New Web Site Offers Free Poster Appraisals
Saturday, July 14th, 2007Rudy Franchi, longtime appraiser on the PBS series “Antiques Roadshow,” has just launched a new Web site, Poster Appraisal.com (www.posterappraisal.Com) which will answer queries about the value of original old posters plus other 20th-Century collectibles.
The prices of vintage film, travel and war posters has been escalating at a rapid rate over the past year, with several examples of large format advertising and propaganda ephemera selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars while a wide variety of posters are routinely selling in the ten to fifty thousand dollar range.
Mr. Franchi recently sold The Nostalgia Factory and its associated Web site nostalgia.com. He continues to work as a consultant to Heritage Auctions of Dallas, the firm he now represents on “The Roadshow.”
Explaining why he started up Poster Appraisal.Com, Mr. Franchi said “all those years of dealing in pop culture have been pretty good to my wife Barbara and I, and I’d like to give something back. Also, I’m a bit obsessed with old stuff and hate the thought of really good pieces being tossed or lost. Finally, in connection with my Roadshow career, it’s a great way to keep up on what’s happening in the field now that I don’t buy and sell on a daily basis.”
Poster Appraisal.Com is an information only site. Approximate values of what an item would fetch at auction will be given, but nothing will be bought or sold. Mr. Franchi will offer advice as to the best way to realize the value of the item, but he will not be involved in its actual disposition.
Mr. and Mrs. Franchi had run the Nostalgia Factory for 36 years and the Web site since the mid nineties. They are authors of Miller’s Movie Collectibles, a major text on collecting movie posters. The couple ran poster auctions for Skinner of Boston, Heritage of Dallas and Christie’s New York. They have done appraisals of posters and ephemera at several major institutions and Mr. Franchi regularly speaks before groups about trends in collecting.
The site contains links to a large number of other poster information sites as well as a guide to poster sizes and formats. There is also a link to Poster News Bulletin, Mr. Franchi’s widely read and often acerbic blog.