Tommy's question pertained specifically to $20-$100 posters
At 03:17 PM 11/1/2013, Evan Zweifel wrote:
I find it hard to believe that the Auction house should have any
responsibility for maintaining the prices of pieces -- they really
can do no more than accept the consignments and try to get the most
for them. Certainly if one auction house were to refuse a
Frankenstein 1 sheet because they just auctioned one last week,
another would step in immediately and do the deed.
I am afraid that the comment about "the over abundance of stuff that
not a lot of people particularly wants" resonates with me. With the
arrival of online sites, its become quite apparent that some pieces
are more desirable than others. I think that the desirable pieces
are maintaining their value and the rest (which is unfortunately a
VAST majority of what's out there) is quickly falling into the realm
of baseball card "commons".
Eventually people will just start auctioning large lots of
miscellaneous posters, as if they were just interchangeable pieces
of paper. Wait... that seems to already be happening as well.
Buy what you like; prefer great images from great films. Everything
else is just paper.
Evan
----- Original Message -----
From: Richard C Evans <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Fri, 01 Nov 2013 21:46:12 -0000 (UTC)
Subject: Re: [MOPO] Auction prices
Yep, the very obvious part of this, which is old and dull, is that
supply now outstrips demand.
The fact that the movie poster "Wal Mart" has a large section of the
market seems largely irrelevant to me.
Still an overabundance of stuff that not a lot of people
particularly want, regardless of who's selling it.
Unless the argument is that if other dealers, or online auctions had
those 3,000 odd pieces they'd handle it differently, and be careful
to bring less to market.
But if it's a matter of selling half a dozen less of something a
year before the market is flooded, I'd have thought there's too big a problem.
And if you were being careful to limit the availability of all the
$20-100 material, all you'd have is a trickle of stuff you're not
making enough money on anyway.
What would be interesting to know is what trend there is with
material within that range that's there's a loss of demand for.
On 1 Nov 2013, at 19:03, Richard Halegua Posters + Comic Art wrote:
> At 04:29 AM 11/1/2013, Tommy Barr wrote:
>> I have noticed a trend in prices realised at online auctions
recently, and that is quite a substantial number of posters in the
usual $20 - $100 range selling at prices way below the average of
the last couple of years. Is this a sign of a falling market or a
temporary aberration?
>>
>> Tommy Barr
>
>
> Tommy, the situation is very obvious. You have fleaBay with every
dealer in the world offering the same posters over & over again all
at the same time. Some of these dealers are smarter than others and
see a diminishing value on material that does not sell, and they
lower their prices again and again and again and again in an
attempt to sell them. But it is a two-edged sword because buyers
see this and as the listed prices go down down down, the collectors
look at this and say to themselves "this poster was listed at $200
and I was thinking of buying it. Then it was relisted at $125 and I
was still thinking. Then it was relisted again at $75 and I was
still thinking, but I was wondering what was happening. Then it was
relisted at $25 and though I knew it had to be a great price, I
asled myself "why would I want a poster that it seems nobody wants
and probably has no investment value? I guess I'm not interested anymore"
>
> that is one factor.
>
> Another factor is that one seller is selling approximately 3000
items per week, where 60% of his sales the week of October 27-31
went for $14.00 or less (that's about 1800 posters of 2844 listed)
and less than 10% sold at $100 or more. These numbers are fairly
consistent from week to week. Even worse, sometimes the same poster
is listed (not the same copy) so often in a compressed period of
time (for instance, Fire Trap from 1935. sold 8 times from 4/5/2012
to 2/17/2013) and rides the price down from $100.00 on 4/5/12 to
$24.00 on 2/17/13. This shows collectors how there aren't enough
buyers at a certain price level to support the Wal Marting of
sub-$100 posters, if there would be any support for even valuable
posters sold in such a compressed period of time.
>
> seriously, if a Forbidden Planet or DTESS one sheet came to
market starting at $1.00 12 times a year and selling with no
reserve, even those titles would see price deterioration, although
it wouldn't be as serious as a sub-$200 poster.
>
> Facts are that the movie poster hobby is small and the known
population of serious collectors (with serious being a word of
subjective meaning) may be 10,000 people, or if you mean "truly
serious collector" it could be just a couple thousand or even less.
> How many people out of 10,000 would have any interest in a Fire
Trap poster, no matter how cool it is? (there aren't even 10
apparently, as the Fire Trap posters came from a small deal I found
with a friend and we split them, with he sending his to be sold on
consignment to the other auction. I've sold 3 copies and between
both sales records (mine and his) I can tell you there were not 10
buyers as one person bought multiple copies from both myself and
the other guy. Some posters will have greater interest and some
will have lesser interest, but the ready supply outstrips the
number of people wanting them, so the prices go down-down-down to
reflect this simple fact
>
> There are other factors of course - for instance, older films
have a deteriorating interest as the people who know them are dying
off or as they age, need less and less or just stop buying in
anticipation of selling in their Autumn days. So you'll have
lessening interest and greater supply.
>
> Would prices go up on a large selection of material if so many
posters were not offered so frequently? Well of course they would
because the perception of availability or lack of availability
would increase the ability of people to sell them for a better price.
>
> A $20,000 poster may sell for $25,000 at auction on a certain
day, and that is $5000 and people say "wow, the buyer paid $5000
extra for that poster. That's alot of money!" but it is only a 25%
increase over it's perceived value
>
> But when a $20.00 poster sells for $40.00, it's only $20.00 so it
doesn't bear the same remark, even though it's a 100% increase.
>
> some of these are complicated issues, others are very obvious
>
> one more note: can you imagine how a collector feels when someone
keeps offering the same poster over-and-over too frequently and it
drives down his "investment" from $100.00 to $24.00? How would
anyone feel? When people see a decrease of a few percentage points
in their stock portfolio it is often like getting hit by a
bulldozer. What about when you lose 76% at the same venue that you
spent your money to begin with?? How low would the 11th copy have
gone for if the other seller had more? (there were only 20 copies
of Fire Trap. My remaining 7 copies are essentially warehoused,
while the other 1/2 are gone)
>
> some of it is poor stewardship by sellers. We ARE gatekeepers of
a sort, guarding the investment of our consignors, our buyers and
ourselves. Some people don't care however, so you have declining
values.. and there is your answer Tommy
>
> Rich
>
> Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com
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to: [email protected]
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At 04:02 PM 11/1/2013, [email protected] wrote:
I pretty much agree with you Evan.
Let the free market decide the price on everything.
There is no intrinsic value in movie posters, and while it might
help both the auction house and consignor not to sell two copies of
a Frankenstein one-sheet the same week, doing so doesn't really
change the number of willing and able buyers of the poster at any
certain price point.
It's very difficult to get back-to-back record prices for even the
highest demand posters. Once a high benchmark has been set and you
remove the #1 buyer from the equation, the price of the next copy
will be determined by what the #3 bidder is willing to spend, as the
prior #2 bidder only has to worry about that person the next time out.
If there are only 20 copies known of "Fire Hydrant" (or whatever the
poster Rich mentioned) and only 12 people in the world want them, it
kind of doesn't matter how long you wait to auction them off - the
price will keep drifting downward as the few who have-to-have-it-now
grab theirs first and the rest wait for a better opportunity to acquire.
They take the chance by buying with less perfect information ("this
is the first copy of Fire Hydrant to ever become available - it may
be the only one known, I better grab it") and set the price. If
years go by and no more copies of fire Hydrant surface then they may
be able to sell for a profit, but as information becomes available
that there are a lot more copies of Fire Hydrant than there are
buyers, the price naturally drifts downwards.
A majority of movies made each and every year will never be
worthwhile, not only as film, but as collectible posters. It's
pretty common to see NSS numbers in the 500s and 600s for most every
year of the 50s, 60s, and even 70s - how many of those 500 or
600 titles from 1963 do people really care about? 20? 30 at the most?
While a dealer's website may put a price of $20 or $30 (or more) for
any random title from 1963 just because they have it in stock the
day you are looking for it, the patient collector can wait until
Bruce has one in his auctions and pick it up for $1-$5 which is
probably a much more realistic value based on (non-existent) demand.
If you want to find out what any particular poster is worth, ask
what a dealer would pay in CASH (not consignment) for one.
That will give you an idea if there is any real demand at all, and
give you an idea of what the immediate downside risk of your
"investment" might be.
On November 1, 2013 at 6:17 PM Evan Zweifel
<[email protected]> wrote: > I find it hard to believe that
the Auction house should have any responsibility for maintaining the
prices of pieces -- they really can do no more than accept the
consignments and try to get the most for them. Certainly if one
auction house were to refuse a Frankenstein 1 sheet because they
just auctioned one last week, another would step in immediately and
do the deed. > > I am afraid that the comment about "the over
abundance of stuff that not a lot of people particularly wants"
resonates with me. With the arrival of online sites, its become
quite apparent that some pieces are more desirable than others. I
think that the desirable pieces are maintaining their value and the
rest (which is unfortunately a VAST majority of what's out there) is
quickly falling into the realm of baseball card "commons". > >
Eventually people will just start auctioning large lots of
miscellaneous posters, as if they were just interchangeable pieces
of paper. Wait... that seems to already be happening as well. > >
Buy what you like; prefer great images from great films. Everything
else is just paper. > > Evan > > > ----- Original Message ----- >
From: Richard C Evans <[email protected]> > To:
[email protected] > Sent: Fri, 01 Nov 2013 21:46:12 -0000
(UTC) > Subject: Re: [MOPO] Auction prices > > Yep, the very obvious
part of this, which is old and dull, is that supply now outstrips
demand. > > The fact that the movie poster "Wal Mart" has a large
section of the market seems largely irrelevant to me. > > Still an
overabundance of stuff that not a lot of people particularly want,
regardless of who's selling it. > > Unless the argument is that if
other dealers, or online auctions had those 3,000 odd pieces they'd
handle it differently, and be careful to bring less to market. > >
But if it's a matter of selling half a dozen less of something a
year before the market is flooded, I'd have thought there's too big
a problem. > And if you were being careful to limit the availability
of all the $20-100 material, all you'd have is a trickle of stuff
you're not making enough money on anyway. > > What would be
interesting to know is what trend there is with material within that
range that's there's a loss of demand for. > > > On 1 Nov 2013, at
19:03, Richard Halegua Posters + Comic Art wrote: > > > At 04:29 AM
11/1/2013, Tommy Barr wrote: > >> I have noticed a trend in prices
realised at online auctions recently, and that is quite a
substantial number of posters in the usual $20 - $100 range selling
at prices way below the average of the last couple of years. Is this
a sign of a falling market or a temporary aberration? > >> > >>
Tommy Barr > > > > > > Tommy, the situation is very obvious. You
have fleaBay with every dealer in the world offering the same
posters over & over again all at the same time. Some of these
dealers are smarter than others and see a diminishing value on
material that does not sell, and they lower their prices again and
again and again and again in an attempt to sell them. But it is a
two-edged sword because buyers see this and as the listed prices go
down down down, the collectors look at this and say to themselves
"this poster was listed at $200 and I was thinking of buying it.
Then it was relisted at $125 and I was still thinking. Then it was
relisted again at $75 and I was still thinking, but I was wondering
what was happening. Then it was relisted at $25 and though I knew it
had to be a great price, I asled myself "why would I want a poster
that it seems nobody wants and probably has no investment value? I
guess I'm not interested anymore" > > > > that is one
factor. > > > > Another factor is that one seller is selling
approximately 3000 items per week, where 60% of his sales the week
of October 27-31 went for $14.00 or less (that's about 1800 posters
of 2844 listed) and less than 10% sold at $100 or more. These
numbers are fairly consistent from week to week. Even worse,
sometimes the same poster is listed (not the same copy) so often in
a compressed period of time (for instance, Fire Trap from 1935. sold
8 times from 4/5/2012 to 2/17/2013) and rides the price down from
$100.00 on 4/5/12 to $24.00 on 2/17/13. This shows collectors how
there aren't enough buyers at a certain price level to support the
Wal Marting of sub-$100 posters, if there would be any support for
even valuable posters sold in such a compressed period of
time. > > > > seriously, if a Forbidden Planet or DTESS one sheet
came to market starting at $1.00 12 times a year and selling with no
reserve, even those titles would see price deterioration, although
it wouldn't be as serious as a sub-$200 poster. > > > > Facts are
that the movie poster hobby is small and the known population of
serious collectors (with serious being a word of subjective meaning)
may be 10,000 people, or if you mean "truly serious collector" it
could be just a couple thousand or even less. > > How many people
out of 10,000 would have any interest in a Fire Trap poster, no
matter how cool it is? (there aren't even 10 apparently, as the Fire
Trap posters came from a small deal I found with a friend and we
split them, with he sending his to be sold on consignment to the
other auction. I've sold 3 copies and between both sales records
(mine and his) I can tell you there were not 10 buyers as one person
bought multiple copies from both myself and the other guy. Some
posters will have greater interest and some will have lesser
interest, but the ready supply outstrips the number of people
wanting them, so the prices go down-down-down to reflect this simple
fact > > > > There are other factors of course - for instance, older
films have a deteriorating interest as the people who know them are
dying off or as they age, need less and less or just stop buying in
anticipation of selling in their Autumn days. So you'll have
lessening interest and greater supply. > > > > Would prices go up on
a large selection of material if so many posters were not offered so
frequently? Well of course they would because the perception of
availability or lack of availability would increase the ability of
people to sell them for a better price. > > > > A $20,000 poster may
sell for $25,000 at auction on a certain day, and that is $5000 and
people say "wow, the buyer paid $5000 extra for that poster. That's
alot of money!" but it is only a 25% increase over it's perceived
value > > > > But when a $20.00 poster sells for $40.00, it's only
$20.00 so it doesn't bear the same remark, even though it's a 100%
increase. > > > > some of these are complicated issues, others are
very obvious > > > > one more note: can you imagine how a collector
feels when someone keeps offering the same poster over-and-over too
frequently and it drives down his "investment" from $100.00 to
$24.00? How would anyone feel? When people see a decrease of a few
percentage points in their stock portfolio it is often like getting
hit by a bulldozer. What about when you lose 76% at the same venue
that you spent your money to begin with?? How low would the 11th
copy have gone for if the other seller had more? (there were only 20
copies of Fire Trap. My remaining 7 copies are essentially
warehoused, while the other 1/2 are gone) > > > > some of it is poor
stewardship by sellers. We ARE gatekeepers of a sort, guarding the
investment of our consignors, our buyers and ourselves. Some people
don't care however, so you have declining values.. and there is your
answer Tommy > > > > Rich > > > > Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web
Site at www.filmfan.com > >
___________________________________________________________________ >
> How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List > > Send a message
addressed to: [email protected] > > In the BODY of your
message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L > > The author of this message is
solely responsible for its content. > > Visit the MoPo Mailing List
Web Site at www.filmfan.com >
___________________________________________________________________ >
How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List > > Send a message
addressed to: [email protected] > In the BODY of your
message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L > > The author of this message is
solely responsible for its content. > > Visit the MoPo Mailing List
Web Site at www.filmfan.com >
___________________________________________________________________ >
How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List > > Send a message
addressed to: [email protected] > In the BODY of your
message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L > > The author of this message is
solely responsible for its content.
Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com
___________________________________________________________________
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Send a message addressed to: [email protected]
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The author of this message is solely responsible for its content.
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___________________________________________________________________
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