All Poster Forum
Movie Posters => General Discussion => Topic started by: eatbrie on April 17, 2010, 03:39:15 PM
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This was in desperate need of a separate thread.
I stopped by Ron's store yesterday and chatted a while. As I was standing there, he pulled out an original 1933 King Kong pressbook, which I HAD to photograph to show you guys. Check out the gorgeous color pages, and THE PRICE of the posters. THE PRICE!!!
PS: Carson, you won, I'm going next week. He said I should put a few hours aside to see it all.
T
(http://www.eatbrie.com/large_posters_files/Photos/Ronborst1.jpg)(http://www.eatbrie.com/large_posters_files/Photos/Ronborst2.jpg)(http://www.eatbrie.com/large_posters_files/Photos/Ronborst3.jpg)
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Wow! Thanks for sharing Thierry...
I believe he has almost the entire pressbook reproduced in Graven Images...
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BTW, if anyone's interested, this pressbook is for sale at $15,000.
T
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I have one of those, with condition issues. It is one of the absolute best pressbooks ever made!
Bruce
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That pressbook is in amazing condition considering it was printed 77 years ago!
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A Kong pressbook for only 15K?
Me and the boys are on it.
(http://i629.photobucket.com/albums/uu12/brude2000/GIFS/monkeymoped.gif)
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I have one of those, with condition issues. It is one of the absolute best pressbooks ever made!
Bruce
Hey Bruce,
I don't remember ever talking about your collection (which is why I changed the title of this thread). We all know you as a great dealer, but your post made me realize we don't know much about your personal collection, and I, for one, would love to know.
We must all sound so amateurish...
Do tell.
T
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I think my interest started because I was a comic book collector and dealer from 1966 to 1976, but when I first saw a pressbook, I was super-impressed, and was amazed that they almost always cost less than anything else on a movie, and less than a single good scene card. When I saw some older pressbooks, especially the MGMs, where the covers are exactly the same as the window cards, in full color, I was hooked.
This was in the mid-1980s. I started buying every large group of pressbooks that were out there, and I bought many thousands, and lots of them were just a couple of dollars each, and sometimes less, and the better older ones were mostly $25 to $100. When eBay came along, a lot of former theater owners and their families started putting lots of pressbooks online, and I bought thousands more.
Around five years ago I made a big effort to start organizing them. I had at least 25,000. I first sorted out all the ones from the 1960s and 1970s (they pretty much quit making them at the end of the 1970s, when presskits took over). I compared what I had from 1960 on to my database and found I had all but the most obscure titles.
I did some sorting on the 1950s and earlier, but then got sidetracked when my auctions really took off. A wild estimate would be that I have maybe 50% of all the titles from the 1950s, and maybe 25% each from the 1940s and 1930s, and maybe 10% from before 1930.
I used to check eBay every day for pressbooks, but I started finding so little that I quit a couple of years ago.
I have some great ones (like King Kong, Bride and Son of Frankenstein, GWTW, Casablanca, Wizard of Oz) but am missing a lot of the very best ones, because they are SO expensive and/or rare.
I still occasionally buy some large groups of them, and I long for the day I can get them fully organized. Imagine a website where every page of every one I have was available for reference?
Bruce
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So Bruce is does the major part of your poster-related collection consist of pressbooks?
Do you have any "special" posters in your collection?
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collecting is a disease comparable to being a habitual gambler, a crack smoker, a shopaholic, alchoholic and whatever else
as soon as you sell one collection you almost always start another, even if it's an entirely different hobby
I used to have one o fthe best comic art collections in the world. I dispersed most of that collection and now I'm trying to create a great collection of movie posters. It doesn't matter how much stuff you get or how good it is, it's never good enough. I need more, more, MORE!
I suspect it will only end when I am utterly, completely and irrevocably dead.
I wonder if Jeannie will visit me then?????
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I mostly only collect pressbooks, as far as movie paper goes. I have around 1,000 travel and war posters, a collection of 300 reverse painted glass frames, hundreds of items from the 1939 New York World's Fair, and more (as Rich says, collecting is a disease!). I have over 100 of the 22" x 28" "personality posters from the 1910s to 1940s, made by all the top studios. One of my customers once sold me his massive collection of sexploitation posters from the 1960s and 1970s, and it all just sits in boxes.
Other than the above, I only have a few dozen other movie posters, mostly really great ones that I managed to hang onto over the years. Sometimes I will sell one of them, and I never look back with regret at what I have sold, because I am always looking forward to that next acquisition!
Some really inexpensive posters interest me just as much as really expensive ones. There were several special single sexy girl posters made for "Pretty Maids All in a Row" and I have three of them, and would like to find more (if there are any; I have the pressbook, and they are not pictured).
I feel blessed to have have all that I have had pass through my hands over the years. The important thing to remember is that none of us are taking anything with us, so we are just temporary curators of our collections, and what we really get from them is all the joy they give to us, and if you aren't having fun collecting, then you are clearly doing something wrong!
Bruce
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I'm not sure if this falls within "great collections" but who the $%# is "Ralph DeLuca"? He claims he spends $1 million a year collecting posters. Is this for real? Is he some kind of dealer?
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Thierry,
If Mr.Borst is not already on APF, why isn't he? It would be great to see him posting his stuff here for all to see. Talk him into it, T.
He has great stories to tell, great images to share.
He probably knows more about the Ackerman Collection than anyone.
And he probably has pics from that too.
That pressbook is amazing. Just think, 9 cents for a Kong 1 sheet..
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Is it bad that I cringe every time I see these photos because Mr. Borst is handling the Kong press book with his bare acid-filled hands?
Of course this is assuming that Mr. Borst's hands act like the rest of ours...
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Is it bad that I cringe every time I see these photos because Mr. Borst is handling the Kong press book with his bare acid-filled hands?
Of course this is assuming that Mr. Borst's hands act like the rest of ours...
well it's better than me pissing on a stack of posters stored next to the toilet bowl with my Frankenstein & Dracula one sheets waiting to be framed next to the shower
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we had a client, who came in with a 50K banknote inside an evelope, he wanted to sell it, grabbed a pair of scissors off the countor, and snipped the edge of the envelope, and managed to take the edge of the banknote with it,you think poster collectors are fussy? there went half the value in one small snip.
Poor fella pretended not to care and ran out red faced, never seen him again
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Of course the greatest of all such blunders was when Steve Wynn, who had just sold a painting for $145 MILLION, and was showing it off at a press conference, put his elbow through the painting (but it is more understandable, since he is nearly blind from retinitis pigmentosa).
Bruce
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That is crazy, Bruce...I wonder if a video exists of this blunder...wow, how terrible.
Thierry, to what extent do you feel or know Ron is comfortable with your photography chronicles in any subsequent visits?
Just being selfish, I would love to see more pics...
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wonka.. keep in minds, the size of the hole in the $139million Picasso was only the size of a quarter.. It did however queer the deal and instead of $139million, Steve Wynn had a million dollar restoration bill & still owns the painting
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This was in desperate need of a separate thread.
I stopped by Ron's store yesterday and chatted a while. As I was standing there, he pulled out an original 1933 King Kong pressbook, which I HAD to photograph to show you guys. Check out the gorgeous color pages, and THE PRICE of the posters. THE PRICE!!!
PS: Carson, you won, I'm going next week. He said I should put a few hours aside to see it all.
T
(http://www.eatbrie.com/large_posters_files/Photos/Ronborst1.jpg)(http://www.eatbrie.com/large_posters_files/Photos/Ronborst2.jpg)(http://www.eatbrie.com/large_posters_files/Photos/Ronborst3.jpg)
Now this is a cool pic. I hadnt clicked on this thread before. What a Great looking KONG pressbook, for sure!! And to see it laid out on Ron Borst's desk like that, too. cool1
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I really want to see the White Zombie 6 sheet in person...or at least see it on a wall
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I need to pay Ron a visit. He and Margaret asked me countless times to make a trip to their house in Sherman Oaks and I never did. I need to make the effort.
T
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You will be posting some kick ass photos the day after.
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I need to pay Ron a visit. He and Margaret asked me countless times to make a trip to their house in Sherman Oaks and I never did. I need to make the effort.
T
You get an invitation like that and do not take the man up on the offer? Did you get an expired shipment of cheese!?
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I've been wanting to get to Ron's store, too, over in Hollywood. I just haven't gotten there, yet. Even just to say hello, and take a look-see.
Margaret seems very gracious and has always replied and answered any messages I have sent to her.
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I've been wanting to get to Ron's store, too, over in Hollywood. I just haven't gotten there, yet. Even just to say hello, and take a look-see.
Margaret seems very gracious and has always replied and answered any messages I have sent to her.
There is actually not much to see at the store. Plus, he doesn't open every day so check before you go. Ron is super nice, and if you love posters, he'll love you.
T
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Ron and Margaret are great folks. I've known them for years and when I'm in LA, I get to live on their couch. Words cannot express what their house is like. To wake up in the early am hours and have all the early Unis emerge from the darkness is a sight to behold. By all means, never, ever turn down an invite.
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Ron and Margaret are great folks. I've known them for years and when I'm in LA, I get to live on their couch. Words cannot express what their house is like. To wake up in the early am hours and have all the early Unis emerge from the darkness is a sight to behold. By all means, never, ever turn down an invite.
No doubt Lynn.
The first time I went there I am not sure how many times I had to be picked up off the floor, simply amazing.
Can't imagine having an invitation to go and not accepting, it's just incredible to see such beautiful pieces all together at once.
You can sit in the living room and stare all day.
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No doubt Lynn.
The first time I went there I am not sure how many times I had to be picked up off the floor, simply amazing.
Can't imagine having an invitation to go and not accepting, it's just incredible to see such beautiful pieces all together at once.
You can sit in the living room and stare all day.
I did not - not accept it. Other things happened and I forgot about it. Believe it or not, but there are other things in life than posters.
Or are there?
T
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I did not - not accept it. Other things happened and I forgot about it. Believe it or not, but there are other things in life than posters.
Of course there are - in fact I think you and I are in agreement about two of those things.
Accepting doesn't mean going that day, but it is certainly something that if you make time for it in your schedule you won't regret it.
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I did not - not accept it. Other things happened and I forgot about it. Believe it or not, but there are other things in life than posters.
T
Sounds like you smoked too much that day
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Sounds like you smoked too much that day
That day?
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Pass to the left please.
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Puff....
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Be still my beating heart...
bed1 bed1 bed1
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Ha, I remember these pictures. I never made it to his house, though. He invited me a bunch of times, I talked to Margaret a bunch of times, but I never found the time or energy to make it to the Valley. Oh well...
T