Mon.....wal marting is a neologism...a newly coined term...it isn't in reference to just modern movie posters....in this case I was using "wal marting" to describe over saturation of posters on the market...that just means flooding the market with tens of thousands of worthless posters at a cheap price (with a few nice ones mixed in as bait)....eventually this saturation keeps the prices low because there are not enough buyers/bidders to keep prices competitive...it is bad stewardship of the material AND it does the hobby a disservice....if you look at the dregs of eBay...there are plenty of 1920's-1940's material listed for peanuts...and they are not selling...one of the main culprits even had a heated debate on this here forum about REFUSING to take any more crap posters from people...and making a judgement call on what was good or not....that speaks volumes...
And Mon I mostly collect vintage posters from 1900's-1940's....but also antique engravings, maps and prints from 1500's-1800's...there is "wal marting" in those areas too...it's amazing how many beautifully rendered engravings from the 1700's that sell for less than $20...there is just more paper than collectors...the Internet has magnified that reality
Yeah, and everyone's silver set they inherited from their great grandparents used to be a treasured heirloom until eBay came along and it now 95% of it sells for melt value. What's your point? You seem to be mad at the internet, first and foremost, for destroying the notion of perceived rarity. Would you prefer a world of cartels and monopolies where plentiful material is manipulated to seem rare? Yay De Beers!
By the way, who are you to say what something *should* be worth (if only eBay and eMovieposter didn't screw it all up
)? Seems to me that is a question for markets to answer.... you know supply and demand? Due to lack of knowledge and information sharing, posters seemed rare pre-internet, prices slowly increased. Post-internet, more people learn about the existence of the hobby and more sellers and sales venues pop up to cash in, market gets flooded, prices correct. This is surprising why?