At first glance this might seem a bit mad but fingers crossed I've still got all me marbles.
I recently saw an ebay auction for an 'embossed' (centre title and 007) QoS single sided US 1s (top right below) and decided I'd go for it even tho I'd never seen one before and never heard of a film poster being embossed. The seller was quality and even threw in a single sided gloss varnish US 1s (top left below) for free so I could see the difference! Unfortunately the seller got their 'embossing' confused with 'spot varnishing' and the poster I paid for had the centre title and 007 spot varnished so it was glossy on the matt paper (not embossed!). When I messaged them and said if I'd have known I'd have just bought the double sided version they apologised and sent me the normal double sided version (bottom right below) for free as well!
Sooo, up till then I'd paid (not a lot) for one poster and received three! At this point I was interested why so many of the same poster were printed, seems a complete waste of money to me. I understand teasers (minimal information, sometimes lacking the films title and possibly a tag line like 'Coming Soon' or 'November', not usually rated), advances (titled, sometimes lacking credits and possibly a tag line 'Coming Soon', 'November' or even a specific date, possibly with the rating box) and regular posters (credits, date of release and ratings box) but these all seemed random.
I saw another single sided version with no month or day of release on it (bottom left below) and as I'd never seen that version (and was intrigued) I bought it. So here we have four posters for the same film, all with credits (some rated some not) and the same image (although cropped differently on a couple).
If my rationale for teasers, advances and regular posters are correct this is how the four should work:
i. No month/date ss vers. (bottom left) - teaser/advance - credits and ratings box
ii. 'November' ss vers. (top left) - advance - credits, month, no ratings box but soundtrack box
iii. 'November 14' ss spot varn. vers. (top right) - regular/final - credits, date and ratings box
iv. 'November 14' ds vers. (bottom right) - regular/final - credits, date and ratings box
So I don't understand why what I'd expect to be the earliest printing of the poster (no month or date) has the ratings box, but the version with just 'November' has the soundtrack box rather than the ratings one?
Then you get onto the difference in cropping of the main image... the no month no date ss version (bottom left) seems to have the same crop as the 'November 14' ss rated version (top right)... but the 'November' ss soundtrack box version (top left) has the same crop as the 'November 14' ds rated version (bottom right)!!!!?
Ahhh does that make any sense at all!? Why spend all the money on what is essentially the same poster but crop the main image differently and add/subtract the month/date and credits box in what seems a random way? After all that perhaps this is the order they were printed:
i. 'November' ss vers. (top left) - credits, month, no ratings box but soundtrack box
ii. No month/date ss vers. (bottom left) - credits and ratings box
iii. 'November 14' ss spot varn. vers. (top right) - credits, date and ratings box
iv. 'November 14' ds vers. (bottom right) - credits, date and ratings box
I know there'll be a few more double sided versions of this poster out there, one being with the spot varnish, there's also all the international versions (luckily they've got the main image with brighter blue sky so you can tell the difference). I haven't even studied the international 'blue sky' versions so dread to think how many there are out there.
Anyways, just food for thought really, and it all came about because of the ebay seller I got three posters off for the price of one.
This is my favourite, always good to have a poster without a tagline at the bottom saying when the films being released (imo)...
ps and yes they are all printed perfectly, pin sharp and pristine plus the sizes only vary by a couple of millimetres (although I haven't measured them accurately yet they were the same size as other authentic 1sheets I was photographing at the same time).
pps I haven't even photographed the US subway version of the poster yet Matt! Fingers crossed that's got everything on!