I mentioned yesterday how much I missed my Insert poster from The Sea Hawk. Well, today I found this picture of one on line which, to judge by the description is the very one I used to own (paper-backed with some restoration to a bottom corner). I hope you all agree it’s a beauty!
— DerekD
It’s great! Where did you find it?
Well, I must have bought it in around 96 or 97 I think. There was a dealer in film posters I knew from attending collectors fairs in London who’d just set up a shop not far from Trafalgar Square.He knew I was a Flynn collector and he offered me this piece for a little under £1000 as I recall. He had the restoration done on it for me. Sadly I sold it on through Bonhams auctioneers and let it go for far too low a price. I’ve never seen another one lke it and I’m sure that this one on the internet is actually the same one. I guess it must be worth a lot more that £1000 now.
In those days there was not that much stuff for sale on the internet and most of the good stuff I acquired was through attending film collectors events and the odd auction.
I guess that still today, to get the really good stuff, you must have connections. 1000 is an amazing sum. Why is it so rare and what (sorry for the stupid question) actually IS an insert, I always wondered. Why insert, what is different from the other posters? Where was it INSERTed?
I guess they’re rare because they’re made of paper and they’re 70 odd years old? Plus they were never meant to be kept.
An insert is a tall thin type of poster that was designed as I recall (and I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong) to be displayed on door panels in the theatres. You had a host of different standard sized posters, all for a different kind of display. The lobby cards that went on the walls in the lobby which came in sets of 8 11″ x 14″ (including a title card which was usually like a mini version of the main poster design), window cards which were a slightly bigger version of the poster for display in the window, a 1 sheet (the normal sized large poster), a half sheet (half the size of the 1 sheet) and the insert. You also had 3 sheets and 6 sheets designed for billboard type displays. For these you had to join the sheets together to get the whole poster. Inserts, halfsheets and title cards are all good to collect as they’re a lot easier to display than 1 sheets (unless you’re super rich and have a lot of wall space!).
Thank you very much for the explanation! So they are probably rare because it was difficult to stick them to the door panels? Hm… complicated!
I think it’s mainly that all these posters were supposed to be returned to the distributor after the theatre had finished with them. Also there wasn’t the collectors market there is today so if things were kept at all it tended to be by accident. What are the chances of any large piece of paper surviving unless carefully looked after for 50 years plus? That’s why they’re all so expensive. I forget the record price… Something like ::-$ 250,000 for a Frankenstien or dracular 1sheet I think?
Oh my … who has got that much money? It shows again that this market is mainly for the super rich, and they keep it in their palace and never is it seen again… what a shame.