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That is quite a find. If you check the Heritage link, and the allposterforum link, you can compare the posters before and after restoration and linen-backing. A huge amount of time and money was spent saving and restoring these beauties. The PUBLIC ENEMY 1-sheet with Cagney and Harlow is, I believe, the only known copy in existence. There are 2 other known copies of the DRACULA poster; the Count will definitely be the heavy hitter of this auction. Congrats to the lucky souls who rescued these great posters!

I doubt anyone will ever find massive quantities of old posters today. In the 1960's, 70's and early to mid 80's, it was possible to find quantities of great posters by going to a National Screen Service depot, or an independent exchange. By the mid to late 70's, any really great title the exchange or NSS might have had, monster or otherwise, would almost certainly be gone; grabbed up by early collectors who knew the value of what they were buying. This was driven by the nostalgia craze of the late 60's and early 70's, when actors like Bogart, the Marx Brothers, W.C. Fields, and the Universal monsters were extremely popular. People realized they could locate and buy original posters that the theatres used to promote the films when they originally played. I know when I started to collect movie posters back in 1974, the Universal monster posters were already really tough to come by. Whoever had a copy to sell commanded a high price, and he usually got it. Same thing with the Realart reissue posters; tough to find, but not impossible. Original 40's Bogart like Casablanca, Maltese Falcon, Big Sleep were also very hard to find. The later 50's Bogie films, not so much.

The very nature of movie posters dictates that they were never made to be bought by the general public, unlike records, comic books, or baseball cards. The posters explicitly state: "Not to sold, leased, or given away. Must be returned or destroyed immediately after use". Which, thank God, many theatres generally ignored. Many theatres just let them pile up and then donated them to Boy Scout paper drives, or something of that nature. And then there were those annoying warehouse clean-outs, where all the posters 5 years or older were bundled up and tossed. I know of one instance where most of the old titles from one warehouse was loaded onto a big tractor trailer and dumped down an abandoned mine shaft. Sometimes, in the early 70's, when collectors would stake out the NSS dumpster late at night, the NSS powers- that- be would have any posters tossed into the trash shredded first. Big items like 30x40's or 40x60's would be bound together, 25 to a bundle, and be given the drill-press treatment; think a PVC drainage pipe made from a roll of DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER 30x40's instead of plastic. Sometimes when the guys inside were feeling particularly destructive, they would bring out the bandsaw and slice the bundles into quarters. I know one time, I personally found a roll of 40x60's to THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES that were mangled by the drill-press. Very depressing.

Some theatres, for whatever reason, managed to hold on to their posters and secreted them away, like the Royal Theatre collection in Canada. Locked up in a forgetten closet were stacks and stacks of prime posters from the 40's, in incredibly great condition. Bogie, Cagney, Flynn, Frankenstein's monster, and more were all present and accounted for. Then there is the story of a couple restoring their house in New Zealand; when they pryed up the floorboards, there were mint original 22X28 posters for titles like BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, THE RAVEN, & THE BLACK CAT. In multiples! It's finds like these that keep collectors on the prowl.





 

Oops..........quick correction. I mentioned in the Royal theatre collection Universal horror posters were found among the riches. They were NOT. Not a bolt among them. Sorry about that.

For those who are interested, the Berwick part of the Heritage auction netted $503,000 total. Some of the highlights were:

THE BAT WHISPERS - $7,767.50 - great stone litho art on this one
CIMARRON - $101,575 - this one went WAY over the estimate of $18,000, due to a bidding war between 2 buyers on the floor
THE CRIMINAL CODE - showing Walter Huston - $3107.00
  "          "       "       "        - without Walter Huston - $1075.50 - neither poster showed or mentioned Karloff
LITTLE CAESAR - $41,825 - the only copy known to exist, and does not show E.G. Robinson
THE PUBLIC ENEMY - showing Cagney and Jean Harlow - $55,268.75 - The only known copy, and for me, the better poster
  "          "            "         - without Cagney or Harlow - $59,750 - again, the only known copy. Possibly condition is the reason this went higher
THE MALTESE FALCON - 1931 - $8,962.50 - the only known copy. Very surprising this went for so little. In contrast, a window card from the Bogart
                                                                             version sold for $16,730 in the same auction.
and last but not least..........

DRACULA - style F - $143,400 - whoever got this one got a bargain. The bottom 1inch white border was replaced, but the poster looked fine, and not 
                                                      "dipped in paint" as some have mentioned. Maybe this version is no longer considered "incredibly rare"?