Your examples of what happens when someone lists such supposedly high-dollar, high-desirability posters as Forbidden Planet and CFTBL at modest opening bids confirm what I've always suspected, which is that these titles (and others like DTESS and Breakfast at Tiffanys), which appear at every auction, are essentially supported by dealers and would be worth quite a bit less if dealers stopped buying them. I believe there are way too many of these posters available (and have confirmed this anecdotally by asking the dealers I know if they can get me one quick) that if they ever hit the market en masse, their values would plummet. Supply would absolutely exceed demand. Problem is many dealers are hording these titles expecting them to rise further, but I think this is unlikely for the reasons I outlined above. So if anyone wants to dump some cheap before the flood, drop me a line! - Ron
From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Saturday, November 2, 2013 2:25 PM Subject: Re: [MOPO] auction prices This would only be a problem for cars and houses if they regularly started selling for $1, but they don't. And in fact the downward risk is so much less in those markets because there are so many dealers/flippers who will buy these items. If you were to auction your house for a $1 starting bid, there is pretty much 0% chance it will sell for $1 (assuming free and clear title), the only question would be whether or not a real home-buyer would bid to beat the price the flippers/investors will pay. and since those markets work on a much smaller margin than the average poster dealer wants to work on the downside risk is much less. Same thing for movie posters. The seller who lists his Forbidden Planet one-sheet for $1 is taking a 0% chance that it will sell for $1, the only chance they are taking is that an actual collector will be bidding on it as to outbid the price support the dealers put on the poster. If a given poster has a "value" of say $5000 and is actually in demand at that price, then there will always be at least one or two dealers who would pay at least $3000-3500 for that poster and the question is if any collectors will step in above that dealer support price. When I ran regular monthly auctions on ebay I learned this early on, and it is why I wasn't afraid to list things like a Creature From the Black Lagoon 3-sheet for $1 (which was bought by a dealer and didn't reach what I had hoped) or a Forbidden Planet 3-sheet for $1 (which was purchased by a collector and I was much happier with the result). The things that do get damaged are the ones like Bruce pointed out, which are common low value items and didn't have much real value to begin with. On November 2, 2013 at 4:00 AM Sales <[email protected]> wrote: Thanks to those who weighed in on the topic of “do mainstream vintage posters lose market share due to an dying population “, I enjoyed reading the replies. > >On another note, when poster auctions on ebay, emovieposter or Heritage start >at 1.00 , the titles all have value but the question as we have been >discussing is what is it ? If you were to sell or auction on a regular basis a >car , house or boat at the same low comparison % starting point, wouldn’t that >devalue the market that these items reside in ? A strategy like this might >damage their respective industries? Or does it encourage more buyers to >participate and push prices higher and get better prices for vendors? The hope >is there are more buyers participating that week to get it above the 1.00 >mark? If there are not as many buyers that week then because of the lower >starting price the value of the item is not always true one might think ? > >At the end of the day, should the poster industry be heading in the direction >of continuing to fight each other for the lowest starting price or is that >just healthy competition? > >Regards > >Ben >www.allaboutmovies.com.au >Movie Memorabilia - Original Movie Posters and Lobby Cards >Website: www.allaboutmovies.com.au 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.
