I would like to find out more about the Alhambra theatre find as well as where Leonard Schrader found his Keaton lobby card sets...also there is this classic rerun from another thread
http://www.mcwonline.com/pdf/705drv.pdfTHE NEW ZEALAND COLLECTION
"During the early part of 1999, a collection of Universal Pictures half sheets were discovered under the floor of a
house being renovated in Wellington, New Zealand. The posters were in an amazing state of preservation, with the
majority of them in very fine to mint condition. The family that found them realized they had something unique and
tried to sell them through a local antique publication for $25.00 each. They had one call regarding the posters and the man who called offered
to buy every poster the family had. The family became suspicious that they might have something far more valuable
than they realized, so they declined the man’s offer and went about finding a way to discover the true value of the posters.
Through the internet, they found several poster dealers, but couldn’t find any prices to compare their posters to
(hey guys anyone who has ever bought a high line poster can relate to this, can’t we?). They next contacted some of the
auction houses including, Christie’s South Kensington and Bonham’s. The auction houses promised them quite a
return on their posters and the family suddenly became aware of the posters true value. However, rather than
pay high commissions and wishing to keep their discovery somewhat quiet, they decided to sell their collection privately.
It was at this point the family contacted a private dealer who then contacted Cinema Icons. The dealer knew
that Ron dealt in very rare Universal horror posters and that he would make them a fair offer on their items. In June
1999, he traveled to New Zealand and purchased one complete set of half sheets (meaning both the A and B styles) of each title they had.
Upon his arrival back in the U.S., the posters were immediately sold into private collections. And that’s where the story should have ended…
Over the course of the next year, he began to hear rumors the people in New Zealand still had more half sheets.
The rumor was that there were multiple copies of some of the half sheets, and there was at least one other complete set
of what he had purchased the prior year. He discounted the rumors because the family asked him to keep our transaction
quiet. They didn’t want people to know the posters had already been sold. He assumed the set he had purchased
was the same set that collectors were saying was still available. During this time, he kept hearing about the posters
coming to auction, first Sotheby’s New York, then Christie’s South Kensington. But with each catalog that was issued,
the posters failed to materialize, and he came to the conclusion that the rumor was just that; a rumor!
In October 2000, the New Zealand family called Ron. They told him that they did indeed still have more half
sheets. They were tired of dealing with the auction houses and were getting spooked when strange people were
showing up on their doorstep in New Zealand and asking about the posters. They wanted to know if he was interested
in buying them out.
He went into negotiations with them and was able to purchase all of their remaining posters. Before Ron
did this, he managed to get a statement from them that this was indeed the last of the posters.
The following list of posters accounts for the entire inventory of the horror posters from the New Zealand Collection.
Although Universal didn’t mark their half sheets as A and B styles, for simplicity, we’ve denoted the style that
has the same image as the title card as style A.
The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Style A – 2 copies
Style B – 3 copies (1 with the borders trimmed off)
The Raven (1935)
Style A – 1 copy
Style B - 4 copies
The Invisible Ray (1936)
Style A – 2 copies
Style B – 1 copy
Dracula’s Daughter (1936)
Style A – 3 copies (1 with a significant chunk out of the left side)
Style B – 4 copies
