If it's offset, remove a 0.
On 1 Oct 2009, at 19:58, Smith, Grey - 1367 wrote:
JR and Mopo
This whole incident just spotlights the fact that it is getting damn
near impossible for someone to authenticate a linen-backed poster
(or a card stock-based poster that has had its original card stock
backing replaced).
This is a gross overstatement. To be honest, it is not at all “near
impossible” to determine whether a linenbacked poster – or a lobby
card, for that matter, is authentic or not. Now that I have handled
a number of these forgeries, I feel confident that I know exactly
what I’m looking at.
For example, the paper that was used to replicate so many of these
one sheets is not at all hard to detect, as it is a thick stock
laser copy paper! It is very, very different from a standard one
sheet printed prior to, say, 1960. The process used to create the
fake lobby cards and other formats are pretty obvious now, as well.
That being said, it is certainly possible for the forgers to become
more sophisticated in their methods. But, to accurately reproduce a
one sheet on older stock with any degree of accuracy would surely
cost the forger somewhere in the neighborhood of $5,000 or more,
depending on the process perhaps a lot more. Of course, that’s not a
lot of money when one is talking about a poster with a fair market
value of $30-$50,000 or more, but it is definitely a major
investment. Therefore, the creation of a fake poster is not a
process that someone undertakes lightly, I would think.
In other words, the movie poster collecting hobby is currently alive
and well (as I’m confident our upcoming Signature auction will
demonstrate).
The sky is NOT falling!
Best,
Grey Smith
From: MoPo List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
James Richard
Sent: Thursday, October 01, 2009 1:30 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [MOPO] DRACULA-gate and Profile's Part in it
Steve,
While I think Profiles did a poor job of presenting the poster with
their low-quality pictures and initial sketchy description, they
actually *did* take responsibility and do the right thing prior to
putting it in their catalog -- they went to one of the most
respected experts in the field and paid him good money to carefully
inspect and authenticate the DRACULA poster and issue a certificate
to that effect. The fact that the expert blew it isn't really their
fault and they continued to behave responsibly once others started
pointing out problems. Well, OK, the community actually had to beat
them over the head about it, but hey, they had paid for a
certificate of authenticity from a recognized expert, so why
shouldn't they have stood by it as long as they did?
I don't believe that prior to these revelations that anyone in movie
poster collecting would have had anything but high praise for John
Davis and his capabilities. So, PIH went to the best available, not
some fly-by-night so-called "expert."
This whole incident just spotlights the fact that it is getting damn
near impossible for someone to authenticate a linen-backed poster
(or a card stock-based poster that has had its original card stock
backing replaced).
This is why I've been saying that the restoration and backing
operations have to police themselves, form an organization to
determine standards and practices (including identifying seals and
serial numbers in ink on the back of the linen which would be linked
to public disclosure of what work is done). This organization would
then issue an "underwriters laboratory" seal which a cooperating
restoration operations would display, thus assuring their customers
that they were complying with those standards and practices.
But what about the forger who puts on a fake seal and serial number
from some reputable restoration service?
Thats why public disclosure is absolutely necessary -- because if
anyone can look at that number on the back of the linen-backed
poster, call up that operation to confirm the number and that it is
the same poster they are looking at (and what work was done to it),
then putting such fraudulent identifying marks on a fake would be
useless -- and in fact would set off an immediate alarm that someone
was trying to pull a fast one.
The place to stop this fraud is on the restoration and backing tables.
-- JR
Steven F. Poole wrote:
Bang up job on the letter, Rich.
However, one area of all of this that I believe needs to be
addressed is the responsibility of Profiles itself. The auction
house is not a "victim," really, in this fiasco. As others have
pointed out previously on this forum, the auction house which
charges about 1/5 of the hammer price on an item MUST stand in the
docket when the issue of fraud is raised.
They (auction houses) wax enthusiastically about their offerings
when it comes to advertising the wares that have been entrusted with
on consignment. They (auction houses) take their pound of flesh on
both ends in the form of consignment fees and buyer's premiums.
They (auction houses) must be held accountable when they promote a
poster that has a retail value of some $300 on the cover of their
prestigious catalogue and estimate that same poster to have a
possible auction value in the hundereds of thousands of dollars.
Sad, Sad, Sad. state of affairs. Proclaimed "ignorance" of
printing techniques is no excuse whatsoever as to their culpability
in this thwarted attempted massive fraud upon the hobby.
Steve Poole (
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