Collecting

The collecting of movie memorabilia began with such things as scrap-books, autographs, photographs, and industry magazines, but quickly expanded in the post-World War II era. Collectors began seeking out original advertising material, and the classic "one sheet" movie poster became the pinnacle object to own for any given film. Other material, such as lobby cards, other-sized posters, international posters, personality posters, and glass slides also began to become highly sought after. Today, the field of film memorabilia collecting has grown into an internationally recognized community of increasingly serious and financially secure collectors, making it one of the fastest areas of speculation for investment.

History

Originally, movie posters were produced for the exclusive use of the theatres exhibiting the film the poster was created for, and the posters were required to be returned to the distributor after the film left the theatre. In the United States, posters were usually returned to a nation-wide operation called the National Screen Service (NSS) which printed and distributed most of the movie posters for the studios between 1940 and 1984. As an economy measure, the NSS regularly recycled posters that were returned, sending them back out to be used again at another theatre. During this time, a movie could stay in circulation for several years, and so many old movie posters were badly worn before being retired into storage at an NSS warehouse (most often, they were thrown away when they were no longer needed or had become too worn to be used again). Those posters which were not returned were often thrown away by the theatre owner, but some movie posters found their way into the hands of collectors.

After the National Screen Service ceased most of its movie-poster printing and distribution operations in 1985, some of the posters which they had stored in warehouses around the United States ended up in the hands of private collectors and movie-poster dealers. Today there is a thriving collectibles market in movie posters. Some have be become very valuable among collectors, with a few rare examples being auctioned for US$500,000 or more. The record price for a poster was set on November 15, 2005 when US$690,000 was paid for a poster of Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis from the Reel Poster Gallery in London. As a result of market demand, some of the more popular older movie posters have been reproduced either under license or illegally. Often there is no indication on these reproductions that they are reproductions, which has lead to some problems in the collectibles marketplace.

Beginning in the 1980s, the film studios began taking over direct production and distribution of their posters from the National Screen Service and the process of making and distributing movie posters became decentralised. Today, movie posters are generally produced in much larger quantities than necessary to promote a film at the theatres, because they are also sold directly to the public by retailers who purchase them at wholesale prices from the studio distributors. Modern movie posters are also often sold from websites set up by the studio to promote a given film. Because of this, modern posters are not considered rare, and are usually readily available for purchase by collectors.

Movie Posters

A movie poster is a poster used to advertise a film. Use of such posters goes back to the earliest public exhibitions of film, where they began as outside placards listing the programme of (short) movies to be shown inside the hall or theater. By the early 1900s, they began to feature illustrations of a scene from each individual movie.