A spectacular one-sheet Style A poster for classic movie Dracula (1931) realised $525,800 over the weekend.

That makes it the most valuable movie poster ever auctioned, edging out the $478,000 paid for a Casablanca one-sheet over the summer.

It led Heritage Auctions’ sale of movie posters in Dallas, achieving a 75.2% increase on the $300,000 estimate.

Only two copies of the type, featuring an evocative portrait of star Bela Lugosi and an eye catching graphic rendering of the movie’s title, are known to exist.

Bela Lugosi played the movie's titular villain 

Heritage explained before the sale: “A 'holy grail' in the world of poster collecting, this striking one sheet is one of the rarest and most desirable of its genre, if not the entire hobby!

“Prior to the recent discovery of this stone litho beauty, only one other copy of the style A format has ever surfaced, a rare find unearthed in the early 1990s.”

Meanwhile, a 1947 French “grande” poster for Casablanca achieved $239,000.

This is one of a handful of extant copies.

The lot displays artwork by designer Pierre Pigeot, who produced a string of exceptional posters for French movie releases during the 1930s and 1940s – including Key Largo and Shanghai.

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