So True... ?

[Silhouette]

I rented The Krays when it first came out on VHS.    

Wow, congrats Z - best example of a tangent in action. 

[wonka]

Bruce, you started those weekly auctions of modern stuff about 6 months ago, am I right?  I mean, you use to have them, but not every week.  And I already see falling prices on many items.  It won't surprise me to see Pulp Fiction, Dark Knight advance, Back to the Future, and 100s of others sell for $70 within the next year.  Take a title like The Goonies...  This year alone, it went from $303, to $171, to $158, to $80, to $76 yesterday.  In 6 months!!!

By auctioning the same titles over and over and over again, the market will soon be saturated.  It will be interesting to see when/if sellers stop sending you modern stuff when they realize that the market has been killed.

T

Agree, but didn't you say last week or so how if you had modern posters to sell you would definitely be sending them to Bruce because of the crazy amounts he get for them?

I sure would.

I agree that it seems like a weekly dose of Pulp Fiction, Dark Knight, etc etc...but they keep selling for high amounts. Bruce gets a high sale, the buyer gets a bonafide original with great packaging and no stress. Seems like a win-win.

Also, keep in mind that I bet a lot of people who buy modern posters aren't even really collectors...they just like The Dark Knight. I bet a bunch of these buyers have a bigger collection of Hot Topic tshirts than movie posters.

[Zorba]

Wow, congrats Z - best example of a tangent in action. 

What can I say?, I love Formula One!

[eatbrie]

Agree, but didn't you say last week or so how if you had modern posters to sell you would definitely be sending them to Bruce because of the crazy amounts he get for them?

I would, but it doesn't mean it's good for the hobby.

T

[Bruce]

Agree, but didn't you say last week or so how if you had modern posters to sell you would definitely be sending them to Bruce because of the crazy amounts he get for them?

I sure would.

 

Amen! When people want to talk about people paying too much, they use US for an example ALL the time, citing specific posters. And when they want to talk about people not paying "enough" they use us as well!

Look at this set of recently closed Tuesday auctions:

http://www.emovieposter.com/agallery/date/2013-10-29/sort/4/archive.html

Sorted high to low, the prices look pretty insanely high, with 20 items over $500, some of which don't look like anywhere close to $500+ posters and that includes a lot of three-sheets and Italian posters.

But now look at the very SAME set of auctions sorted low to high:

http://www.emovieposter.com/agallery/date/2013-10-29/sort/3/archive.html

Now the prices look insanely LOW!

There are 41 items that sold for $1, and ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE that sold for $4 or under and that includes a lot of three-sheets and Italian posters!

So off of this one set of auctions, one could both argue that the prices of a lot of three-sheets and Italian posters are going through the roof, and someone else could argue that the prices of a lot of three-sheets and Italian posters are tanking because they are being auctioned "too often"!

The bottom line is, if there are not enough collectors in the entire world to justify the auctioning of a Pulp Fiction every too weeks, then the hobby is incredibly tiny right now, and posters like those should be bought when they sell for low amounts. But of course, posters like that tend to do just fine over and over, defying the naysayers. It is mostly posters that are not very good from movies that are not very good that do terribly when they are auctioned over and over!

[erik1925]

 

[Mirosae]

What can I say?, I love Formula One!

That makes two of us

[Bruce]

Much of what this article says about comic books applies to movie posters:

Especially this: “There are two markets for comic books,” Salkowitz says. “There’s the market for gold-plated issues with megawatt cultural significance, which sell for hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions of dollars. But that’s a very, very, very limited market. If a Saudi sheik decides he needs Action Comics No. 1, there are only a few people out there who have a copy.” And then there’s the other market, where most comics change hands for pennies and nobody is getting rich or even breaking even. “The entire back-issues market is essentially a Ponzi scheme,” Salkowitz says. “It’s been managed and run that way for 35 years.”

But it is not NEARLY as bad in movie posters as in comics, because there are FAR fewer "Investor types" in this hobby.
Buy what you like, collect because you enjoy the posters, and the day you sell out, you may break even or you may win or lose depending on a lot of factors, but if that is a major part of why you are in this hobby, get out now!

As all of you know, I have sold more collections for old-time collectors than anyone else, and quite a few of them made a lot of money on their collections, and I would say it was mostly those who were NOT thinking of it as investing (because investors tend to buy the "hottest" items, which are usually the ones to fall the most when they cool off).

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-30/those-comics-in-your-basement-probably-worthless

[crowzilla]

Bruce, I have a question for you.
When you are consigned large groups of moderns, I know that it must be a losing money proposition for you (even at the scaled commission percentage) if so many of them sell for $5 or less. 
How do you decide which ones you will bulk offer and which ones make the cut to sell for those $2, $3 or so?
I just can't imagine spending the time to sort through them all

[Bruce]

Actually either I or a trusted employee (one of the ones who have been here ten years plus, and we have several of those) DO sort through every single rolled poster, splitting them into single sale or bulk. That is yet more cost in auctioning cheap items, and one more reason I charge 75% for $1 to $7 single items and 60% for $8 to $11 single items, and why I have said over and over that we lose money on such items (and would even if we took a roughly 95% commission, like some auctions do).

[Bruce]

And incidentally, as I have said repeatedly, but which seems to get lost in this thread, better quality items ARE doing really well, as long as the prices were not driven up artificially by one wacky sale.

THIS GUN FOR HIRE seems to now be a solid $10,000 to $15,000 poster (depending on condition). That is much better than what it was 10 years ago or 20 years ago. But it is much worse than the nearly $50,000 one wacky buyer apparently paid one time.

The market is also promising for new collectors on anything under that top tier. Most posters (especially horror/sci-fi) are under where they were five to ten years ago, and I will be amazed if that lasts much longer (of course, I am not talking about posters that were dipped in paint or Haggardized). Getting unrestored nice condition posters for 2005 prices or under seems like an outright steal to me (again, as long as we are not talking about one time abberations).

[Dread_Pirate_Mel]

Actually either I or a trusted employee (one of the ones who have been here ten years plus, and we have several of those) DO sort through every single rolled poster, splitting them into single sale or bulk. That is yet more cost in auctioning cheap items, and one more reason I charge 75% for $1 to $7 single items and 60% for $8 to $11 single items, and why I have said over and over that we lose money on such items (and would even if we took a roughly 95% commission, like some auctions do).

Hey Bruce, I've been meaning to ask, are any of your employees collectors or it is "just a job" for most of them.  In other words, do they have any real interest in posters or would they be just as happy (or unhappy, as may be) at another job?

[Bruce]

The only one who collected was Phil Wages, but he sold his entire collection for a down payment on his house, and I am sure that was a wise move, as he loves where he lives more than he loved the posters.

I would say that there are quite a few of those who have been here a long time who have gained a considerable knowledge of posters, but I think they are satisfied with just looking at digital images, as they have neither the collecting gene or the finances to do more.

There are a few people here who have massive knowledge about the specific areas of posters that they work with, more than any of you or I possess! One person, knows 99% of what is known about poster artists (and more specifically the Italian and French ones), including their full names, and he can recognize their signatures when no one else can!