8mm Forum: Movie Poster Collectors Beware

This is topic Movie Poster Collectors Beware in forum General Yak at 8mm Forum.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://8mmforum.film-tech.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=002542

Posted by Scott Mallory (Member # 2393) on May 13, 2013, 10:09 AM:

Hey Everybody, So recently I've been getting my movie posters framed to decorate my basement theater. I've also been doing a lot of research on Mondo posters for my collection (if you're not familiar check out their archive section at www.mondotees.com, amazing artwork). Anyway while doing research I came across two articles about fake move posters and their eBay sellers. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that my Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark insert posters were phonies, especially after I paid $150 each to have them framed. I reported it to eBay (which really doesn't want anything to do with these type of disputes) and then I contacted the seller, Tom Loce, directly. He told me it was all lies and people were trying to sully his good name, yet he never addressed how my poster that I bought from him, the one in the fraud article, and the one he was currently selling all had the same NSS number. Lesson learned I guess and my stuff is still wall decoration for my theater, just not legit like he claimed. Anyway here are links to the articles, very interesting stuff.
http://moviepostercollectors.com/Fake-Seller-tloceposters-fake-inserts.html
http://www.cinemasterpieces.com/cinestarwars.htm#empire

Posted by Pasquale DAlessio (Member # 2052) on May 13, 2013, 11:56 AM:

Scott

Very interesting articles. Thanks for the post.

PatD

Posted by Hugh Thompson Scott (Member # 2922) on May 13, 2013, 05:10 PM:

Obviously I sympathise with your plight Scott, it's no joke paying
top prices for material that is obviously copied.Surely there are
laws that govern fraudulent selling,if it involved artwork like an
oil painting,where the work is proven to be counterfeit,then I'm
sure there could be action taken.

Posted by Scott Mallory (Member # 2393) on May 13, 2013, 10:24 PM:

Yeah Hugh, If I would have caught it soon enough, I probably could have pressed him to refund my money, but I got the posters and waited a little over a year to get them framed. The bad part is that he's also a gold rated seller on eBay which means a lot of people are going to feel pretty secure buying from him.

Posted by Jean-Claude Michel (Member # 3765) on June 10, 2013, 01:15 PM:

About 25 years ago, a number of Belgian posters (from the post-WW2 era, small size) were reprinted. Of course most of the dealers sold them as reproductions, at honest price. But some others advertised in foreign magazines and sold these posters as "the real thing". These reprints were on glossy paper, very different from the original paper, and the colors weren't exact reproductions neither. But of course, nobody can judge from a little reproduction in a magazine!
It seems incredible, retrospectively, that in the mid-Sixties, you could send a 10 French francs banknote in a letter to a Belgian dealer, and in return you got no less than 20 (twenty) original post-WW2 Belgian posters, titles like "Frankenstein" (RR), "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man", "The Curse of Frankenstein", "The Ape Man", "Return of the Ape Man", etc., all of them overpriced these days.

Posted by Jonathan Trevithick (Member # 3066) on June 11, 2013, 03:55 PM:

I don't really collect much film memorabilia these days. The only way to be sure things aren't fakes is to see them for real and buy them directly from the owner/movie theatres themselves(which is what I used to do in NZ and the UK).Also,having a number of the same original items does not necessarily mean they are fakes. Years ago, I bought a large collection which had been saved from a closing down theatre. I ended up with 6 original JAWS posters and 5 original GODFATHER posters. It paid for a very decent holiday abroad!
Staying on topic, this TLOCE guy does seem suspect. Many posters from the 70/80s and before would have machine folds or would have been stored that way by the cinemas. It's unlikely most would have been stored lovingly,leaving them "minty white" either. Many would have pinholes or evidence of having been displayed, too .
PS Excellent article, Scott!

Posted by Hugh Thompson Scott (Member # 2922) on June 12, 2013, 12:57 PM:

I have some original Quads to "One Million Years B.C./SHE","Jason"
"Gwangi","Dracula Risen from Grave" etc, and can't believe the
silly money paid for these things.

Posted by Jean-Claude Michel (Member # 3765) on June 12, 2013, 03:34 PM:

It's a mixed bag in fact. Some old posters can be overprized, and others aren't. I paid 200€ for an Italian "manifesto" of LO STRANGOLATORE (= Crimes at the Dark House, 1940) and 400€ for the Argentinian poster of LA GRANJA MACABRA (= Maria Marten, or The Murder in the Red Barn, 1935). Just because the seller didn't know who was Tod Slaughter, I presume. It can seem expensive, but for original, exceedingly rare (and beautiful) vintage posters it was certainly a modest expense.

Posted by Hugh Thompson Scott (Member # 2922) on June 12, 2013, 04:33 PM:

I can understand you yourself paying an expensive price for a
poster that you really want,we've all been there Jean- Claude, but when you
see some of the prices paid for "King Kong", "Frankenstein" etc
many,many thousands of dollars,it takes ones breath away.

Posted by Oemer Yalinkilic (Member # 86) on June 13, 2013, 03:30 AM:

I collect also poster and lobby cards from movies, from them I own the 35mm print. It is strange, sometimes I paid more for the paper than for the feature. Most of the film collectors didn´t want pay so much for posters and the poster collectors think it is enough to have the DVD or Blueray and can´t understand that someone pay so much for a film.

Posted by Robert Crewdson (Member # 3790) on June 27, 2013, 10:52 AM:

I bought a poster of a Hepburn and Tracy movie a couple of years back from an antiques centre, when I got it home and looked more carefully I discovered it was photographed rather than printed.

UBB.classic^TM 6.3.1.2