I'm not so easily convinced this is Bruce's work.
Despite very convincing detail, not least the account of an employee
being made to feel his inserts.
And the "Dan Rickard" and a "Bob" who supposedly merit being credited?
Who???!!!!
I strongly suspect this has been ripped off wholesale from the
Cinemasterpieces website!
On 4 Jun 2011, at 11:22, Neil Jaworski wrote:
I remember Bruce's original email from 9 years ago and have now had
a chance to compare it side-by-side with this new email that's
purportedly from Bruce.
Despite the absence (in both emails) of references to 'big city
auctions' and 'outrageous $14 minimum buyer premiums' I'M AS
CONVINCED AS I CAN BE THAT BOTH EMAILS ARE FROM BRUCE!
Joking aside, I think it's useful that this subject not go away.
The Haggard affair may have been more explosive but the effect of
the minty whites is far more wide-reaching, corrosive and ongoing.
Kudos to Bruce and anyone else that prevents this issue from being
forgotten. It's a real shame that the damnthe.com site went down
several years ago.
Neil
--- On Sat, 4/6/11, Bruce Hershenson <[email protected]>
wrote:
From: Bruce Hershenson <[email protected]>
Subject: [MOPO] A look back at my first involvement with the minty
white scandal nine years ago!
To: [email protected]
Date: Saturday, 4 June, 2011, 5:10
I remember well when I first heard of the minty whites.It was around
the year 2,000, a couple of years after I first got on eBay and saw
the same few dealers with the same insert titles over and over.
Shortly after this, a major dealer called me to warn me that there
was a dealer from a certain part of the country who was going to
lots of dealers looking to trade or sell large quantities of those
very same titles, and he said he had seen them in person, and that
there was something "wrong" about them, and he wanted to let me know.
I thanked him, but at that point I still had never seen one in
person (at that time I sold very little post 1970 stuff), so it was
nothing tangible that I could publicly take a side on, but the info
from my friend seemed awfully damning.
Around a year later Dan Rickard and his friend Bob began announcing
the inserts were absolutely fake, but still I had nothing tangible
to contribute.
But one more year later (in June of 2002, NINE YEARS ago) I DID get
first-hand evidence of these being fakes, and I first joined the
fray on MoPo (and it is hard to believe now that there were LOTS of
major dealers defending these as absolutely real) and here is how I
a couple of weeks later reported on what occurred to the then 1,942
collectors in my e-mail club:
"Over the past couple of years there has been a great controversy in
our hobby over certain insert posters that were constantly being
offered on eBay (titles like The Godfather and Blade Runner). The
inserts were always mint, and the sellers who offered them almost
always re-offered the same titles over and over. After a year or
more of constant selling of the same 20 or so titles, the prices on
those titles had plummeted, even though many of the titles are very
desirable.
At the time all this was first going on, I had little to do with it,
primarily because at that time I sold very very few post-1970 items.
But I heard rumblings through the hobby that these inserts were
reproductions, and that they had originated from upstate New York.
About a year ago, there was a big discussion about these inserts on
the Internet discussion group MoPo, and some dealers came to the
defense of these inserts, saying that there had been a "warehouse"
find, but that the posters were 100% legitimate. There was lots of
back-and-forth e-mails (some of it quite heated), but there was no
"meeting of the minds". Those dealers who felt they were real were
unconvinced, and felt there might well have been a warehouse find.
In addition to the controversy over the inserts, there also has been
much discussion about many other posters that seem to have been
copies, including several Star Wars posters and a Pulp Fiction
poster. In the past couple of months, two very courageous Canadian
collector/dealers have kept bringing the "repros being sold as
original" subject issue back up on MoPo, refusing to let it die.
They did not do this for personal gain, but rather because it
angered them that this selling of repros as originals was causing
many collectors to be cheated out of lots of money.
One of them, Bob, sent many e-mails to MoPo giving his reasons why
he felt SURE these various posters were repros, and the other, Dan,
started a website where he tried to warn collectors about the many
reprints being sold as originals (go to http://www.damnthe.com/mymovieposters/acatalog/
to view this site).
A couple of months ago, something happened to bring me into this
discussion. A collector sent me 8 different titles of the disputed
inserts to auction for him (he had purchased them one by one from
eBay from one of the dealers in question). As soon as I saw them, I
knew they were odd. But I couldn't say for 100% they were bogus,
just that they were troubling.
But fortunately for everyone in the hobby, a separate collector had
months before consigned around 1000 posters he had gotten from a
friend who worked for NSS in the 1970s and 1980s, and that
collection included 30 x 40s, 40 x 60s, half-sheets, one-sheets, and
some inserts. Incidentally, that collection was just like every
other warehouse find I have ever seen. There were good titles and
bad, and around 80% were bad titles (anyone want both the A & B
style 30x40s of "Slow Dancing in the Big City"?) Maybe 5% to 10%
were good titles. (In the disputed inserts warehouse find, 90% of
the titles were good, and that alone tells me it is very very
doubtful, since over the years I have been in on a huge number of
such finds and it is rare that as many as 10% of the items in any
"find" are from good titles).
The collector with the "straight from NSS" stuff had a Blade Runner
insert and a Godfather insert, along with many other lesser titles.
I took them out and laid them side by side with the disputed inserts
of Blade Runner and The Godfather that had been sent to me.
The comparison was striking! There are three things one looks for
when comparing printed items; printing clarity, color matching, and
paper matching. Here is what I saw looking side by side:
Printing clarity: The Godfather looked extremely similar, no
doubt because it is only one color, and easier to reproduce. The
Blade Runner was clearly slightly fuzzy, especially in the credits
at bottom. Result Inconclusive.
Color matching: The Godfather appeared to be a perfect match,
but it is a black and white poster and how hard is it to match
black? The Blade Runner had very slightly different coloration, like
someone tried to match the color but couldn't get a perfect match,
but who really knows if the originals didn't have several print
runs? Result Inconclusive.
Paper Matching: The NSS copies looked like every other inserts
I have ever seen from this time period. The suspect inserts were on
a different kind of paper (and both were on exactly the same
paper!). The paper is slightly different looking so that it appears
to be a different shade of white. It is really striking when you
compare them side by side (although I don't know if it would show
well on a digital image). But the giant difference is in the
coating! The NSS inserts have a glossy surface on the front, and a
much duller finish on the back (just like every other insert I have
ever seen from that period). The suspect inserts have a greater
gloss on the front, and a similar gloss on the reverse (and I have
never seen any insert that has a glossy finish on the back). THIS
DIFFERENCE IS SOMETHING MUCH MORE "FELT" THAN SEEN.
So it wouldn't do much good to put digital images on a website,
which is why I didn't do so. But I had one of my employees feel both
inserts, and he felt the difference was striking. I don't think
anyone could not tell them apart, and they wouldn't have to look at
the fronts of either poster!
Result: Proof in my mind that these are fakes. The paper used is of
a kind never used on any other inserts I am aware of, other than
these exact disputed titles, which are from different studios and
years, so presumably would have been printed at different times.
Once I had been able to make this side-by-side comparison, I felt I
had a "smoking gun" that needed to be presented to this club, MoPo,
and the readers of Movie Collectors World (which I intend to do in
MCW's next issue). So I posted most of the above information to
MoPo, and added the following (I am paraphrasing what I wrote, but
the meaning is unaltered):
Those of you who defend these inserts are those who either own
bunches of them and/or those who have sold bunches of them.
Obviously, you have a huge stake in their being at least
questionable. If they are declared fake, then you will both lose on
the ones you currently own, but more importantly you will
potentially face an angry mob of collectors (no doubt with torches)
demanding their money back. I imagine that nothing I (or anyone
else) can say will change THOSE dealers' minds, so I am addressing
this to everyone else in the hobby.
First. I ask anyone to find me even ONE insert from any non-disputed
title that is on the kind of paper stock that is described above.
Second, don't blur this debate into saying that all inserts from
this time period are suspect or that all inserts of these titles are
suspect. Let me make this perfectly clear! I AM SAYING THAT THE ONLY
SUSPECT INSERTS ARE THOSE WHICH APPARENTLY ORIGINATED FROM ONE
SPECIFIC REGION (BUT ARE NOW LIKELY SPREAD ALL OVER THE GLOBE).
It is vital that all of you remember that there are many many
authentic copies of these inserts. I am 100% sure that many dealers
have inserts that are the real deal (even if they have some of the
disputed titles) because many of these guys bought their inserts
many years ago, before the fakes were created (which is why I am
100% sure they are real).
But there are other dealers who I would bet have lots of fakes. If
they bought them in the last few years from someone who only sold
them the disputed titles, I would bet anything they are fakes. I
firmly believe that once you have read what I wrote above, you
yourself will be able to know for yourself if you have originals or
repros (except for those who own tons of them; "there are none so
blind as those who will not see").
Third, I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO GAIN BY THIS. Those who own tons
of these (and those who reprinted them in the first place) clearly
have much to gain by keeping the possibility alive they are real.
But I only gain their anger, so does this not show I must
passionately believe in what I am saying? And it is not just me. Dan
and Bob (the two Canadian collector/dealers referred to above) have
repeatedly brought this issue up, and it almost surely hurts their
ability to sell posters. Greg Ferland (trydnt on eBay), who is one
of the most major of poster dealers and all-around nice guy, felt a
need to post to MoPo that he absolutely believes these to be fakes).
Joe Burtis, manager of the MPA Gallery, one of the people in this
hobby who probably knows more about posters than I do, says he is
sure they are fakes. WHY ARE ALL THESE PEOPLE SO SURE OF THEMSELVES
AND WILLING TO GO ON THE RECORD?
Finally, it is important to realize that these fake inserts do not
(and will not) "kill" the prices of the real ones. This is because
they can be relatively easily distinguished from the originals, once
you know how. Of course this won't stop novice collectors from
getting cheated, which is why we all need to expose these fakes
(just as Dan's fine site will not keep every new collector from
buying the many other fake posters currently circulating).
I have sold several ORIGINAL inserts of these titles in the past
year and I have gotten good (pre-fake) prices for them. Of course,
people know I must be selling the originals, which might not be the
same for someone off the street, but it shows that the prices will
be what they should be once these fakes are exposed. I also just
last week auctioned 300 inserts and 300 half-sheets and prices were
pretty much "through the roof". The problem is solely with the fake
repro inserts, which need to be exposed, by getting the word out to
every collector, and you can do your part by spreading the word!"
--
Bruce Hershenson and the other 29 members of the eMoviePoster.com team
P.O. Box 874
West Plains, MO 65775
Phone: 417-256-9616 (hours: Mon-Fri 9 to 5 except from 12 to 1 when
we take lunch)
our site
our auctions
Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com
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