Grey, your past business dealing with other poster dealers
is not proof you dealt with us in a proper, up and above board manner.
We are in a different category of MOPO members -- we are
from the group which generated this memorabilia you claim to hold so highly. A
specific example would be John Van Hammersveld's Get Carter poster which
Charley commissioned John to do while he was working under Mike Kaplan is
sought after by MOPOers. While we had multiples of this poster (because Charley
worked on it), we are not MOPOers who you can depend on for return buying,
selling or trading.
Who are we?
Charley Lippincott is legendary in film marketing because he
changed the face of film marketing by merchandising Star Wars to kids. His
advance
marketing campaign on STAR WARS changed the
way companies marked to kids. Tie-ins and merchandizing became de rigeur. Star
Wars also became the top grossing, evergreen empire it is today. Charley's Star
Wars campaign is history. Period. From his work archive we have Star Wars
material which even Lucasfilm does not have in their holdings. And it’s not
only Star Wars.-- Charley was Exec VP at MGM, Dino De Laurentis and Ridley's
Alien. When we moved out of Los Angles, we shipped 72,000 pounds, most of which
consisted of the Lippincott Collections Charley acquired over his lifetime.
Several years ago, looking at liquidating some of the
collection, I contacted Rudy Franchi. As the former curator of film at the San
Jose Museum of Art and past recipient of NEA film history grants, I knew of
Rudy Franchi prior to his PBS fame. I contacted Rudy about some strange sized
posters, and Charley ended up speaking with him. The two knew each other by
professional reputation -- they were of the same era, had both done publicity,
and were interested in criticism. Rudy queried us about the collection and
convinced us to send material to Grey, stating Grey would take care of
everything. That was part of Heritge's service. As Heritage's web site clearly
states their inventory procedure by bonded staff, we were reassured by Rudy and
Grey, who called us several times to make sure we got the posters packed and
shipped..
I won't go into detail about all the back and forth here.
Suffice it to day, I was not happy.
On MOPO, I responded to an article someone posted about bad
auction houses stating some of inventory went missing. Bruce wanted to which
house had lost part of our inventory. I honestly responded -- Heritage. I got
barraged by MOPOers -- yes, flamed and nastily accused of bedevilry and evil.
Naturally,
I responded. MOPOers got angry at one of their cherished brethren for being so
churlishly accused and tossed more fireworks at me, to which I responded.
All through this, I never said Heritage stole our posters. I
said our part of inventory was missing.
Grey, then you allegedly sent back our inventory. Prior to
this, you had stated our posters were untouched in their original shipping
tubes. But the shipping tubes and boxes you sent back to us were not ones we
used. Further, a rare, hand-lithographed 40"x60" Serpico advanced
screening poster (which Charley personally got from Dino's NY office when he
was dating Rafaella De Laurentis) had been replaced with a cheap Serpico
advance poster that had a taped tear in the same area our original lithograph
had been taped.... Gee, if that doesn't sound like an outright, pathological
theft, I don't know what does.
Now if you want me to believe that this didn't happen -- or
that Charley didn't date Rafaella, or the posters wasn’t a very rare
hand-silkscreened
poster -- that's your MOPO prerogative. But this switch and repackaging was
enough
to get me to take out my checkbook and hire a lawyer.
Our attorney send a letter to Grey. Waited weeks, no answer...
Finally, I queried Grey. He claimed he never received a letter from our
attorney. I paid my attorney to send another copy, and we waited for Grey’s
answer.
Our attorney asked Grey and Heritage to explain their "inventory"
and accounting procedure. Was their much touted inventory on an unsecured
database which lacked the means to securely prove alteration of data, i.e.,
an Excel type of database we all have on our home computers, one which you can
go in and modify information at any time, without a legally viable way of
proving when the data was entered or altered.
Grey did not answer this question, and the answer he gave to
other questions do not jive with emails we have received from Heritage... Emails
which proved that Grey, with his multi-million dollar resources behind him, did
not bother to even go through our documents and emails to verify what he had
written prior.
So here we are in the court of MOPO, where the good ol' boy
system works. Where your personal relationship with Grey colors your judgement.
You like Grey? Fine, then Grey's gotta be a maligned victim of a crazy MOPO
troll...
Is arguing Grey's theft a waste of my precious rapidly-aging
life?
Yes. I have nothing to prove. I am not in a court of MOPO.
If Grey wants to go to court, arguing SLANDER, fine. I’m
game. Let's go to court. Prove that I am slandering you..
Grey, just as I have come to accept the proper terminology
for our missing posters as STOLEN, not missing -- I think you should address me
by my proper name -- MRS CHARLES LIPPINCOTT
-- instead of my email moniker Ms.
Kudaka. Do you do this to sway your MOPO audience into thinking Ms. Kudaka is an
entity disconnected from Charles Lippincott? Do you think this false
distinction would hold up in a court of law? Haven't you heard of community
property?
Regardless of which name you choose to address me -- the
folks over at Lucasfilm will acknowledge I, MRS CHARLES LIPPINCOTT,
handle 98% of the Lippincott business.
After all, Charley is 73.
At 73, would you want to deal with some whippersnapper who
stole posters from your collection?
At 73, would you be interested in using what little life and
health you had left fighting some idiot who ripped you off?
Or would you leave it to your much younger wife, who you
figure is going to inherit your collections anyway?
My final point is you refer to emails and phone conversation
you had with Charley.... How do you know I didn't dial the phone and hand it to
my husband, then listened while you talked because the 2nd floor of our 4700 sf
house is an open floor plan? And do you really believe all the emails were
written by him? Is it possible I, the little wifey, wrote some of them? We do,
after all, have the same internet account -- which I handle along with all our
other personal, professional and
retirement contacts, accounts, banks, brokers, and visits with friends or
family.
This email has taken hours to write, and it’s a waste of my
time. It’s not a waste of your time, Grey, because you make money from people
like me trusting you. But what do I gain out of it? Does it benefit my life
having
MOPOers believe me? No. If we want to use one of the dealers on MOPO, I already
know the ones I would trust – and it wouldn’t be you (ha ha, that’s a joke).—so
what do I have to gain? Nothing. What do I lose? Time… precious time…
In conclusion, Grey, your main defense is your reputation
and the reputation of your company. I won’t bother dealing with reputation,
because in “the business”, we say you’re only as good as your last picture. As
far
as I’m concerned, your reputation is the Nostradamus wreck.
Now please explain
your company's practices.
Please do not say that happened in another division and had nothing to do with
me because Heritage is a major corporation which has corporate policies and
practices. And a body of corporate lawyers...
Please explain what happen with the Mongolian dinosaur
auction? Did Heritage knowingly sell stolen property? Did the Mongolian
government
file a request, then an injunction against the sale? Was there a massive outcry
against the auction by the international scientific community? Did Heritage
auction the Dinosaur despite
global protests and Federal injunction? Was the sale halted, or was it
completed? Did the Feds seizure occur because the allegations made by
protestors and the Mongolian government that teh fossil was illegally stolen
turn out to true?
I saw the spin before, during and after. It was amusing to
see Heritage's massive spin on it's "return" of the stolen goods... I
guess all those profits you reap from auctions pay for a lot of PR... I can
visualize an army of drones working away on
their computers, spinning the story so it white washes the fact Heritage
knowingly auctioned the rare dinosaur fossils despite such a massive outcry
against the auction, and the only way the shipping of the fossils was stopped
was by Feds confiscating it..
End of a 6 hour waste of time.
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