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Auction History Result p002 FOX 1926/27 movie campaign book much great Usabal art! Date Sold 8/30/2007Sold For: Login or Register to see sold price. An Original Vintage Campaign Book, sometimes referred to as Studio Yearbook (measures 9 1/2" x 15 3/4"; 95 pages) (Learn More) Fox 1926-27, the 1926 campaign book ("A standard of business in the realm of entertainment") sent to theater owners to encourage them to show Fox movies. The book includes 95 pages with one and two-page spreads on Fox's upcoming movies. Some of the movies listed include: The Lily, What Price Glory, Fig Leaves, 7th Heaven, The Return of Peter Grimm, Cradle Snatchers, The Family Upstairs, The Monkey Talks, and many more (and many of these are "lost" films which means that no surviving copies are thought to exist)! There are also many single pages devoted to specific top directors and stars that Fox had on contract at this time, people like Tom Mix, Buck Jones, Howard Hawks, and many more! Note that while many of the pages have signed artwork, by many different (quite talented) artists, and that many of the pages have art by an artist who signed his work as "Usabal" (his name was Lotte Usabal, and he was a well-known illustration artist of that time period). Note that, because Fox was one of the foremost studios at this time and had some of the biggest name stars, they prepared an ultra-elaborate campaign book and they created images for this campaign book that are extremely colorful! Note that Fox did something very unusual (and quite nice) with this particular campaign book. Many of the pages have "tipped in" images, which means they were printed on separate sheets of paper and then one-by-one glued in to those specific pages! This was done with both photographs of some of the stars and directors, and some of the Usabal artwork. THIS IS SURELY ONE OF THE MOST ELABORATE CAMPAIGN BOOKS EVER CREATED! We have included images of the cover of the book and three of the two-page spreads, plus one image of a tipped-in plate (and we did not make a big effort to find the best ones!). 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 this is one of an excellent collection of nine extremely scarce studio campaign books we are selling this week on eBay (in nine separate auctions). Even though these are books that have sold for hundreds of dollars in the past, all begin with 99 cents with no reserve on any of them! Condition: very good. The book is in pretty good condition. There are many scuffs and stains on the front and back covers, but they are both entirely blank, except for the rectangle of the title on the front cover (and there are stains and scuffs in that area as well. The interior pages are generally in excellent condition. One of the tipped in plates (that of Robert P. Kerr) has come loose, but it is included with the page, and could be re-attached with no trouble whatsoever. One of the other tipped in plates (that of Margaret Livingston), is partially detached, but that too could be easily re-attached. Otherwise, none of the tipped in plates are loose or missing, which is very unusual for this book, as often people would remove tipped in plates from books such as this. Also note that the book itself is quite heavy and I have seen other examples of this book where some or all of the interior pages have come loose, or the book is missing pages, and this particular book was much more prone to come apart, due to how heavy it is. There are no cut outs or pages missing (campaign books are often found with missing pages, because theater owners would tear out pages to remind them to book the movie, and sometimes collectors took pages out of these books). Learn More about condition grades 
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