How did we get our hands on non US posters?

[50s]

Anyone have any ideas how non US posters got into collectors hands?

For US posters, I understand the NSS sold off to collectors the returned posters from the theatres after screening.

But what about French, Italian, UK posters, and I'd be interested in Mexican and Argentinian too? Oh, and maybe Australian posters, so Chris doesn't feel left out. How did these get from distributer to collector?

I have heard it said that there isn't a rare French poster, in that case, I guess French posters maybe were given away straight from the theatres, maybe printed off extras and sold by printers?

I am probably most interested in hearing about Italian and French posters as they make up a significant part of my foreign collection.

Any ideas?

[Ari]

I bought German posters about 10 years ago by the KILO, the seller worked as a rubbish collector who drove a truck to pick up miniskips, one day he had a job at Constantin in germany to collect some skips, he noticed they were full of posters, so he took them home and unloaded them all instead of taking to the tip.
nothing too vintage, 70's and 80's. But I am sure many people got some good deals from him. He did his research and seperated some titles, mainly the zombie and cannibal stuff, but he did good deals. There was often sets oif german lobby cards, press books, A1's and some titles A0's.
I still have boxes of the crap, and a few folders of the better lobby card sets and press books (Eaten Alive, Mark of the devil, Last Hunter, Les Demons, etc etc) and some of the better posters, but most of them sold long ago (but a handfull paid for the BOXES of stuff I got from him many times over.

[CSM]

I'd like to hear opinions on this too.

Obviously some have come from "finds" from old homes or old theatres themselves.  In Oz, quite often they are found beneath the floorboards...

In Belgium posters got recycled quite a bit and the government was very strict about paper (and thus poster) management - so many survived.

Probably some finds have been at defunct printing companies.

I would assume the majority of the rest have come from foreign exchanges much the same as in the US and Canada.
 

[eatbrie]

I have heard it said that there isn't a rare French poster, in that case, I guess French posters maybe were given away straight from the theatres, maybe printed off extras and sold by printers?

Shit, maybe I shouldn't spend $1,000s on French posters

Yes, there are plenty of rare French posters.  As many as there are in any other countries.  French posters are not given away from theaters, they are not printed extra and not sold by printers.  Sonis reprinted a few major titles in the 80s, but they are clearly identified from a Sonis logo that doesn't exist on the originals.  You just have to know what you're getting.  Old French posters fetch a LOT of money, especially for classic titles drawn by famous (within the community) artists.  Since there are much fewer theaters in France than there are in the US, French posters were never printed in the 1000s, which is why many titles are impossible to find and sell for so much (much more in fact than US posters.)  Especially during war times.  The same goes with UK and Italian posters.  But unlike US posters, French posters did not have to be returned to the studio after use.  There is no disclaimer.  So in most cases, they were disposed of, given away or stolen.

T

[Charlie]

I bought 20 to 30 Australian OS direct from the theater in Brisbane and then sent them back to the us... If I won the lotto I would just travel the world for a few months a year and send posters back.

[CSM]

I bought 20 to 30 Australian OS direct from the theater in Brisbane and then sent them back to the us... If I won the lotto I would just travel the world for a few months a year and send posters back.

If I'd known you were in Oz I would have had you scouting for daybills!

[holiday]

I've had a few people who live in Japan that source Japanese material for me.

[Charlie]

I've had a few people who live in Japan that source Japanese material for me.

One of my best friends wife works at the Japanese consulate and he met her in Japan,  she's Japanese,  he speaks Japanese and his dad still lives in Japan. When I ask them both to help me find posters in Japan and they were valuable they both went "pieces of paper?"... Then they laughed, shook their heads... I hit them up at least once a quarter and all I get is "we don't want to be enablers..."

I am going to have to try harder I guess...

[110x75]

Down Argentine Way  there was nothing like the NSS. Both local and foreign distributors sent their posters to various printing companies (hence the different paper and printing quality). The posters were then sent to smaller distributors across the country, who sent them -along with film rolls- to theaters. I believe that despite some of this smaller distributor asked the posters to be returned, most were kept by the theater owners. At the early 80s there was a massive closing of theaters (mostly due to home video and cable tv). With the closing of theaters, a lot of distributors closed doors too. Some lucky bastards -that were already aware of the collectable value of posters- purchased complete theater and distributor's warehouses and later sold the posters in bulk to foreign collectors/dealers -or kept them-. I had a conversation with one local collector who sold, in the early 90s, a huge lot of argentinean posters to Benito (from benitomovieposter.com). The lot included several Gildas, Marilyn and other important titles. The price was around $30 each... 
The contents of some of these warehouses was also trashed by the owners sometimes. I was told by a film collector that it was common to see trash containers filled with film rolls and posters.
Too bad I was in primary school at the time...   

[Posteroid]

In Japan, some larger cinemas kept one or more posters for every movie they showed so that when they wanted to screen the films again, they had advertising materials. After being in business for many years, these cinmeas obviously had a large stock and started selling off parts of it to collectors (usually these "collectors" were owners of poster shops). Many cinemas also closed during the last thirty years and some people investigated which older cinema was about to close next, contacted the owners and bought the stock. I know a seller who is also a truck driver. He and his business partner drove all around Japan to buy posters by the truckload from cinemas that went out of business and later sold them with a profit to poster shops (they still have a large storage room full of posters for minor titles they couldn't sell). And just last year, a friend of mine cleared out a cinema in Shizuoka that changed owners. The new owner didn't want to keep the old posters and my friend got quite a lot of 60's and 70's titles for a reasonable price. So there are still some cinemas with good stuff in Japan.

Some owners of poster shops also had connections to film distributors and studios and were able to get access to their stock rooms and take out larger quantities of posters. But that seems to have stopped in the 90's.

Armin

[50s]

All very interesting guys, thanks so much for the information.

[oldposterho]

I have heard it said that there isn't a rare French poster

I don't know why anybody would say that (if they were talking about vintage material).  I would add to T's analysis that it's possible that what they meant was that in France every poster from the very earliest days had to have a copy delivered to the government and that it's my understanding that these copies are still kept.  Sadly it escapes my pea brain at the moment where they are - it's one of the Choko books - a library somewhere methinks.  So for even the rarest titles it's possible that there's at least one copy of the poster extant, which is a lot more than can be said of US material.

[eatbrie]

The Cinémathèque Française holds them all, but even they are not complete.  I don't know how much stuff they're missing, but I know they don't have my Laura poster, for instance, since there are only 2 known copies in existence, mine and one in Japan.

T

[eatbrie]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cin%C3%A9math%C3%A8que_Fran%C3%A7aise

[ozcinemagic]

There are many stories of how posters got out in Australia. Here are just a few I know of.

On one lucky occasion I met the ex warehouse manager for Fox/Columbia from the 1980s. He told me they sold posters directly to the public when people came in. Apparently, they also sent a copy of every poster to the Aust Film Commission, where I worked. I don't know if all these posters were kept or destroyed. They certainly had posters for Mad Max and others on display in the corridors, but I was only a junior at the time, so unaware of procedures. And yes, the ex warehouse manager had a stack of rolled posters for Star Wars and many other desirable titles. He filled the gaps in my collection very nicely! I can tell you very reliably there are rolled Aussie ESB 1 sheets! 

Another guy I bought some Godfather 2 material from told me he got them directly from United Int'l Pictures in Melbourne. They said he could only have one of each item. I got a lobby set from him as well as Italian photobustas in the original envelope. I believe they were given no charge.

16mm release occurred in Aust about 6 - 18 months after cinema showing. The Sydney film hire agency would supply 5 daybills with each reel to promote the screenings in RSL clubs etc. I bought about 3000 off a guy who kept them all after organising the viewing for many years. While the reels were monitored and returned, the posters were considered disposable.

Supposedly, when one of the large theatre chains was taken over they wanted all the old stock posters removed from the main buidling. They were going to be dumped, but word got out, and a well-known Aussie movie buff managed to get a truck round in time. He got the whole lot, which was apparently many thousands, all for free!!

New posters are easy to get in Australia. Certain cinemas will happily sell them as an ongoing deal. But then, who wants that modern junk? 

M.R