Questions for Bruce-EMP

Duke

I was thinking more along the lines of selling a large collection as a whole versus individually for the best value, or return. I have many posters and thinking the return would be better if I sell the whole lot versus selling individually now and then.

Charlie

Well Morris should know the answer to that one! Didn’t he try to sell everything as a package some 10 years back?

dedeposter

If I was you I'd consign the whole collection to Bruce and let him do the selling, he'll get great prices, has a large mailing database, you'll get the widest coverage for your items, which means more competition for each item. I've sold most of my collection with him and have been very pleased with the results. He will do all the photos, descriptions and selling for you. You just receive the proceeds.

Duke

All good stuff, and Morris has had success going on his 33 auction. I was wondering what Bruce thought.
Thanks

Bruce

Sorry, I was out of town. I am certain there is NO ONE looking to buy an entire collection, for any other purpose that to re-sell it to make money, so they MUST buy at wholesale.

Say you decide to collect Harrison Ford one-sheets. If someone offers you a set of ALL Ford's one-sheets, if you buy it, your collecting is over right after it starts!

The joy of collecting is to put it together piece by piece, like a jigsaw puzzle.

Several high profile collectors gave gigantic collections to a few different auctions, and they were sold on one day, with all lower priced items shoved into random bulk lots.

Not surprisingly, most of those large bulk lots sold to dealers, and a lot of those dealers re-consigned the items to me, and they made money doing so.

And the original consignor still had to pay the auction houses sky high premiums, and they ended up with far less than they would have had they sold by any other method.

Bruce

Both the Post Office AND UPS have "declared" war on tubes, and that this has created MAJOR headaches for us at eMoviePoster.com

Around a year ago the Post Office added a $4 added fee for all tubes up to 30" long and a $15 fee for tubes over 30" long. At the time, we did not think that much of it, because we had already advised all our U.S. customers to switch to UPS, because their service was SO much better than the Post Office.

But then, several months ago, UPS added even worse added fees, of $29 and $31 to long tubes. That WOULD have been catastrophic, but our UPS representative, was able to get us special relief from this, reversing all those charges, and saving our customers a massive amount per tube.

But two weeks ago, with no notice, UPS announced that, starting immediately, we would have to start paying those added massive tube fees!

This was especially bad since we had just had our all-art print auction with over 2,400 prints! Unlike UPS or other auctions, there was no way we were going to simply tell our customers that they would have to pay these massive added fees. So instead we searched for the best possible solution.

The reason the fees were added solely for tubes is that all the shipping companies are shifting to automation, and packages and tubes are moved on conveyor belts, and tubes often fall off and then sometimes hit employees in the head (bad) or roll on the floor and sometimes get caught in the gears of the machinery, getting crushed, and damaging the machines.

So they have added these massive surcharges so they can be handled separately, which costs them more, and also helps explain why so many more tubes (and packages) are being delayed, because having two systems is time-consuming, and the automated systems have many bugs in them.

So the only answer is for us to send rolled posters in a "non-roll-able" way! One answer would be to use triangular or rectangular tube boxes, which DON'T roll, but the problems is they get bent or crushed at a FAR greater rate than our gorilla proof tubes. SO THEY ARE NO ANSWER.

So the only answer is for us to buy custom-made rectangular boxes that we can put our tubes in, and that solves the problem (and adds an EXTRA layer of protection to our tubes, making them better than they were before.

But naturally it takes time to get these manufactured, and in the meantime we are having to custom make our own boxes one at a time, which is VERY time-consuming, but there is no better answer.

SO IF YOU HAVE A TUBE ORDER FROM US, PLEASE BE UNDERSTANDING IF IT TAKES LONGER THAN USUAL TO ARRIVE, AND DON'T BE SURPRISED TO SEE THE TUBE INSIDE OF A BOX, BECAUSE NOW YOU KNOW WHY THAT IS!

John

This has been happening in Australia for about a year. It adds a significant amount to the cost of shipping rolled one sheets but also means more time spent in packaging. 

Duke

I wonder if a tube inside a box is still cheaper than the amount they want to charge?

Bruce

Duke said:

I wonder if a tube inside a box is still cheaper than the amount they want to charge?

It is, but sadly box makers are slow to realize they have a massive new market

Bruce

In 1987 I took a month long trip to Australia. BEST TRIP OF MY LIFE! I spent a week in Sydney, Melbourne, the Great Barrier Reef and Christchurch.

Now, my 21 year old daughter, who has been fascinated by Australia for most of her young life, wants me to take her there.

I am thinking to go for two weeks, and the best time for me is late March.

MY QUESTIONS FOR YOU GUYS!

1) How many places do you think we should go and where? Obviously 2 weeks is half the time I went the first time, so going 4 places seems to not make sense to me, and if so, where do I sacrifice?

2) Is late March a peak weather time? I don't want to go when it is too hot or too cold. Is there a better time?

3) What places do you think we should surely try to see, and what (if any) should we avoid?

4) Better or worse airlines or hotels?

5) Anything else you can think of!

Thanks much for whatever advice you guys can provide!

HONDO

It sounds great. What form or forms of transport do you intent to use to get around in Australia?

Rick

End of March/early April should be nice weather, early March can be hot.
Sydney and Melbourne would be the peak cities to visit. 
The `outback' is fascinating but a long way from anywhere.
Northern Queensland - Port Douglas/Great Barrier Reef.
Great Ocean Road in Victoria.
I know of a big movie poster collection in Warrnambool at the end of the Great Ocean Road if you want to visit. 
We have a state park 10 minutes away where it's easy to see kangaroos, wallabies, emus (they will try to steal your food) and koalas, and a lovely national park two hours away.
The easiest mode of transport would be to drive - remembering you're on the other side of the road. I've always managed it no problem in America, though i don't drive when visiting Europe (luckily this year I'm travelling with a friend so I get to go on a road trip!)

Bruce

Thanks Lawrence and Rick for replying, and I hope to hear from others.

I apologize for not re-replying, but I have a great excuse, as my other daughter is getting married today!

I will re-reply tomorrow!

HONDO

My top recommendation is to visit is the Blue Mountains. Katoomba is situated there and is approximately 63 miles west of Sydney.  There is beautiful scenery to see in the mountains and great walks if you are inclined to do so.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Three Sisters at Katoomba. Scenic skyway cable car at Katoomba. Scenic railway at Katoomba.
There are some great walks to do once you reach the borrom.

Also highly recommended is a visit to Taronga Zoo in Sydney.

Bruce

Thanks for the suggestions guys! Our trip has been postponed until next September, so I will re-post about it when it is closer.

Bruce

Did you know that there has never been a million dollar movie poster at public auction, but there have been multi-million dollar coins, stamps, baseball cards, classic cars, rare books, and comic books?

This is an amazing statistic! One by one, EVERY other major collectible has in the last few years (at the latest), first shattered the million dollar mark for the most wonderful item in that hobby, and then, there are not only ones that then sell for two or three million or much more, but there are also other "not as wonderful" items that start selling for stratospheric prices as well.

Yet not only has this NOT happened in the movie poster hobby, but we are not even very close. Many of the very highest priced reported sales are often items that later sell for FAR lower amounts of money, and it is still rare to see even a $50,000 or $100,000 poster, and many of the very best ones can still be purchased in the $10,000 to $25,000 range.

IS it "just a matter of time" before movie posters catch up to those other hobbies? There are clear signs it might. The last couple of years have seen some wealthy collectors surface and buy lots of the best of a specific type of poster or other movie paper collectible (with each different collector buying in a completely different area) and it seems very likely that, even if they are primarily doing so for the love of what they collect, they likely also think these are very undervalued, when compared to top items from other types of collectibles.

Look at it this way. A million dollars won't get you even ONE of the very best items in those other fields, but not only WILL it get you one of the very finest movie posters known to exist, but you would have enough left over to buy an entire amazing collection, maybe hundreds or thousands of great items! 

And movie paper is now including a lot of items over a century old (making them "antique", rather than "collectible") and in just 15 years EVERY pre-1940 movie paper item will be an antique!

And only a small segment of the population can relate to comic books, or baseball cards, or the rest, but EVERYONE has favorite movies! I believe the question is not IF movie paper will catch up to those other fields, but rather WHEN just a small number of the world's top collectors realize how massively undervalued the best movie paper is!

Will it be a year, or decades? I don't know the answer to that question, but I do know that when that happens, many collectors will be shaking their heads and saying, "if only I had known"!

Bruce

You can now view a COMPLETE preview gallery of EVERY one of the 887 GREAT items in our DECEMBER MAJOR AUCTION that starts Sunday, November 30th at this link: https://www.emovieposter.com/online/previews/20251130December/

This is a complete preview gallery of ALL of the 887 U.S., non-U.S., non-movie posters, lobby cards, and much MORE that starts November 30th! Each thumbnail image in this gallery links to a single supersized version of that image). The gallery includes the auction title, including the lot numbers, so you can see the exact order in which they will be auctioned. It also includes the exact overall condition grade that is on each auction.

What this complete preview gallery DOESN'T include is all the images from each auction, and you CAN'T read the written condition information about each item's condition (or the film's description) until the items go "live" on the 1st. Of course that info will be included in the actual auctions! But by seeing the "super-sized" images and the overall grade you have much information about the the exact condition of each item long in advance of the auction, so you can better prepare your bidding strategy when the auctions go live (starting at 3 PM CST on the 1st).

So between now and Sunday the 30th at 3 PM CT (when the entire auction goes "live"), PLEASE spend some of that time looking over this wonderful preview gallery, and then you will be more prepared to check them all out Sunday when they go live!

I KNOW for certain that this auction is PACKED with lots of extreme rarities and highly desirable items of EVERY kind. It is surely one of our best major auctions in MANY years!

Bruce

This coming Sunday our great December Major Auction begins (see a complete preview at https://www.emovieposter.com/online/previews/20251130December/ and one quick look tells you it is one of our best in many years).

But that leads MANY collectors to make an important mistake! We ALSO have 1,741 "flat" items starting on Tuesday (posters, lobby cards and Part II of our incredible 3-part auction of one collectors lifelong collection of tens of thousands of stills).

AND we also have 850 "rolled" items starting on Thursday, our usual fine selection of poster (U.S. and non-U.S., movie and non-movie)!

The mistake collectors make is to be SO focused on the December Major Auction that they don't spend nearly enough attention on the Tuesday and Thursday auctions and miss getting items they would love to have won, at prices they would love to have paid!

And this is especially unfortunate because both the Tuesday and Thursday auctions contain a lot of items that just missed being in the December Major Auction, so PLEASE remember to thoroughly check out both the the Tuesday and Thursday auctions ALONG WITH the December Major Auction!

And remember that these auctions won't go "live" until Tuesday night at 7 PM CT, Thursday at 7 PM CT, and Sunday at 3 PM CT. With so much WONDERFUL stuff being sold all at once, with NO reserves or buyers premiums, there is sure to be many great deals and some real "steals" and how often does that happen nowadays?

Bruce

After 30 years of auctioning "anything" and "everything", six years ago, we at eMoviePoster.com made the decision to STOP auctioning low value items, and to ONLY auction items that realistically sell for $30 or more and we also went from EVERY week auctions to EVERY OTHER WEEK auctions!

Those changes allowed us to go from around 135,000 auctions each year to around 75,000 the next two years (2020 and 2021). Then, midway through 2022, we raised the minimum again, to ONLY auction items that realistically sell for $50 or more and we also went from EVERY OTHER WEEK auctions to EVERY FOUR WEEK auctions!

Those changes allowed us to go from around 75,000 auctions each year to around 45,000 the past 3 years (2023, 2024, and 2025).

But we also had a warehouse of old consignments to deal with (truckloads brought to us from dealers closing down) that we had been working on auctioning for many years). We are steadily working through all those old consignments (almost all of what is left is solely "bulk lot" items), and we do around 5 or 6 bulk lot auctions a year.

But we make it very clear to all new consignors to only send $50+ items (in nice condition, $100+ in lesser condition), and the day is looming when we WILL only auction $50+ items at the very least (but they will still start at $1 with no reserves or buyers premiums).

Look at this chart.

Year    Total Sales   Auctions  Price per auction
2025    $5,767,588    43,167    $134
2024    $5,689,164    45,693    $125
2023    $5,965,865    47,753    $125
2022    $6,262,147    59,963    $104
2021    $6,753,825    78,492    $ 86
2020    $6,136,707    77,690    $ 79
2019    $5,775,367    128,929   $ 45
2018    $5,620,232    139,979   $ 40
2017    $5,623,241    140,611   $ 40
2016    $4,978,994    139,414   $ 36
2015    $5,232,266    127,890   $ 41
2014    $4,873,011    128,668   $ 38
2013    $5,155,677    120,392   $ 43
2012    $4,063,947    110,201   $ 37
2011    $3,559,290    104,082   $ 34
2010    $3,327,967    93,575    $ 36
2009    $3,265,319    86,806    $ 38
2008    $3,093,417    59,690    $ 52
2007    $2,896,429    44,873    $ 65
2006    $2,205,033    37,958    $ 58
2005    $2,507,699    39,066    $ 64
2004    $2,905,842    47,506    $ 61
2003    $2,121,397    39,816    $ 53
2002    $1,883,756    30,852    $ 61


So while this raising our minimums the past 3 years may SEEM to be a new policy, actually it is just us returning to the policy we originally had from 2002 to 2007. And when you consider the massive real inflation over the past 20 years, $134 per auction in 2023 is probably actually LESS than $64 was in 2005.

And there are two giant side benefits to this shift in policy. The first is that being far more selective in what we accept has allowed us to keep staying completely catch up on ALL single sale consignments, meaning new consignments sent to us go to auction VERY quickly.

And the second is that most of the bidders LOVE this "new" eMoviePoster.com because with so much better quality overall, they now look over ALL the auctions each time, because so much of it is of interest.

SO WHAT ARE OUR CURRENT MINIMUMS FOR CONSIGNING? we no longer accept ANY consignments that have a realistic auction value of under $50, and those must be SOLIDLY in OUR "very good" condition (or better). If they are in "good to very good" condition or under they must have a realistic auction value of at least $100.

And if the posters are linenbacked, they must have a realistic auction value of at least $100 , if they are well backed, but if they are NOT well backed (or were damaged after backing), they must have a realistic auction value of at least $200.

If YOU have items that meet the above minimums, why not head over to https://www.emovieposter.com/learnmore/?page=consign and read our "no fine print" terms, and learn how you can join the 3,488 others who have consigned $126 million of items to us!

dedeposter

Bruce - what's the latest with consigning posters to you from overseas? Are the parcels being hit with tariffs?

Bruce

Not ONE package we have received has had any tariff added! On VERY rare occasions we are charged "brokerage fees" but that started decades ago, and only when sent with a courier service and not the Post Office.

dedeposter

Bruce said:

Not ONE package we have received has had any tariff added! 

Thats very reassuring! I think this is the year I pack up the rest of my collection, stand by!

Rick

But would we have to pay tariffs in Australia, for example, to send a parcel to the US?

dedeposter

Rick said:

But would we have to pay tariffs in Australia, for example, to send a parcel to the US?

No, tariffs are paid on import as far as I'm aware.

John

Rick said:

But would we have to pay tariffs in Australia, for example, to send a parcel to the US?

Tariffs on packages to the US have to be paid BEFORE sending. There is generally no tariff on posters but we are still required to pay a third party (Zonos) to process and verify the shipment so that it is cleared in the US without a problem. 

Rick

I am reluctantly sending a parcel to the US from an eBay sale for a guy who has been chasing two posters at a good price, so hopefully the post office will help me get through it.
If i was sending a package for Bruce to sell, I assume there would be no tariff because it is being sold in the US?

John

Rick said:

If i was sending a package for Bruce to sell, I assume there would be no tariff because it is being sold in the US?

It doesn't work that way. If you send anything to the US it is subject to applicable tariffs that must be collected prior to sending. The good news is that posters don't attract tariffs (at the moment). However, each package has to be verified prior to shipping. Some people send packages as a gift but that is always a risk.

dedeposter

That's reassuring news. Thanks John.

Bruce

Please don't EVER mark any package sent to us as a "gift". We never do this with any package we send, either.

As I said, as of now, not one person has told us they were charged ANY tariff on any package.

John

Bruce said:

As I said, as of now, not one person has told us they were charged ANY tariff on any package.

That's good to hear.