Tips on How to Collect Vintage Hollywood

Tips on How to Collect Vintage Hollywood Signed Photos Safely
Vintage Hollywood is an incredibly rewarding area for an autograph collector. Scarcity and popularity keep values high. Classic films have endured and the stars have emerged as cultural icons. How many teens today can name authors or political figures from the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s? But who doesn’t know the names James Dean, Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe or Humphrey Bogart?
Values are further buoyed because the buyers with money—Baby Boomers and Generation Xers—grew up in the shadow of that silver screen era. It evokes nostalgia and a longing for a glamour that seems lost in this day of rapid-fire blockbuster action flicks. Prices for the most enduring names have been climbing for years, and recent auctions show that they are holding their value even in the face of the current recession.
The most compelling reward in collecting vintage Hollywood signed photographs is their sheer beauty and owning something autographed by timeless stars. The photos are objects of art with flawless lighting and composition.
Demand is high for genuine, high quality autographs and supply is scarce. That fact cannot be overstated. Thirty years ago when I first started collecting vintage Hollywood, there were very few pieces to be found. At that time, they were practically worthless. But as popularity has grown, so has the value. This has opened the door for an astronomical number of forgeries.
Whether you’re collecting vintage Hollywood for the passion for the era, or simply as an investment, you need to collect smart. There’s no substitute for working with an ethical, well respected dealer who specializes in the area to ensure that you are getting authentic items. But there’s a lot you can do to separate likely forgeries from the likely genuine items.
Let’s talk about the history of that time and the factors that created the scarcity, and then go over some pointers to help you authenticate and assess the value of vintage Hollywood photos.
Authenticity Tip No. 1: High Quality PhotosIn the 1920s and ’30s, the Hollywood studio system created a method of marketing and merchandising each studio’s star independently. If you were a rising star under contract, say at Paramount, the studio would actually employ a team of photographers and public relations people to decide what your look would be, how your hair would be cut, what restaurants you would be seen at and who you dated. They literally marketed you, as a person, to the world.
Just like today, there was no way that a film star could fulfill the demand for autographs. In order to keep up with the fan base, the studios would employ legions of secretaries to sign photographs and mail them out to people who requested them. Secretarial signatures are the norm for any fan request returned by mail. So, not through any devious intentions on anyone’s part, tens of thousands of secretarials were turned out by the studios to send to the fans who would write in for an autograph. Because of this, it’s very difficult to assess how many secretarial vintage Hollywood autographs exist.
The great stars had access to the best quality of photographs. For instance, when you see an oversize Carole Lombard, it’s on double-weight photo stock, and either Otto Dyer or Eugene Robert Richee is usually the photographer. They’re exceptional photographs and they are what Lombard would have had personal access to. So, if a friend, a colleague or a fellow star requested an autograph, she would generally take one of these photographs, inscribe it to the person and present it in person—much differently than something you would receive in the mail from the publicity department of the studio.
These facts give the first important clue in determining authenticity: high quality inscribed photographs are much more likely to be authentic than single-weight glossies, which are probably secretarial signatures or forgeries.
When a Marilyn Monroe signed photograph surfaces, nine times out of 10 it was a double-weight, high-quality photograph, not a flimsy, single-weight, glossy. Marilyn Monroe, in particular, did not sign fan mail. She would sign photographs to friends and intimates, and people who worked with her. There may be a few dozen or so authentically signed Marilyn Monroe photographs in the world. Keep that in mind as you visit websites and galleries that always seem to have Marilyn Monroe signed photos for sale.