I can categorically state that you people are no fun whatsoever for not taking any interest in my new acquisition. Mr. Fury is excluded, of course.
So over on snowtroopers.ca a guy pointed me towards an auction on a local Winnipeg sales board. Kind of a mini-ebay of sorts, but not auctions, just listings with prices. I contacted the guy and he told me he had several posters. These included an original
Star Wars one sheet style A; original
Return of the Jedi one sheet style A; original
Return of the Jedi one sheet style B and an
Empire Strikes Back re-release poster from just prior to the release of Jedi. He also indicated that the Star Wars poster was a rolled version. If you read through the link I provided you'd know that's pretty darn rare so I just about wet myself at the prospect. We talked for a while, but I wasn't too keen on picking them up, given his asking price (which was fair, btw).
I didn't know much either, so I dug out
the resource I linked above and read about as much as I could. He emailed me back on Monday with a lower asking price and I met up with him yesterday to take a look at them. Here's what he had:
Star Wars Style A One Sheet
You can see pretty easily it wasn't in fact rolled (although he had rolled it) but rather was a folded version. While a little disappointing because it wasn't uber rare, it was a little reassuring because the rolled versions seem to be faked a whole lot more. I took a good close look at it and even measured it with a $1.50 tape measure I picked up at the dollar store prior to meeting up with the dude. Sure enough the dimensions were spot on 27x41 (and 1/8
).
Even though it wasn't rolled, I checked for Luke's "hairy belt" and nope, not there:
Good, next point - Copyright is supposed to be offset/indented by 1/8":
Groovy, check. Took a look at the lower right to see which version we're looking at and it appears to be Version 3 from the website with only 77/21 across the bottom right, no 'Star Wars' below it.
You can see a little tear and this poster and the others have some tears along the folds, hardly a surprise unfortunately. So pretty cool by my estimation and I'd suggest I now own an original release Style A Star Wars One Sheet
I also picked up the following posters from him, all folded and all seemingly the real deal, though I can't be completely positive on these. The information on what to look for in the ROTJ posters isn't as abundant and I haven't found anything really telltale at this point. I am a little concerned about the Style B poster as the markings on the lower right don't seem identical, so maybe it's a later version or re-release
The other version (Style A) seems a good match, and I actually prefer that poster anyway, so I'm happy and feel comfortable saying it's legit. :
Return of the Jedi Style A One Sheet:
Return of the Jedi Style B One Sheet:
Both are in pretty good shape, but some minor tears and some pinholes as well.
The last poster I picked up was an Empire poster from the re-release in the summer of 1981:
There's no record at all of this poster on the site I linked, so I've got no clue at all what the deal is with it. The guy stated he didn't think it was worth much and he was more or less throwing it in with the others so all three movies would be represented. If anyone knows anything about that poster, please let me know as I'm quite curious.
I suppose now I'm in the market for a legitimate Empire One Sheet. I'd much prefer the advance version with the Vader head on starry background but could live with the "gone with the wind" version as well. I'd like to get these linen backed, but I'm not about to send them south because of the customs fees I'd have to pay coming back to Canada
so I'll try and find a place locally. I'll probably go with the place we get our "real" artwork from, rather than the local U-Frame It place. I'm thinking it would be cool to display one of each framed and have the Code 3 3-D versions above them.
