1949 Italian "King Kong" Poster
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GUEST:
About 20 years ago, my husband and I were in Rome, and we went into a small shop that sold movie posters, and this was folded up on the top of a stack, and it was in very bad condition. And the guy said, "You probably don't want to buy it, because it's in such bad condition." And then we saw what the subject was. We said, "Oh, yeah, we do want to buy it." So he said, "Well, we can let you have it for $30." So we thought that was a pretty good deal. So we bought it, and we've had it ever since.
APPRAISER:
Well, I would say that anything... Taking a flyer on $30, you're always going to win, because to get something this big to put on your wall is going to cost a lot more than that, no matter what it is. But this in particular, "King Kong," obviously, one of the most collectible of that genre of film, and the images from these are so impactful. My favorite part about this, it's an Italian one-panel. Usually in the movie poster world, people want-- just like with first-edition books-- they want the original country of issue. So traditionally, you would think that the U.S. would be the most desirable, but with "King Kong," they're all desirable, because the graphics are so amazing, and they did amazing stone lithography in Italy. The other thing that's really nice about this one, we actually have the artist's signature up on the top right corner, Olivetti, who's the Italian designer who did this poster. He's a known graphic artist. And even given the condition issues you have, this poster's somewhat rare, so it does come up some, occasionally. When it does, it almost always sells for around $6,000.
GUEST:
Great. That's good to know. (laughter)
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