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
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