I’ve just been looking at a vintage movie poster sale with items that may reach $120,000 at auction. That’s about £95,000.

The story of that particular item tells us a great deal about how to collect vintage movie posters.

Poster from Charlie Chaplin's film The Kid

Why is this poster so desirable and so highly valued?

It’s from a much-loved and extremely important film.

The poster is of 1921’s The Kid, the film that showed the world Charlie Chaplin wasn’t just a talented clown, he was a great artist who could produce (Chaplin did virtually everything for the picture) genuinely moving work. The story of an abandoned child taken in by a penniless Tramp is packed with pathos.

It’s a fantastic image.

This particular picture is called “The Embrace”. It’s adapted from a still from the movie that shows Chaplin hugging Jackie Coogan as “The Kid”.

In the film, the Kid and the Tramp have just been reunited after they were forcibly and violently separated. You can see Chaplin’s emotion clearly in this very moving image. He might have painted with a broad brush for the silent camera but Charlie was a great actor.

It’s a very rare poster.

All collectibles need to be rare to be valuable.

At times film posters were produced in huge quantities. There were somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000 cinemas in the US at the start of the 1920s. The audience for movies was huge, there was money to be made and great advertising helped to make it.

But, like many now valuable popular culture artefacts, most film posters would have been chucked away. This single-sheet poster is believed now to be the only surviving example of its type. That's extraordinary.

It’s in very good condition.

This poster is over a century old. It was meant to last a few weeks stuck on a wall. Its survival is against the odds. Its survival in the condition it’s now in (“very fine”) is partly due to the fact that it’s been “linen backed” at some point.

That’s how you get a $120,000 movie poster.

Most collectors won’t start there, but they should consider those aspects of the posters they do buy.

Why collect vintage movie posters

A wonderful image from a wonderful film with a fabulous star. What's not to like?

Why you collect will guide what you collect.

I think the vast majority of movie poster collectors do it for the love of the moving pictures.

Some will do it for the graphic quality of the posters themselves. There’s some wonderful design out there, and the most valuable movie poster of all time, for Metropolis, is so beloved because of its perfect imagery.

And some will do it to trade or to invest.

I think the most rewarding collections are those we love.

That have some focus. And have room to grow.

So I would advise anyone to start out collecting their favourite films and then see where that takes them.

If you develop an all-encompassing desire to find the rarest and most valuable film posters then that’s an interest in its own right.

What movie posters to collect

The value of movie posters is highly dependent on which movie is on the poster.

And this will change with time and with fashion.

I was born in the 1970s.

Star Wars is the first film I remember seeing in the cinema.

Now, I’m of the age where I have some disposable cash to spend on frivolities like nostalgic mementos.

And I'd need a lot of it to buy original Star Wars memorabilia now because so many other people are in this position. Demand is high.

Any buyer really focused on value and getting a long-term return on posters will look at current films.

Memories add value to movie posters.

That takes skill. And luck.

If in 1977 you’d decided to source a film poster for a movie featuring Bristol-born strongman David Prowse, there was no particular reason to think that Star Wars rather than The People That Time Forgot would be the one everyone wanted half a century later.

Classic movies, genre posters and stars

Some movies though get to a status that transcends fashion.

Classics.

But classics - those movies universally regarded as the highest quality examples of the art - aren’t necessarily the subject of the most collectible and most valuable movie posters.

They are, however, a very good subject for a collector and likely to provide reliable resale values.

A noir classic with the biggest stars, this is a highly desirable vintage poster.

Classics will not fall out of fashion.

Buy Best Picture Oscar Winners and you shouldn’t do too badly.

The Apartment won best picture in 1960, and you can expect to pay several hundred pounds for a good quality original poster advertising the film.

Shopping a list like the Sight and Sound top 100, one of the British Film Institute’s lists or those films named for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in the States is a great way to compile a collection likely to have lasting value.

But it’s genre films and cult hits that do best.

The top 10 of the most valuable movie posters of all time list is dominated by horror films from the 1930s.

Dracula, The Mummy, Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein… monster classics.

Cult hits like Pulp Fiction and Get Carter are reliably good sellers.

In future, perhaps the cult-hit Gross Out comedies of the 1990s and 2000s will duly take their place in the collectible pantheon.

But it’s extremely hard to predict such trends.

Horror films are much loved by movie poster collectors.

Stars are another good way to theme a collection.

Golden Age stars Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe are the two most collectible women in Hollywood history.

James Dean and Charlie Chaplin perhaps the most collectible men.

Posters for their films sell well. Buyers love these stars and want to celebrate their work.

My advice would be to find a theme for your movie poster collection and make it something you love.

That may be a star or a genre or a director or an era, but it will give you focus.

Rare, genuine vintage film posters

Rarity is key to value.

This applies in all collectibles markets.

It’s most tragically obvious in the case of stars who died young, limiting the supply of new material.

Marilyn Monroe and James Dean were both luminous stars, but it’s not a coincidence that they both suffered terribly early deaths and they’re both hugely collectible.

What a cast that is. But it's James Dean's early death that gives him such cachet for collectors.

Older posters are usually rarer. These were disposable items for short-term campaigns. There’s a natural attrition to such items.

Myriad other factors play into rarity. Perhaps the ideal for a collector is an artistic work that was disregarded in its own time to become very desirable long after it was made. Perhaps Metropolis, which was released to critical bafflement in 1927, fits this bill.

Authentic vintage film posters

Film posters are endlessly reproduced.

They’re designed to catch the eye, and to celebrate a visual medium. They’re usually attractive.

But, when is a film poster not a film poster?

It depends what you want for your collection.

If it’s great imagery then reproductions may well be a better choice for you.

If you want value, resale potential and the thrill of owning real historic documents then you need authentic film posters.

It should go without saying that any good seller will tell you whether you’re buying original advertising materials or reproductions.

Modern posters are much harder to authenticate.

While they are somewhat disposable items, film posters had an important job to do and they were printed on robust paper and with good quality printing.

Collectors prize older posters because they’re often better quality.

As collectors we’re all indebted to the National Screen Service.

This company was a publicity distribution firm for the movie industry. It had US and UK iterations.

The NSS was responsible for getting posters into theatres from around 1940 to 2000 (in the US) and 2007 in the UK.

They dated and numbered posters to tie them to each release.

The demise of this system is one reason why modern posters are very hard to authenticate.

The best protection buyers have is good provenance. Provenance is the provable history of an item: where it was bought from, receipts, letters or certificates of authenticity and so on.

The more provenance you can find or add to an item the better.

Vintage movie posters' condition

Paper is paper. However good the quality it is not a super-durable material.

Good physical condition adds to the value and attractiveness of your collection.

And you’ll need to learn how to store them properly to preserve that condition.

During the 1980s many posters were dry mounted. This irreversible process is something like melting them onto a poly foam.

Collectors do not like dry mounted posters.

Mounting onto linen is much better and has helped many posters from the early movies survive to the present day. Linen takes some of the brittleness out of the item and means they can be stored rolled more easily.

A good seller will provide a condition summary that you can understand, and show any damage in the images of the item they are selling.

Older posters that have been retouched or restored may not lose much in value if the work has been carefully and properly done.

Vintage movie posters should be professionally framed to avoid damaging the poster itself and protected from sunlight, humidity, damp and extremes of temperature.

Valuing vintage movie posters

I would love here to refer you to the Comprehensive World Encyclopedia of Movie Poster Prices.

Sadly, no such volume exists.

Collectibles are worth what you’ll pay for them. Or what you can get for them.

These record prices...