Entertainment Memorabilia

From autographs to stage costumes, musical instruments to locks of hair, posters to film props, entertainment memorabilia encompasses anything that has an association with celebrities in the world of film, popular music and show business.

Certain celebrities or brands can be bankers like The Beatles, Elvis or Bond Films. Broadly speaking, the closer the direct association an item has with the person to whom it relates, the higher the value will be.

Provenance is key in this sector as an important guide to authenticity.


PREVIEW – POSTER COLLECTION

05 May 2004

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.

Ski posters to give your walls a lift

02 February 2004

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

09 December 2003

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

Nostalgia pulls in the private buyers as British seaside scenes do well

23 September 2003

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.

Rock and film memorabilia sale preview

05 September 2003

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.

Star Wars figures make £8720 at Vectis

19 August 2003

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.

With you, Sir!

24 July 2003

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.

Posters from Hassall’s studio are so bracing

30 June 2003

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.

Climb aboard the movie memorabilia bandwagon!

27 June 2003

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.

War museum plans three-year online poster campaign…

30 May 2003

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.

Marlene on the wall - for £75,000

20 May 2003

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.

Harry Potter and the last of the Salisbury book and print specials

11 March 2003

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.

It could only happen in the movies

03 March 2003

Film poster vendor adds to exclusivity of sale by destroying second copy: COLLECTORS have reacted with outrage and disbelief to a statement from the vendors of an apparently unique film poster that a second copy had been deliberately destroyed to protect the sale’s exclusivity.

St Moritz tops ski poster poll

28 February 2003

The annual ski poster sale at Christie’s South Kensington (17.5/10% buyer’s premium), timed as usual to coincide with the winter sports season, jumped into action earlier this month. The auctioneers’ 273-lot offering on February 13 took in all the main long-established European resorts plus some from further afield, and attracted its usual crowd of aficionados in person or on the phone.

Can market absorb epic events?

28 February 2003

APART from sporadic themed sales held by provincial auctioneers, Camard’s main rival on the French poster auction scene is the Paris-based dealer Frédéric Lozada, who has instituted regular 1000-lot sales in Versailles (the one in late October brought over £250,000) and, most recently, in Lille, where he offered 1120 lots under the Wattebled hammer on December 11-12.

Staying on target with screen prints

25 February 2003

When it comes to wall power there is nothing like a poster to add presence and focus to an interior, and for iconic or cult status, a film poster is hard to beat.

Gangsters of New York – in French

13 February 2003

NEW YORK specialist dealers in movie posters Posteritati hold some beguiling selling shows, but they look like being onto an international winner with their current one – French Gangsters & The New Wave – which runs at their gallery at 239 Centre Street until March 4.

Trains and planes and Guinness

08 January 2003

Patrick Bogue has been holding successful poster sales at specialist collectables auctioneers Onslows since 1984 and his latest was a reminder that Christie’s South Kensington do not have a monopoly on this active market.

Thumb’s up for grabs

13 December 2002

Pint-sized dealers might be interested in getting hold of this immaculate little suit in black wool and cream cotton, measuring just 2ft 1in (63cm) from collar to trouser bottom, which is being offered by Bonhams in Knowle on December 11.

Your chance to acquire the King’s crown…

15 November 2002

For all those fans who ever longed to run their fingers through Elvis Presley’s hair, now there’s a chance. While locks or strands of Elvis’ boot-polished black hair have been sold in the past, one of more than 1400 memorabilia lots in a sale closing on November 14-15 on www.mastronet.com is something just a bit special.

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