You already surely know that our Auction History database is far and away the Internet's best resource for looking up movie poster images (it currently has 1,194,058, and thousands more are added every week!), and that it is the ONLY accurate "price guide" for movie poster values (because it includes 1,243,971 verified REAL results). Why do we say "real results"? Because unlike EVERY other online collection of movie poster prices or results, our listings don't contain any "guessed at" prices, or results of auctions that "fell through" or never happened. EVERY result listed is one where that price was paid in full and in cash (if it didn't happen at that price, then the result is removed).

But did you also know that our Auction History database gives you some of the best and most accurate movie summaries and cast lists on the Internet? It's true! We endlessly research movie after movie and star after star (including the most obscure ones, and every movie ever made, including silents and non-U.S. ones), and we add all that information to the Auction History database.

So when you look up ANY movie there, you will find the accurate year of release (including that of the first U.S. release if it was made in another country), plus the genre, the director, the top five stars (at least) in accurate credits order, and also any "taglines" from the first release posters, and you can't often find this information together in any other database (the closest is the IMDb, but that has lots and lots of errors, and they rarely ever correct them).

But in addition, we give you a concise plot summary of most movies, and we are constantly looking up the ones we don't have good summaries for, and improving them, and adding them to the ones we never had a summary for, so this can often help you determine which old movies are worth tracking down and watching. We search through the entire Internet looking for databases from other countries, fan pages, scanned books and magazines from when the films were first released, etc, etc, etc! In all this, we are also aided by an army of experts all over the globe, who regularly scour our listings, looking for listings that need correcting or improving, and within days of their emailing us we add what they have told us to those listings!

Here is a sample of an obscure, but fascinating movie we have among our over 50,000 different listed movies, "The Strange Case of Captain Ramper":

Ramper, der Tiermensch (released in the U.S. as "The Strange Case of Captain Ramper"), the 1927 Max Reichmann German silent fantasy thriller (a bizarre story of an explorer who is lost in the Antarctic, and he finds provisions from a previous expedition, and he manages to survive fifteen years, but during that time, he mutates into a strange creature that is covered with hair, and he loses his ability to speak, and he is discovered by another expedition, and naturally they think him an Abominable Snowman-type character, and they capture him and take him back to Germany, where he is sold to a carnival and exhibited!; even stranger, he manages to communicate who he is, and the German government gives him a substantial reward, and he gives it all to the pretty woman who befriended him so she can marry her sweetheart, and he returns to Antarctica!) starring Paul Wegener (in the title role as Captain Ramper), Mary Johnson, Hugo Doblin, Georg Guertler, and Max Schreck. This is a completely forgotten fantasy horror film unlike any other of the 1920s, and it has the talents of some of the greatest German actors ever. I wonder if the film exists?

And here is a sample of a biography of a star, in this case Thelma Todd (you can search for stars directly, or you can click on their names in any movie description to open a "pop-up" with their biography, along with a link to a gallery of sold items featuring that star):

Thelma Todd (nicknamed "The Ice Cream Blonde" and "Hot Toddy") was a beautiful actress, often in comedies, from 1926 until her death in 1935. She was a Miss America contestant who started making movies in the mid-1920s, and when sound movies started and it was discovered that she had a pleasant voice, she started appearing in dozens of movies, mostly romantic comedies; she appeared in two Marx Bros. movies, and opened a Hollywood restaurant. Some of her movie roles include: Monkey Business, Counsellor at Law, Horse Feathers, Love Business, and Chickens Come Home. After having appeared in over 100 movies, she died in her garage from carbon monoxide poisoning on December 16th, 1935. Though her death was ruled a suicide by police, rumors have persisted that her ex-husband had a hand in her death. Noted expert Richard Bann tells us that Hal Roach explained this to him in person saying that "Roland West evidently meant only to punish Thelma, and locked the garage so she couldn't leave, and that the carbon monoxide killed her". Of course it makes a more commercial story to sensationalize her death as murder instigated by the mob.

So the next time you find yourself with some "spare time", why not head over to our Auction History database and start browsing movies and stars? But be prepared to stay a while, because one movie leads to another and another, and please use this database responsibly, because this can become VERY addictive!

And next week we will ask, "Did You Know that our Auction History database  helps you find the absolute best movies to watch?"