eMoviePoster.com

There are many, many "movie poster" who stick the the "standard" sizes (one-sheets, lobby cards, stills, other main U.S. sizes, standard non-U.S. sizes from each country). But did you know that there are also a huge number of NON-standard sized items you could ALSO be collecting?

What are these? There are too many to name all of them here, but here are some of them:
1) Programs. Many of these are the "souvenir program books" that theaters have sold in lobbies for major movies for over a century! The studios knew this could be a lucrative additional revenue source IF they made them REALLY elaborate, and they almost always did, with lots of color images, and lots of behind the scenes info about most movies. Yet most of these are super-affordable, ranging from a few dollars each to mostly around $20 each, with only the absolute best (and most scarce) selling for more!
     There are also programs that were less elaborate that some theaters handed out for free to everyone, and also some that were sold on newstands or in other ways. These too are very reasonably priced, and an excellent collection can be put together for not much money at all!
     In addition to the programs created in the U.S., there are also ones that were made in many non-U.S. countries, and the best known of these are the ones from Denmark, Germany, Austria, East Germany, and Japan, although just about every country made some kind of programs, and almost all are very reasonably priced.

2) Sheet Music. In the days before radio, many homes had pianos, and people loved to buy sheet music with songs they could play at home. Studios saw that there was a huge demand for the sheet music of the songs people heard in movies they had just seen, and they realized that adding a cool cover with images of the movies' stars would increase sales, so that is what they did. Again, these too are very reasonably priced, and an excellent collection can be put together for not much money at all!

3) Movie Fan Magazines. In the days before TV and the internet, people had no good way to find out news about upcoming movies (and gossip about their favorite stars) other than through "movie fan magazines". The best of these, like Photoplay, sold MILLIONS of copies every month (or week)! Each issue was filled with heavily illustrated stories about then-current movies and stars, and they specialized in "behind the scenes" stories, and also sometimes salacious gossip! The publishers knew that a beautiful cover image of a star greatly added to sales, and from the 1910s to the 1930s, they hired the very best artists of the time to create amazing cover portraits, and naturally those are most desired by collectors. Yet the price structure on these "movie fan magazines" is also very affordable, ranging from a few dollars each to mostly around $20 each, with only the absolute best (and most scarce) selling for more!
     In the 1940s and 1950s, most of the magazines switched to photographic covers, and of course the most desirable of these are the ones showing the best-loved stars, like Marilyn Monroe and Humphrey Bogart, to name just two!
     And just as with programs, in addition to the "movie fan magazines" created in the U.S., there are also ones that were made in many non-U.S. countries, and the best known of these are the ones from England, France, and Italy, although just about every country made some kind of movie fan magazines, and almost all are very reasonably priced.

4) "Men's magazines". In the 1930s (LONG before Playboy), there was a thriving market for magazines with sexy cover images and titillating stories, cartoons and images inside. One incredible artist, Enoch Bolles, drew covers for hundreds of these magazines, and there were many other great artists as well. In the 1940s, Alberto Vargas began drawing for Esquire magazine, and the issues with his pin-ups are very collectible. In the 1950s, Playboy was an immediate success, and it spawned hundreds of imitators, including Penthouse, which became extremely successful too.

5) "Monster magazines". In the 1960s, a visionary publisher, Jim Warren, who had grown up loving E.C. comic books, decided to launch a group of magazines that would pay homage to the ECs, with many of the same artists! His titles like Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella were very successful and are highly collectible. But Warren's greatest success came before this, with Famous Monsters of Filmland, edited by legendary horror/sci-fi fan Forrest J. Ackerman, and that magazine (and his other titles) all soon had many imitators, and all are fun to collect, and all are surprisingly affordable.

6) Pressbooks. These were special advertising booklets sent directly to theater owners that were playing the specific movie advertised in a particular pressbook (almost all pressbooks were for one movie only, although there were some double-bill pressbooks). A pressbook was made for every movie, starting in the mid 1910s through the 1970s (somewhere in the late 1960s, studios introduced "presskits", which included brochures and stills from the movie, but NO images of the posters, and for a few years, they made both, but then they stopped making pressbooks and only made presskits). There is no "standard" measurement for them, though each studio usually issued them at the same measurement during different periods of time.
     Each pressbook (especially the early ones) is filled with lots of information about the movie that is contained no where else, including pictures of many of the posters and articles and ads as well, and the cover of the pressbook is often a color poster that could be framed, and on older pressbooks there is often a "sample" full-color herald attached to the pressbook, and yet, because many collectors don't know about pressbooks, the entire pressbook often sells for less than the price of a single lobby card from the same movie!

7) Comic Books. You surely know about DC and Marvel Comics, and their top heroes like Superman and Spiderman. But did you also know that there were many, many adaptations of movies done as comic books, and also series of comics based on famous movies, or famous movie stars? These have "cross-over" appeal to both comic book collectors AND movie buffs, and yet most of these are also very affordable.

These are just a very few of the many, many types of NON-standard size (and type) of items you could be collecting, if you don't already do so. If you are someone who would like to have original release items on the very best movies and stars (like The Wizard of Oz or Casablanca, or Jean Harlow), but always thought such items would be financially out of your reach, you will be very pleasantly surprised when you explore these alternative collecting types of items.

And by an amazing coincidence, we at eMoviePoster.com have great selections of the above types of items (and more) in our current sets of auctions, closing August 4th and 6th. What is in them?

1,520 programs, program books, and magazines end Tuesday, August 6th at http://www.emovieposter.com/agallery/13.html

1,100 pressbooks, comic books, sheet music and much more end Thursday, August 8th at http://www.emovieposter.com/agallery/14.html

I hope many of you will check these all out. I think you will surely find the combination of cool, rare, items at low, low prices irresistible! Best of luck to those who bid on any of these!