Finding and Enjoying Movie Posters

 

Author: FilmSale.com

 

Movie posters are promotional posters created by film studios to advertise their feature films. Because movies have always needed to be advertised, these posters have been around for many, many years. They usually contained the movie title, a tag line, the names of those starring in the production as well as the names of the director and producers, and the release date.

 

 

Many movie posters are really works of art with their beautiful colors and depictions of the movie itself. When framed, movie advertisements make a statement and many people use them in a variety of different ways. Party planners are adept at using movies as themes for different kinds of parties, creating an instant need for the move posters with which to decorate for the party. People who are movie buffs use them to decorate their homes and parents use them to decorate their children’s rooms.

 

Collectors are, of course, by far the largest group of people to buy and maintain movie posters. They want to find ways to preserve their collection and enhance its value so they keep the posters rolled, out of direct sunlight, or safely in dry rooms. The 21st century has brought in new collectors who are interested in these posters for their value or even simply for nostalgia’s sake.

 

Because of the paper drives that took place in World War II, many movie posters and lobby cards were turned in to be recycled. After the war, people simply continued to throw them away, not realizing that movie posters, like baseball cards, might someday be collector’s items and therefore, sought by many people.

 

Prior to the 1920’s, many movie posters were printed on folded paper and therefore, they were received by the theaters in the folded format. Even up until 1985, posters in general continued to be folded. However, most movie posters today are rolled. The collector who knows this fact doesn’t worry about the creases in the older movie posters because he or she will know about the ways in which such items were moved from one place to another. Once the collector places a frame around the poster, especially an old poster, the poster continues to gain in value, despite the fact that it was once a folded advertisement.

 

In the early days of movies, the movies themselves, as well as their accompanying advertisements or movie posters, were rented to movie theaters. Following their “run” in the town’s theater, the movie and its poster would be sent to the next

theater requesting the movie. Returning the poster to the studio would get the theater owner .15¢ credit with the company who rented the movie to him in the first place. And in those frugal and lean times, that .15¢ would have been enough to help feed the theater owner’s family.

 

Movie posters can now be found quickly and in affordable prices on the internet. You will want to make sure that the dealer is reputable, however, because as is the case with most collectible items, fakes abound. Fakes are intentionally meant to deceive, but often give themselves away by some small variation, such as a lack of sharpness of text when compared with the original. Reprints and fakes are worthless except as decoration but if you are looking for them for that reason, you may be completely satisfied with a reprint instead of the original.