Entertainment Memorabilia

Illustrated by Denver Gillen, Robert L. May’s poem about Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer was first issued in 1939 as a give-away booklet for children by a Chicago department store, Montgomery Ward.

He’s used to wrestling with evil wizard Lord Voldemort, but for Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe there’s more magic in owning a family tree hand-written by J.K. Rowling.

A poster for the film Metropolis, considered by many to be the holy grail of science fiction posters, has been sold by London dealers The Reel Poster Gallery to a Californian private collector for $690,000 (£390,000).

A POSTER sale held by Swanns of New York on August 4 was strong on recruitment and propaganda posters of WWI and WWII. A condition-A copy of “the best known American poster of all time”, the famous Uncle Sam image of 1917 seen top right, was sold at $9000 (£4950). Based on the well-known British poster featuring Lord Kitchener, it was originally produced by illustrator James Montgomery Flagg as a magazine cover and is in fact a self-portrait of the artist.

THE 523-lot collection of theatrical souvenirs amassed by French actor and director Jean Darnel was 89 per cent sold by value at Piasa (20.33% buyer’s premium) on June 28, en route to a premium-inclusive €247,000 (£164,665). Thirteen lots were pre-empted by the Comédie Française and nine by the Bibliothèque Nationale.

HARRY Potter prices are not quite as strong as they once were, but the fine “unread” copy of the 1997 first of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone seen right was sold on June 17 for £11,000 at Bloomsbury Auctions, who had it hopefully estimated it at £15,000-20,000.

“WHEN Mr Woods came into our saleroom and invited us to see his collection,” said Anderson & Garland’s collectables specialist John Anderson, “we just couldn’t believe that such a unique selection of memorabilia could have been sitting in a house only a dozen miles from our premises.”

AT a sale of modernist posters held by Swanns on May 10, the New York cataloguers drew attention to the influence on Ludwig Hohlwein of the work of the Beggarstaffs.

MARKETING, advertising and promotion may be a multi-billion pound business globally today, but in the early years of the 20th century it was an industry in its infancy.

POSTERS provide instant wall power to any interior, and carefully chosen they can prove a most effective (and cost-effective) device in any decorating scheme. Look out for two interesting poster auctions next month on either side of the Atlantic.

Christie’s Rock and Roll Memorabilia by Peter Doggett and Sarah Hodgson, published by Pavilion Books/Chrysalis Books. ISBN 1862055386 £25hb

TRAVEL POSTERS: The annual travel poster sale held by Christie’s South Kensington (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) usually enjoys a keen collectors’ following, with buyers drawn by the evocative nostalgia and romance of a bygone age when the train rather than the car was the principal method of reaching one’s holiday destination.

The Stuart Sutcliffe archive received a lukewarm reception at Bonhams Knightsbridge, but Sotheby’s Olympia (20/12% buyer’s premium) are hoping a stamp design by his famous art college friend, John Lennon, will generate more frenzied bidding in their 201-lot Rock ’n’ Roll and Film Memorabilia sale on September 24.

Working in a newsagent’s shop in Flint, Wales, a generous grandmother decided to buy her grandson a complete set of the five-inch tall Star Wars figures when they originally came onto the market in 1977. She bought one complete set for her grandson to play with but kept a second set back in case any of the figures became lost, hiding the toys away in a cupboard where they remained for more than 25 years.

Coming up in new York: A large complement of classic American posters by James Montgomery Flagg are featured among the WWI and WWII images in Swann Galleries’ annual summer sale of Vintage Posters in the Big Apple on August 6.

John Hassell (1868-1948) produced designs for some 600 to 700 posters – including one for the British Vacuum Cleaner Company depicting a lecherous bit of machinery chasing a nubile parlour-maid – but by far his best known work is Skegness Is So Bracing.

NEW York’s Posteritati Movie Posters, among the world’s leading specialists in the field, hold an exhibition of vintage posters from the MGM musicals of the 1930s to 1950s at their Manhattan gallery throughout July.

The Imperial War Museum and Manchester Metropolitan University are to carry out a three-year project to catalogue, digitally photograph and publish online 10,000 posters from the museum’s collection.

IT IS a well-known feature of rock and pop memorabilia auctions, that material relating to the Beatles is easier to sell than that relating to other stars. On this basis, the key to assembling a sale of this genre is presumably to fill it with as much Fab Four memorabilia as possible.

ON LEARNING that first edition copies of her first two Harry Potter books were to to be sold at Woolley & Wallis’February 12 auction to benefit Action Aid and Children in Need, author J.K. Rowling agreed to add her signature to both books and donated a signed copy of the fourth book in the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.