I second Sean's report, most especially about
seeing my friend Adrian Cowdrey whom I had been
concerned about for all the time he was being
treated for his cancer. Sadly, he wasn't having
any more beer by the time I got to the bar and so
I was not able to buy him one.. so I hope I get
to the bar earlier next year. But it was
fantastic to see him and he looked great which
assuaged his all of his friend's concern considerably
and yes indeed I did get to buy some real cool
stuff and some of this will start turning up in
my auctions in the next weeks. especially the
window cards Sean is talking about....
At 04:59 PM 6/9/2010, Sean Linkenback wrote:
Quick Review for those with less time: Show = Good, Auction = Not so much.
Read further if you would like more details.
My wife and I arrived for Cinevent on Thursday
afternoon to get there in time for dealers
set-up that evening. As usual, the hotel was
already busy with some dealers arriving as early
as Tuesday evening to meet and look through each
others wares. It's always great to get
reacquainted with old friends, talk some shop,
gossip and look through whatever material they
have brought to the show. Especially glad to
see Adrian back from across the pond after a two-year absence.
Although the dealers room was regrettably
missing some of our the old standbys, it was
still full and a couple of new faces helped
assure there was plenty of material to go
around. Gene Arnold brought his friend Irv with
him and Richard Halegua was the first to get a
look at his fresh stack and quickly called me
over. As soon as the other hawk-eyes in the
place saw the two of us a mini-feeding frenzy
occurred with dealers/collectors coming out of
the woodwork to grab their place in line.*
(*This scene led to one of my few complaints for
the weekend. For the life of me I don't
understand how so-called big-time dealers can
appreciate the efforts that Steve and crew go
through to put on the only major gathering for
poster collectors left, fly in from say New York
and then not respect the event or organizers
enough to even buy a membership badge. Shame on
you and your cheapness. Is it really too much
to ask for you to spend $15 on a
membership? You have no problem spending $300K
on a Dracula one-sheet, how about a little bit
for the show that you fly out to every year to buy from?)
A lot of people were naturally curious to see
some of the Universal horror fakes up close and
with some great assistance from Jim Gresham and
Grey Smith we were able to educate people about
this problem all weekend, showing several
examples: Ghost of Frankenstein 3-sheet and
Insert, Frankenstein R-47 1-sheet, Creature From
the Black Lagoon 1-sheet, and a couple of lobby
cards. At least 100 people stopped by our
tables over the weekend to to get a better look
at these infamous pieces, most collectors and
dealers were shocked to see how nice these items
appeared in person, and it was a great feeling
to be able help so many people learn about them.
Saturday brought a heavier turnout than Friday
(attendance for the weekend was very strong
despite the economy with nearly 700 people
coming out), and we enjoyed some nice sales
through-out the day (possibly benefiting from
the absence of dealers in the room at times as
John has pointed out) and even had a few
customers bring posters specifically to the show for us to buy.
All told we had a great buying weekend, spending
well into the five figures for much needed
material (some of which will be featured in our
next no-reserve .99ยข auction starting in the
next week or two). Although we refrained from
spending too much on stills during the weekend,
we also noticed that they seemed to be a very
hot commodity with many collectors and dealers
trading briskly in them. Unfortunately, one of
the things that we usually enjoy the most turned
out to be very disappointing - the annual Vintage Poster Art Auction.
Sarcastically I can say - The auction was a
resounding success, with a surprisingly low 77%
pass rate given the high reserves, over grading,
and undisclosed restoration; or taking a more
realistic look at it as Bruce did in his weekly
e-mail message - It is probably time for Morrie
to take a second look at the auction and make
some changes to make it more competitive with
the other market forces and a more enjoyable
event altogether. And I say what I am about to
with the utmost respect for Morrie, he is one of
the true gentleman in the hobby/business and has
a love and knowledge of posters that is second to none.
This was the first year for me that the auction
catalog didn't arrive until after the auction
was over (though I have heard of this happening
to others before), combine this with the fact
that the online catalog didn't even "go live"
until a couple of weeks before the auction
probably helped to put a dark cloud over the
event before it even got going. I had made a
good-sized list of items that I was interested
in bidding on before getting to Columbus, but
was sorely disappointed in a majority of the
items when I was finally able to inspect them.
Some random complaints in no particular order:
1) The grading is all over the place - both over
and under. I don't have a problem with people
that grade differently than I do, there is no
standardized system and everyone does it
slightly different, but items in the auction
seemed wildly inconsistent. There were some
items graded "B" that were totally unrestored
and nice, while others graded "B" might have
been paperbacked and totally dipped in paint
with large sections having been worked on.
2) The internet photos are far too small. In
this day and age there is no excuse not to have
large online photos of everything you are
offering. Even the photos offered through
Proxybid were much larger than those on the
Hollywood Poster Auction homepage.
3) Undisclosed restoration. This is just a
killer in my book. And I'm not talking about a
linenbacked 3-sheet where you expect there to
some touch-up, I'm talking about lobby cards and
other sizes where no mention of work is in the
description, yet when you get to examine the piece it is full of paint.
4) Incredibly unrealistic reserves. Again, I'm
not talking about Pinocchio having a $6,000
reserve, I'm talking about ordinary items all
having $100 reserves when they might
realistically be $20-30 pieces. For example
this Revenge of the Jedi promotional piece
(http://hollywoodposterauction.com/default.aspx?Action=ShowLot&alt=13424)
Heritage and Bruce both have offered this and
the last one Bruce had sold for $17. You can't
have multiple examples like this and NOT have a
high pass rate, and it brings down the whole tone of the auction.
I really feel that if Morrie was to implement
some of these changes that this auction could
easily return to it's former glory of 10-15
years ago when it was one of the can't miss events of the year.
As for our own sales mini-market report - we
were very pleased to move a great variety of
lobbies over the weekend including a couple of
classic Universal horror title cards (the demand
is still there, people just want to feel safe
with who they are buying from), and other great
lobbies from classic cinema including some nice
Hitchcock title cards, Marilyn Monroe, James
Bond, and the usual assortment of 50s sci-fi creatures.
All in all, a great weekend and I can't wait to
repeat it next year - especially after just
hearing from Steve about some of the plans they
have in store to improve the show.
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