I am a new subscriber to the MoPo ListServ and am enjoying learning more about
this community and movie memorabilia in general. By this, my first posting, I
wanted to share an experience I think other MoPo subscribers will find
interesting.
This past summer I found a treasure trove of silent movie posters under the
floorboards in our 90-year old house. Having had another floor replaced about a
decade earlier, I anticipated I would find more posters under these floors.
Therefore, I was as careful as one can be in ripping-up a old, damaged fir
floor with powertools, crowbars, etc. I was not disappointed. (I have since
replaced the old fir flooring with new oak engineered laminate flooring.)
Under the floors in the two rooms that I was renovating, I found about ten
intact posters and several “pieces” of posters. These posters were used to
promote silent movies that came out between 1919 and 1923. The posters had been
placed between the subfloor and the fir floor when our house was built in 1924
to dampen the squeaking sound that would otherwise occur without some interface
between the two layers of wood. (The original fir floor came in strips about 3
inches wide and anywhere from four to 12 feet in length, and each strip was
nailed down to the rougher subfloor about every 16 inches.)
I was interviewed about my discovery by local journalists from both TV and
radio of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp (CBC). I used one radio interview to
create a soundtrack for a video/slideshow of the silent movie posters that I
“uncovered” and have posted this video at following YouTube link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2jzuJe9XF0
(If this does not show as an “activate” link, go to YouTube and search using
the subject line for this posting.)
I had originally thought that it might be common for old houses like ours to
have silent movie posters used as a floor interface sound dampening material.
However, I have since learnt that it was a fairly rare event; other materials
were used more often, mostly newspapers or even horsehair. I am wondering if
others MoPo subscribers have found movie posters (from silent movies or not)
under their floors? Or have heard of a similar occurrence, be it in Canada, the
United States or elsewhere in the world?
I trust you will enjoy this YouTube video, and I look forward to hearing from
other subscribers about this find.
Yours truly,
George Bryce
Vancouver, BC Canada
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