Auction of rare cinema posters

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BY BILLY SUTER

RARE and exotic cinema posters – 400 of them worth more than £250 000, and including one of the most extensive and valuable collections of Star Wars posters ever to go under the hammer – are to be auctioned on June 28 by the Prop Store in London.

The collection includes artwork from leading British cinema poster artists such as Tom Chantrell, Graham Humphreys and Vic Fair, featuring content from Hammer Studios and the Carry On film comedies.

The auction will include a Star Wars US teaser “B” 7-sheet poster from 1977, which is expected to be one of the highest selling lots with an estimated sale price of between £12 000 and £18 000.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show UK quad poster from 1975 is expected to fetch between £1 500 and £2 500.

A free-to-enter preview exhibition will be open to the public ahead of the Prop Store auction on the first floor of London’s Odeon BFI Imax, presented by Odeon, from June 22 to 28. The exhibition will showcase some185 lots from the upcoming auction.

This will be Prop Store’s first poster auction and will present carefully curated collections of rare, high-quality posters and original poster artwork from around the globe.

*A Clockwork Orange* US Castro Theatre Poster from 2010. It is expected to fetch between £200 and £300.

Bidders can look forward to owning such delights as the UK quad poster artwork for 1972’s Dracula AD, the UK quad poster for 1955’s The Dam Busters and the quad poster for the 1964 James Bond classic, Goldfinger.

Fans of The Beatles can bid for the UK quad poster for the band’s hit 1964 movie, A Hard Day’s Night, which is expected to fetch between £2 000 and £3 000. Also under the hammer will be the book cover artwork for 2017’s The Lost Boys.

The auction is said to be suitable for fans with a variety of budgets. Some of the least expensive lots in the auction include a Carry On Doctor UK quad poster (1967), estimated at worth £200 to £300, while a UK quad poster from The Man Who Fell To Earth (1976), starring David Bowie, is estimated to sell for £300.

Prop Store is one of the world’s leading film and TV memorabilia companies. Its auction will be live-streamed online for fans to track the bidding on auction day.

Stephen Lane, Prop Store’s chief executive officer, commented on the upcoming auction: “After four successful Entertainment Memorabilia live auctions, we’re always looking for exciting new things to bring to collectors and our Cinema Poster Live Auction feels very much connected to our roots.

“We live and breathe movies – to us cinema history is something you can reach out and touch – so original poster art is as much a part of that as props and other memorabilia. In short, we’re thrilled to be working in this new market, and hope it will become a regular event.”

Prop Store, operating since 1998, sells original movie props and costumes and related memorabilia, regularly hosting live and online auctions. Over 7 500 items are also available for sale at fixed price on propstore.com.