all sheeple, so thank you, may I please have another). Now, eBay > sucks, because every week it's the same posters being sold. Nothing > changes. Ever. Nothing new shows up. Just the same old crap. The > left-overs. The chaff. eBay caught the poster disease, and she's on her > last breaths... The infection just so happened to coincide with their > stupid policy changes, so no one really noticed. > > So, yes, eBay dug their own grave, just like the music business, but the > poster hobby was especially hard hit due to other reasons as well (shall we > call it The Great Poster Drought of the Early 21st Century?)... > > Cheers, > > The *other* Poster Bob... > Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com > ___________________________________________________________________ How to > UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: > [email protected] In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF > MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content. > > Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: [email protected] In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content.
