" I am just having a hard time justifying several thousand on a poster where you do not know whether it had major or minor surgery."
Great point! I am currently auctioning several posters where the buyers who bought them elsewhere were MASSIVELY deceived as to the extent of the restoration.
"Not sure but I believe restoration can easily be detected with ultraviolet light."
This is NOT true, Mel. The "bad guys" are incredibly sophisticated. Remember that millions of dollars of fakes were easily sold a short time ago and fooled almost all the top "experts", dealers, auctioneers and collectors. And the person who created them is still in business and still used extensively by a certain element.
"all the descriptions of linen-backed posters precisely describe the restoration."
"Precisely" is far too strong a word. Get some of these posters, look at them super closely and then see if you still feel that the defects and their restoration were precisely described. I think you will find that a LOT of posters have had entire areas (the whole title, or the whole background, etc) painted over "to even it out", and this will rarely be described in the condition description.
"if they are not sprayed with a varnish/fixative to eliminate contrast"
This IS done a lot, and it makes it ten times harder to see what has been done. I have sometimes returned posters to consignors because they have been SO "worked over" that I really have trouble saying exactly what was done to it, and I don't want to auction any poster I feel that way about!
"I wonder if museums touch up posters? It's like polluting the natural state of the object"
When I did the Christie's auctions, the often unsophisticated buyers there wanted the posters to look great (sometimes they would say "I would buy that expensive poster but it has some tears in the borders" and then they would buy some super worked over backed piece that "looked" great!). Whenever it made financial sense I used an incredible museum restorer who did fine art paintings. They would ONLY replace missing areas ("voids") and would not paint over existing areas unless it was something like a stain that could not come out, and then they would ONLY paint over the stain. They considered techniques like painting over the borders, or the title letters to be butchering the restoration.
"I take my linen backed posters outside in the natural light, if I can't see any restoration on the face of the poster I flip it over and hold it in a direct line with the sun. You'll make out any work done. Even if they have used a brush or an air brush. You can see the difference."
This is true for many posters, but not all, as I point out above. But it is certainly a great starting point.
Good discussion!
