NEW PRESSBOOKS FOR MY COLLECTION
I just got a little over 900 pressbooks from the 1910's to the early 30's, they must have been stored in the plastic bags they came in I was really surprised at the condition, only about 30 are folded and some have not faded at all and still have bright white, something I've never seen from this era, normally most are yellowed. Corners are not worn, and most inside pages have not turned yellow. There were some duplicates so if anyone might want to trade let me know what you have!
Here are some covers:
Here are some covers:
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Am thinking a whole wall of these framed would look fantastic.
Many thanks for sharing.
Great freakin' haul!
I agree 100%. It is so sad.
Congrats once again, the fun of going through them all.
What a wealth of info and entertainment.
I'd be thumbing through them for the next few years -- at least.
I'll post some more photos when I have time to scan.
Would love to see scans (at your leisure of course).
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1913)
! would just like to comment on the great value that pressbooks are in film poster research. A while back John's Australian pressbook of An American In Paris helped us solve the two different daybill styles that were in the market place for this title. Before the pressbook appeared some thinking was that one was original release and one a re-release. With the arrival of the pressbook images it was proved without a shadow of a doubt that both styles in question were from the original release, with one being rarer than the other.
This now leads me to a discovery I have just made regarding a small independent Australian film distributor. Up to now my thinking, based on evidence found to this point, was that National Films Of N.S.W. only distributed films in Australia, starting in the very late 1940's or early 1950's. I have now, with the help of one of John's pressbooks, established they released a film in Australia in 1940. This date confirmed by various newspaper advertisements from 1940. The daybill produced for this title has no mention of a distributor at all on it. Only by looking at the Australian pressbook produced for this title I discovered the Australian distributor was National Films Of N.S.W. For the record the film is Wings Of Destiny and I will be showing an image of the daybill shortly on my ''Rare Australian Posters Of Australian Films'' thread. An interesting fact is most of National Films Of N.S.W. product released in the 1950's was physically distributed by IFD ( Independent Film Distributors ), and their posters show only the IFD logo on them and it is interesting to know that a fair percentage of IFD marked daybills and one sheets from this period weren't strictly IFD releases, but were National Films Of N.S.W. product.
The two examples I have just spoken about are only two examples of many that I am aware of. The importance of pressbooks cannot be overstated so thanks to John and Bruce in particular, the availability of information contained within them is a tremendous resource to help in my aim to solve film related queries and in particular Australian poster queries.
Thanks David for posting Jekyll & Hyde and the Werewolf status info.
And that means scans of the original 1913 pressbook posted here will be of historic proportions.
Yeah, baby. I'm in....
In the 1990's at a second hand book store in the central tablelands of N.S.W. I stumbled across a large box on the floor containing thousands of I believe U.K. pressbooks. From memory they were mainly from the 1930's ( the majority ) and the 1940's. I thought at the time wonderful when I had sighted, the what had looked like a treasure trove of goodies at first glance. Disappointment rapidly set in as I started to sort through the box and I was beginning to discover the whole pile of pressbooks had been water damaged at some stage and the product was in only fair ( at best ) to poor condition. I continued to soldier on in the hope to find if there were any Australian produced films released in the U.K. and any Hitchcock pressbooks among them that I would consider, even if poor condition, but alas there wasn't anything there. The pressbooks, considering their condition, were overpriced, but there was certainly some history in the box and some very obscure titles. I am wondering now how many Australian daybills and other poster sizes were ruined by water over the years in storage ?
My pressbooks are filed by studio in alphabetical order. I already have 8 triple shelving units and had to double it and now have hired help to re-arrange these because there are too many on each shelf. I now have officially 16,457 pressbooks plus the 900 new ones. There are about 11,000 different titles and the rest are duplicates or triplicates which I am getting ready to sell. So please be patient and when I have time I will gladly scan some more images for the thread. By then I will have gone through the new ones, secretly in my mind would I dare hope for a Frankenstein film to be in there?
Sometimes I wonder what I have been doing, I could have had a really beautiful home with a very expensive wonderful home theater, which is my other love (blu-ray) but I continued over the years to keep buying pressbooks and so while I do love them, at 54 years old, one starts to look at things differently.
I just purchased an 18" x 24" flatbed scanner, which covers most of the largest pressbooks and I am strongly considering scanning these and selling the whole collection. It's one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to consider, but I would like now to have a more comfortable home and other things. The other thing that concerns me is what is going to happen to the value of these? Most people interested in classic movies are getting to be older, and when the younger generation grows to our age, will they really have any interest in this stuff in which they never even knew of these films growing up? Just some of the thoughts circling in my mind.
I have OCD too, but in my household we call it CDO - the letters are in alphabetical order like they fucking should be!
I understand how you feel and those are valid concerns. I guess there are a few different ways to collect items when you think about it. Try to collect and archive everything just because... or collect items because you like the specific material. An example is myself. I'm 34 and enjoy collecting material related to movies I love. I won't really waste time on buying a pressbook, presskit or something else for some movie I've never even watched. I could also realistically just go on a buying spree and get anything I want (as money allows) just to have it. The way I look at it though, and its just me and my opinion, I want to have a personal connection or reason for purchasing something and I want to be able to enjoy the items I buy. That's why most of them are in containers at a storage unit. Go figure hahaha. I personally can't justify spending tons of money on things just to stuff them away, never look at them, etc. I don't have that type of disposable income and have other priorities. Then again, everyone's priorities differ. Please do not take this as me knocking your collection and what you are doing. It's cool you have that much stuff. That's not my intention
I think you'll always find someone who is of the younger generation and enjoys watching older movies. I do feel like the number of those people who would also like to collect older paper products may not necessarily increase over time. Then again, I have no data to back that up just a personal opinion. You are right though concerning stages of peoples' lives, at least that's how I'm reading your age 54 comment. I do feel like everyone has stages in their life and who they are, what they do, what they can do, their interests and priorities may change based on age. Like I'm at the young child stage of my life with having one younger child. This doesn't lend much to just going and collecting anything I want. That's reality and is a decision I made at this stage of my life.
I'm rambling way too much. At the end of the day, do what makes you happy and if it is attempting to collect every known pressbook or some other collectible so be it. It is about living your life with as much enjoyment and happiness as you can. Just remember to send me a message when you are looking to sell
Accept your destiny.
You were obviously meant to spend a good chunk of your life gathering this material to preserve it for history.
And now with your scanner, you're going to ensure that all that gathered info will be preserved intact for future generations.
I know the weight of this responsibility hangs heavy on your shoulders, young Jedi, so I suggest you take a break from the mountain of work ahead of you, grab the beverage of choice and test out that new scanner on the 1913 Werewolf.
Just sayin'
The importance of this material was proved when in the past two daybill versions of An American In Paris were being discussed on the forum. Where they both originals or was one a re-release?, was the question at the time. Thanks to John, he had an MGM campaign book showing that both designs were original. Without this information we would have gone on not knowing the answer, with some believing one was a re-release.
With Collectahollic's maybe 200 find, a small amount of Australia's film poster history is being saved. I am hoping some material is included in the 200 that is for Australian made films from the 1950's and 1960's.I must not forget to mention Bruce for his images as well and acknowledge John's large amount of Australian material as well..