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Auction History Result 7k003 RKO PATHE PERSONALITY GROUP campaign book '31 fantastic art of best female stars & more! Date Sold 3/19/2013 Sold For: Login or Register to see sold price. An Original Vintage Theatrical Movie Campaign Book (measures 10 3/4" x 15 1/4" [27 x 39 cm]; 46 pages) (Learn More) RKO Pathe Personality Group, the 1931 RKO/Pathe Studios campaign book, sent to theater owners to encourage them to show RKO/Pathe movies. The book includes many pages with mostly two-page spreads (including four that fold out and open up into four cool posters), on each of RKO/Pathe's upcoming movies or biggest stars. Some of the movies or stars listed include Constance Bennett (including The Common Law), Ann Harding (including Devotion), Helen Twelvetrees (including A Woman of Experience), Ina Claire (including Rebound), Bill Boyd (Suicide Fleet), Eddie Quillan (Whoop-te-do Kid), Aesop's Fables (Van Beuren cartoons), and more! We have included images of the front cover of the book, and many of the two-page spreads (plus images of all four of the fold-out posters). Note that many of the pages have signed artwork, but unlike most campaign books, it seems likely that a single artist, Walter Seaton, did either all or almost all of the artwork for this extraordinary book! Note that even though this campaign book was sent to many theater owners, it appears that very few examples have survived. I have been a collector of campaign books and related material for many years, and I know for certain that this campaign book is extremely rare! Also note that, as was often the case with these campaign books, some of the movies advertised were either never made, had their titles changed before they were released, or were made with different casts than those announced in the campaign book (I do not have time to research the titles in this campaign book to see which had changed titles or were never made, but if anyone has more information about any of these, please e-mail us and we will post it here)! Note that studios almost always spent far more money preparing campaign books than they did preparing movie posters (often hiring very talented and well-known illustration artists), because campaign books directly benefited the studio in getting theaters to book the movies, whereas posters more benefited the theaters, rather than the studios (although of course, what was good for the theaters was ultimately good for the studios as well). Finally, note that campaign books in general are extremely rare, and the best of them have often sold for hundreds of dollars, and in the case of the very finest, thousands of dollars! NOTE: Click on linked names to see a biography. Important Added Info: Note that we have sold many unusual studio publications, but this wonderful book is one of the coolest ever, because it has four elaborate large fold-out posters that are bound into the book along with regular pages! We have seen loose examples of the four fold-out posters (which are printed on both sides), and it is possible that RKO/Pathe separately distributed just those four fold-outs, or it is possible the loose examples we have seen were removed from examples of this book. Condition: good to very good. The book is VERY unusual, in that it is printed with four diagonal corners, something rarely done in book publishing. In addition, both the front and back covers are covered with an embossed tin foil (literally tin foil!), and it is EXTREMELY fragile! The book has areas of loss around the edges of the tin foil, more so in the top of the cover and in a few areas on the blank back cover. The interior book was glued to the spine of the binding, and the pages are still attached correctly (unusual because they often became detached when people opened the fold-outs). The actual interior pages of the book are in wonderful condition, as the exterior binding is larger than the pages themselves, and they obviously served their function, which was to protect those pages. The front and back covers of this book have damage (but it would be hard to imagine an example of this book that did not have damage, given the incredibly fragile tin foil!), but otherwise, the book is in nice condition! Learn More about condition grades 
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