Rich and others,
Well, not to act like another panicky villager with a pitchfork, but I
had also been wondering for several years about the large increase in
the number of high-end pieces coming to market -- when many of these
items had previously been seen for sale much less frequently. And most
seemed to be in surprisingly better condition then they had been
previously. I put it down to improved restoration techniques and the
marked higher prices which started being realized in the last 10 years
motivating owners to put up for sale items they had been holding onto.
But now we have good cause to wonder if some of these increased market
appearances were not S2 art or something similar which had been slightly
distressed, then "restored" and backed. As you say, Rich, the artist who
did the AFI repro art deliberately introduced some tiny changes to
prevent fraud, but in the restoration process those deliberate changes
could have been corrected. A simple way to do it would have been to
identify the tiny inconsistencies with a genuine original, then tear
out/wear away that bit of the poster, making it look like normal paper
or color loss. Then hand it over to a restorer to fix those unsightly
blemishes, effectively undoing the "fraud prevention".
Then there is the fact that these deliberately-introduced changes to
prevent fraud were not widely known or publicized (still aren't for that
matter, as far as I know), which kind of defeats the whole purpose. Like
Doctor Strangelove said, "A Doomsday Machine is worthless if you don't
let people know about it!" It would have been very helpful if there had
been a publication or website precisely cataloging these
fraud-prevention changes available to the public from day one.
Since some of these recently uncovered high-end fakes reportedly go back
two years or more, we now have to now ask if maybe this sort of thing
hasn't been going on for longer than first supposed? Perhaps it's been
quite some time since some person(s) realized they could get away with
this technique of deliberately distressing a high-quality exact-size
repro, remove any offending inconsistencies by making such removal look
like normal paper loss or color loss, then have the item restored to
original specs and finally linen backed to help disguise paper differences.
Or, as Jack Nicholson said in Mars Attacks!: "Yikes."
-- JR
Richard Halegua Comic Art & Movie Posters wrote:
Yes I already know this
D. Copson, the artist who did the image cleanup & preparation made
numerous changes throughout the catalog for various reasons including
to prevent fraud (doesn't work if people are paying attention of course)
that's why I'll have to spend some time at S2 if I can and get more info
also, so that everyone is clear on this:
S2 Art did not create the images.
The images were supplied by the AFI (American Film Institute) as part
of their commercial products division
Copson worked for the AFI and not for S2
Rich
At 03:19 PM 10/4/2009, Bruce Hershenson wrote:
Rich and Richard:
Remember that all S2s are recreations of originals. Their person used
a high quality scan as a guide only, and then did their own version.
So there are sure to be many subtle differences. These were intended
to be homages, not slavish exact recreations. So yes there can be
added border art, and anything else added on.
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: lists...@listserv.american.edu
In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L
The author of this message is solely responsible for its content.
