The new guy from Hamburg
Hello Community! Charlie was kind enough to send me an invitation after I asked. And here I am. Totally nuts.I’m 61 years old, but I can still easily pass for 60. I’m now the Hamburg branch.
It all started for me about two years ago with the stock market. I was — and still am — pretty successful there because I got in at exactly the right time. But these are very volatile stocks that go up and down, up again, and sometimes way, way down. :-)
So I started thinking about how to keep my money safe. Old movies — whether film noir or B-movies — have always been my thing. But I never thought about the original posters. In Germany that’s not nearly as big a deal as it is with you folks in the USA. After doing my research, though, investing in really striking wall posters didn’t seem like the worst idea. The market is growing 5 to 15–20 % a year, and even here in Germany people are starting to wake up to it.
As usual, when something grabs me I read like a maniac and spent a ton of money on cool books and art volumes — Harryhausen, Reynold Brown, Learn About Movie Posters, etc.
At first I bought retail, but I quickly realized most of that stuff is borderline at best. What mattered to me was getting real originals and not getting ripped off.
Of course I made mistakes. Obviously. But not too many. In the picture you can see my latest big score from the Heritage Auction — the “Yakob Zentner Collection.” Ballpark figure: I bought every third poster.
Like I said — I’m completely insane.
Anyway, yesterday I was bidding hard again at the Spaceman & Monster auction (though I had already scaled it back — I really went overboard before). But they’re all just so damn beautiful!
What eats up a lot of my time (and a lot more money) is proper archival storage. If you look at every single purchase separately (and that includes art, comics, and pulp too), I’ve put together a collection that would take most people decades to build — and I did it in just a few months. I track everything in the iCollect Everything app and it currently says 530 items. Wow. I really hope my wife doesn’t ask what it all cost… :-)
And what can I say? Stock prices have dropped, poster prices are going up (well, not all of them). :-) But old movie posters pay a monthly dividend: every single time you look at them.
I’m really glad to be here and I’m looking forward to lively, friendly conversation.
Cheerio from Hamburg, Germany!
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