Watch Out, Watch Out! There Are Fakes About...
Wherever there are items of value, there will be people trying to take advantage. The world of movie posters is no different.
From Star Wars to Pulp Fiction, from Back To The Future to Apocalypse Now, reproductions, bootlegs and fakes have surfaced for many collectible titles.
An important part of our business is ensuring that we only offer the best examples of original posters that we can find. Only about 95% of the posters we source are ever offered to customers. Most often it is the condition of the poster that lets it down. Sometimes it is because we find a fake.
And so it was earlier this year...
Scarface - One Sheet Movie Poster
Below you will see two posters for Brian De Palma's astonishing gangster movie Scarface. With Al Pacino starring and with an iconic design, the movie poster is highly sought after and commands a premium.
At first glance, the two posters below look very similar...
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Both posters are the same size (27x41 inches) and while there is some colour variation, the inks are bright and vivid.
However, start looking more closely and there are some tell-tales signs. While perfectly legible, in comparison to the poster on the left, the small writing on the poster on the right (particularly the GAU printers’ union logo) lacks definition.
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The poster on the right is also missing the printer's registration mark top centre and a number of printer's crop marks too.
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The poster on the right also has a printing defect in the top left corner of the image.
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Handling the papers, there is also a clear difference between the two.
For the avoidance of doubt, the poster on the left is the original. The poster on the right is one of many bootlegs of this movie poster openly circulating.
This particular fake will not be going back in to circulation. We clearly mark any that we find and keep them for comparison with future examples of the poster that we receive.
So, be careful out there. Buy from a source you can trust (I know, we would say that wouldn't we, but it is true) and remember that if it appears too good to be true, it probably is.
Adam and the Art of the Movies team.
