Dear Bruce, That is certainly a great sounding Collection that you have coming up for Auction and I will be keeping my eyes open for the listings.
As collectors ourselves since the 1970's and later turning the hobby into more of a business , I can certainly say that the choice titles from the 1950's in the British Quad format are becoming almost impossible to find, especially the ultra collectables such as Bond, Monroe, Wayne, Hitchcock, Disney etc. Pre War titles are virtually extinct, and rarely surface, but one of the factors that affected the availability and eventual scarcity of many Poster collections that had previously been accumulated in uk Cinemas, was an Act during the 1970's which prohibited the storage of flammable materials in Cinemas and other Public buildings, so many of those storage rooms got cleared out, and sadly many were trashed or even used to keep the boilers going during the winter months!!!. Also, unlike the USA, the habit of collecting the Ppsters as a hobby never really took off until the late 1970's and early 1980's. At the same time some of the major Printers, such as Lonsdale and Bartholomew (formerly Stafford and Co) which were based in Netherfield Nottingham and also W.E. Berry in Bradford went into liquidation and as far as my research can tell they never kept an archive of the Posters that they had printed, in the case of Lonsdale and Bartholomew they dumped many hundreds, possibly thousands of Posters in skips!! I would say though that as a collector, there are still quite a few seasoned collectors who have accumulated titles from the 1950's and are sitting on them, an example being our John Wayne collection which has taken many years to build up. I did notice, over the past decade on ebay quite a few Vintage British Quad Posters being Auctioned in America, that mainly originated from the 20th Century Fox studio, and apparently these had been sent over to America in the 1970's by a Film Historian-Leslie Halliwell I believe, to be eventually auctioned, and the condition of many of these was virtually perfect, many still being rolled and with no fading or defects. Our website www.filmcutts.com , which is still a work in progress gives more background on the British Quad format aswell as listings for sale under genres and decades. Hope that this helps, I am sure that there are many more Collectors, more knowledgable than me who can throw even more light on this fascinating subject. I will wait with great expectations for your upcoming Auctions. Best Wishes, Patrick Nottinghamshire, England From: MoPo List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Bruce Hershenson Sent: 22 April 2009 14:44 To: [email protected] Subject: [MOPO] Britsh Quad rarity! I will be listing a single owner collection of British Quads, beginning the 28th, and the collection contains a lot of older quads, and I am struck by the fact that, in all my years in the hobby, I have seen just a tiny number of quads from before 1960 (and even most titles from the early 1960s seem to be many times more rare than their U.S. counterparts). This collection contains 23 from the 1940s, 228 from the 1950s, 120 from the 1960s, and 116 from the 1970s to present! I am hoping MoPo members (especially long time collectors/dealers, and even more so those from the U.K.) can weigh in on the following: 1) Am I correct in thinking that there are virtually no quads from before 1960 in collectors' hands? 2) In all my years, I have personally only ever seen a handful of pre-1960 quads before viewing this collection; has anyone here seen any substantial number of them? 3) If they are as rare as I have stated, WHY is that? I understand that pre-WWII paper from all European countries is super-scarce, but in all other European countries you can easily find just about every post WWII title. Why is the U.K. different from the other countries? Is it that they had far fewer cinemas? Any light anyone here can shed on this will be greatly appreciated! Bruce 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.
