ROTJ Folded vs. ROTJ Rolled

[Verbatim]

Long time lurker, first time poster here... forced to come out of the woodwork due to my current dilemma!

A little while back I picked up an original folded Return of the Jedi Style B one-sheet for £25.00. There was light wear to the folds and a small amount of separation at the cross folds. Other than that, the colours are vibrant and the paper crisp without any blemishes. I though I got a good deal and I had a good candidate for linenbacking.

Then a few days ago I came across what initially looked like a rolled reprint (and was listed as a reprint) of the Style B one-sheet on eBay UK. However from the miniscule blurry photo it seemed to have the correct copyright info found specific to the originals. Given the cheap price I thought I'd take a punt before someone else had a go. I took delivery today and the rolled example is exactly the same size as my folded example and the inks and colouring appear exactly the same, as is the paper stock. I have no doubt it is original.
The colours are equally bright, however it has very slight wrinkles/veins in places (which are not that noticable) and a couple of print rubs with small white cracks. Additionally it has heavy edge damage along the vertical sides - albeit confined to the white border area.
Whilst the poster is not mint I don't think I did too badly for £7.99 + free shipping.

As stated with the folded version, I am looking to linenback, but of course only need to keep one poster. I imagine the edge damage on the rolled version would flatten out nicely with linenbacking but am unsure just how effective the process would be at flattening out the spider-vein wrinkling on the main face of the poster. The folded example has no blemishes on the main image but if that were the example I were to keep I would need the fold lines touched up and the cross fold separations filled in.

So based on the descriptions given - which is the version to keep and get restored to its original spendor?

Also, does can anyone recommend any reputable linebackers in the UK?

Cheers,

[CSM]

It's a tough call and unfortunately I am not familiar with any UK restorers.  You could probably send to one the better known North American restorers for not too much more in postage.

For what it's worth - I would feel much more confident in keeping the folded version as it has a greater chance of actually being authentic.  You have to question why it was listed as a reprint if it actually isn't?  Does the seller have a lot of other posters also listed as reprints?

But if it actually is real - congrats!

[Dread_Pirate_Mel]

Then a few days ago I came across what initially looked like a rolled reprint (and was listed as a reprint) of the Style B one-sheet on eBay UK. However from the miniscule blurry photo it seemed to have the correct copyright info found specific to the originals. Given the cheap price I thought I'd take a punt before someone else had a go. I took delivery today and the rolled example is exactly the same size as my folded example and the inks and colouring appear exactly the same, as is the paper stock. I have no doubt it is original.

I wouldn't linen-back either one of them - total waste of money. You can get a perfect rolled ROTJ Style B for around $75 nowadays at auction - see this recent Heritage auction result.  A couple of dealers have them cheap too - send me a PM and I'll point them out to you.