Marc Chagall Bouquet de Fleurs Lithograph Poster

Darling, with all due respect, I don't know if you are trying to be argumentative, or you just don't get it or you are incapable of understanding.

Wow! You sure got me there. Boy, do I feel foolish now. You are 100% right. ADL was offered as a possibility, and while holding that idea up to my own special brand of scrutiny, I ran with it. I assumed that if ADL issued and sold posters, there would be a gift shop, or a web site with a virtual gift shop, or a gift shop table set up at an awards dinner -does it really make any difference? Seriously?

This is obviously a fund-raising poster, as all gift shop and museum shop posters are fund-raising efforts, as such the quality of the posters doesn't really vary that much. I wrote 1985, because that was what I see as the hayday of framed museum shop posters, though museum shop posters were made before and are being made and reproduced today. I could have written, 'from 1970-the present', but I was certain that would lead to a transgression like the one we are enjoying right now. Oh, well.

I am confused. Are we talking about your piece being an original litho (hypothetical or not) or are we talking about the manufacture and sale of original artists stone lithographs? Which would you like to learn more about?

No, your misreading and misrepresenting of what we wrote is ridiculous. Alec said nothing about the value of artists stone lithos. I said that if an artist made a stone litho, and you took a photo of that litho and you made a cheap poster print of that litho and you sold it in a museum shop in 1985, and then if the person who bought it tried to sell that very same poster print in a garage sale today, I would expect they might have trouble getting $1 for it.

Original Artist prints made with the stone lithography process can be quite valuable. Got it?

Poster Prints of those valuable Original works might not be worth the paper they are printed on.

The problem lies in the misleading antiquers jargon. If you were to sell a poster print of a Van Gogh painting as "original oil painting poster" that designation may be right but confusing because it isn't accurate. Which part of it is original? the painting or the poster. Are you saying there were never any posters of this painting made before, because we know it is an original Van Gogh that was photographed for the poster print. In the case of a Chagall poster, where Chagall was commissioned to create a unique work of art just for that poster, the designation 'original lithographic poster', might be used if you intend to state that an original litho was created to make the piece. However, that designation is confusing because you are not selling the actual work of art that Chagall produced. A more accurate designation might be 'Poster Print from a commissioned Chagall art work"

Are you tired yet? I'm getting there.

I don't know if 1970s museum posters are selling for much. If the image was one that folks wanted to see, or if it peeked a particular interest, or if the printing was particularly fine (By fine I am thinking of some of the Italian or German printers of such material) or if it had a campy 1970s vibe or font, then I wouldn't be surprised to see someone pay the same price they would pay for a new print at allposters.com, (about $25) however those are all big ifs. If I hung said poster in my antique store priced at $25 unframed, I would expect it to hang in that spot till dooms day before that one special buyer came around.

Now, if you want to start collecting these posters and try to create a market for them, more power to you! If you had an allposter.com format, with a large collection of so called 'collectible' posters, you may be able to create a stir. And doing that would make you the expert in these materials in short order. I mean, shopping at allposter.com is a sterile experience and I am sure there are buyers willing to pay the same price for the same quality poster but one that is out of print and no longer available at any site like allposter.com. The main problem with these posters is that they fade and the paper yellows while allposter.com is offering the same type of thing with new printing on bright shiny paper.

The main problem with a marketing strategy for old museum poster prints is that when allposter wants a new inventory of posters, they just push a button and wahlah they have another 100 posters sitting neatly on a shelf in their warehouse that they can get $25 a piece for, while an antique collector has to go to 1,000 garage sales before they can replenish that inventory, and oh my gosh, the headache of organizing them in a warehouse.

 

"So, acorrding to you an Alec such stone lithos are not collectible."

Please leave me out of it! I never made such a statement. In fact, they can be valuable.

 

There is a vibrant premium price market for out of print posters, whether stone or offset, from vintage to as recent as the 2000s. Here are the rareposters pages for Chagall. If interested you can also look at their other offerings

http://www.rareposters.com/index.php/catalogsearch/result/?q=marc+chagall

 

I don't know. There is nobody else to talk to. I feel like discussing(arguing). I can't believe I got you the ADL gift shop. You seem unbeatable
I pretty much got everything but one - so, according to you all museum posters are offsets and there is no such thing as original lithographic poster made straight from the stone? Or maybe I got you wrong.
There are original posters made personally by Chagall, lithographs, signed, with text of the events, printed and published by reputable European houses.
I also consider the posters done by Charles Sorlier to be kind of 'original' or at least much more valuable than the reproduction ones. They were stone lithographs, made with the permission and under the supervision of Chagall himself. I wish I bought one of these for a dollar.
My poster, I don't know. I cannot tell if it is a litho or not. Wish I knew how to do that. Looks better than cheap print but I don't have a lot of experience handling originals. But if you say it is not, I believe you because you seems to have a good knowledge in prints.

Now, I would be happy to hear your comment on the Mao serigraph from my other topic. Is there anyway I can find if it is an original serigraph or a reproduction? According to its size it is possible the publishers and printers text to have been trimmed. It is just a bit narrower than what the original is supposed to be.
Thanks

 

Is the off-set poster market vibrant? That's a shocker. The site you linked, rareposters.com, sells a lot of real lithographs made exclusively for shows and these sell in the middle hundreds, but what I would call a 'poster print' and you call 'off-set' they call a 'fine art print' and one from 1973 is selling for $20.00 on that site.

 

That's correct.

To learn the difference between stone lithography and off-set, you need to study. There are sites that give tutorials on what you can expect to see through a loop. You can also follow the suggestions I offered above, take a print making class and make a litho, go to a museum print room and ask them to pull lithos, etc.

I will look for your Mao topic.

 

The site you linked, rareposters.com, sells a lot of real lithographs made exclusively for shows and these sell in the middle hundreds, but what I would call a 'poster print' and you call 'off-set' they call a 'fine art print' and one from 1973 is selling for $20.00 on that site.

lilfont, search rareposters for "offset lithograph," narrow search by price. Currently around 3,000 items ranging from $10 to $2,500.+

 

In regard to Rare Posters dot com, I just took a closer look at the search you suggested. Thank you.

I think what they (rp.com) are doing right is that they also sell high end posters, art work and art books. No doubt they may go to a sale and pick up higher ($500+) and lower end (under $20) pieces
I still can't believe that selling only offset poster prints would make for a thriving business model. You can price a poster at $500, but that doesn't mean it will sell. I'm still having a hard time believing that there is a serious market for offset posters. Who buys them? I guess, there has never been a shortage of fools.

As a pretty decorative piece for 20 bucks, sure. As a $2,000 collectible, at that price I'd rather invest in real art or sterling. But if you can buy a poster print for $2 and sell it for $2,000, who wouldn't? I'm just saying, more power to you.

I went to the site to check out the offset posters and I was shocked.

I entered 'offset lithograph' and sorted the search by price and indeed there were around 3,000 listings starting at $10 (which doesn't say rare to me, and several of the same baseball poster show up on the first page. In the $10-$20 range I found what I would expect to see, quite a few museum poster prints (surrealism, Botero, impressionists, Pop Art, Art Deco graphic art, garden watercolors and babies). These are the kinds of things you see on Allposters.com, but I have to admit they were chosen with a decorators or art lovers eye, even if geared to the broadest market. I'd like to imagined that $20 would be the nut for these posters but the under $20 prices only number about 100, while those priced $20-$30 number about 240 ($25 being the apparent nut)

200 @ $35; 600 @ $45;

I am a little shocked at this point, as only about a third of their off-set posters are priced under $46, a price that seems in line with the new poster market.

180 @ $ 50; 120 @ $60; 330 @ $75;

At these 600 or so posters is where I start scratching my head. These are for the most part posters with bold, stirring images from the usual suspects: Magritte, Pop Artists, Movie Legends and odes to a Harley Davidson. I am thinking, if I were helping to decorate a friends home, I might steer them to a poster like this to frame for wall art. But nothing in this selection looks any more or less ordinary than what I can find at Allposters.com. I'm wondering what is the appeal of this site over allposters?

30 @ $100; 450 @ $125;

The prices jump from $75 to $100, and that's the point where I spit out my coffee onto my key board. To my way of thinking, for $100 I should be able to go to an art fair and find a wonderful little something from an emerging artist (I remember seeing the most enchanting glass 5" busts at an art's booth in Coachella Valley a few years back and I still regret not buying one at $125!)

This is about the half way mark.

Okay, in this range I am seeing the Leo Castelli gallery posters, which I will grant are collectible, and always made on good quality paper and top quality printing in limited editions without reissues. If you were going to collect off-set printing these might be some of the hallmarks.

If I were buying an offset poster from rare posters in this range, I would be very careful of what I was getting and it's relative value. Many of these posters don't seem to fit the value and the sellers also seem to be taking shots in the dark perhaps asking a ridiculous price hoping to snag the buyer who equates value with the cost, if it's too low, they think it's crap. I am also seeing quite a few of these with a big purple "MAKE OFFER" button.

Also, the descriptions on these items is deficient, that would make me, as a buyer, skeptical. To not take the time (for a $125 item) to list the museum, date, and any information printed on the poster, is unconscionable. It makes me believe that they are hiding something, trying to make it hard for me to research what I am buying -meaning these posters are probably objectionabley over priced (otherwise why wouldn't they tell me what they are selling?) They also list "Estimates" on their Make-an-Offer items that are not in line with the search parameters, which seems like a double red flag that would make me run from this particular site.

What is the draw? I have to admit that the search engines at sites like All posters are atrocious. (You try to narrow your search with more words and actually are broadening it.) Am I paying a premium ($50+) at rareposters.com for a better search engine and a marketing that boarders on being crass and pretentious? I mean, pretentious sells, right? Also if you click their suggested-you-might-like listings, at the bottom of the listing pages, you are sent to a registration page. You are not allowed to view that very precious item. That is another red flag that reminds me of the Emperor's New Clothes, forcing me to jump through hoops before I am bestowed the privilege of seeing their 'private' gallery. Sheesh.

In this price range I am seeing museum posters from 1968, for instance. Personally, I really don't want a faded, (shows slight signs of wear) artist's show poster, I would rather have a modern poster depicting that same artists work. Now if it were a rock show poster from 1968, that's another thing. Or a hippy freak out poster from 1968, okay, but a faded poster of an obscure James Rosenquist show from 1968? I'll pass even at $20, let alone $125.

I am gob-smaked that anyone would pay that price for the vast majority of the posters they have listed at this price range. There is no way to tell how many, if any, they actually sell at $125. I am not saying that there aren't posters worth $125, just that most of these seem ridiculously overpriced. But as PT Barnum said, there's a sucker born every minute. I will bet you anything if you offer to sell to Rareposter.com most of these posters they have listed at $125, they wouldn't pay you $75, or even $50, I bet they don't pay over $20 for them and maybe not even that. I am sure they would tell you that they don't buy through the internet because they can't see the item. And if you showed up at their offices in New York with an exact poster listed in that price range, They would either say flat out they aren't interested they got one all ready that they can't sell or they will tell you that they don't buy, but have buyers who work for them. No, they can not give you the contact information of any of their buyers.

This company does also sell real art and they sell a lot of art books. I imagine that their real money comes from the sale of artist signed work, they probably purchase large (dealers) lots and from estate liquidations (final day), so these off-set litho posters are probably a way to sell the better offset posters, but also try to make a buck off of the dregs that come along with their large lot purchases. I don't know. I can't imagine that they scour thrift shops looking for it.

90 @ $150; 120 @ $175;

This is the price range where I am throwing up in my mouth a little bit.

180 @ $250; 30 @ $275; 30 @ $350; 30 @ $375;

Suddenly the prices jump from $175 to $250. Okay here they have that image made for the poster by Chagall, but it's a reprint of the original poster made 10 years later, at $250 you have to be a little impressed that rare posters finally does take the time to tell you a little about what you are buying and make an effort to describe the printing to a minor extent.

Here's a $250 poster Deyrolle Le Thé
that has languished at BIN on eBay for ages
Planche pédagogique Deyrolle Le Thé
€16.50/$22.42 + €11.35/ $15.42 international shipping (That's $37.84. If I could purchase posters on eBay for $37.84 and talk someone into buying them from me for $250 plus shipping, I'd be making millions, too.

I will grant that many of these are portfolio signed prints, but I would still be skeptical of paying that price for an offset.

One of the mysteries of the selections in this price range is the great number of posters where they don't even have an image (Image Coming Soon) or title (Unkown), how weird is that?

I mean, I know my job here, if this is a debate and I am trying to support my first assumptions and beliefs, but come on, they are making it too easy.
And another red flag is that sometimes they show the prints framed and matted and other times not, are they selling the frame with the poster? Well, no, they are not.

30 @ $400; 30 @ $450; 30 @ $500;

Now we are over the 2/3 point of their listings?
at this point my eye did catch a 1940s French movie poster, which would seem to be priced okay. A 1960 Picasso poster. One off images for the Metropolitan Opera and Gallery (not museum) posters and billboard sized posters.

30 @ $700-875; 30 @ $875-1,800; 30 @ $1,800-5,500;

If you catch me buying any of these posters at that price, you may have grounds to get me committed.

Conclusion:

First of all, the numbers listed above are general and reflect the search pages (30 items per page) rather than the actual offerings, if that makes sense. I did not look into these listings in a very detailed way. However, I will admit that there is a more healthy market for offset posters than I ever imagined, I will concede that for sure! I just don't believe that this site is an accurate refection of what most dealers can expect to see, price wise. Perhaps cut the prices in half, and in some instances even by a quarter and that may reflect what you would expect to get in your shop if you let it sit there for a year or two.