Who Collects Vintage Posters? What Makes them Valuable?

The collecting of Vintage Posters was started with the first distribution of the posters themselves. Some art dealers believed they could sell these "advertising" pieces to their customers. They sought out the poster artists and the printers in an effort to secure some over runs. Some dealers and collectors went so far as to remove the posters from their outdoor displays. However, it must be remembered that most of the vintage posters were destroyed in actual use. They were mounted on walls and merely discarded or ripped away when the next new image became available. While Vintage Posters were originally produced in editions that numbered in the hundreds, and sometimes thousands, few survive in their original state. The lithographer's stones did not normally survive past their first printing.

It is the combination of rarity of a poster, condition, artist, and the image itself that will determine the final selling price of an individual poster. Some people purchase Vintage Posters with a specific subject matter, some are looking to work with a particular color scheme, while others prefer the style of a particular artist. At all times, the better the condition of a poster the higher its price. The size of the piece does not always determine the value of a poster.

 

How Did Posters Survive Over the Years?