Two Printings of Breakfast at Tiffany's US OS???
Holy shit! So I saw this BAT come up and the small text was off as it extended past the printing "L"s on the lower right side by a fair amount and the left by some. Where the one on my wall all text is within the "L"s... The "61-1506" is also moved dramatically to the left. The NSS statement is also very faded.
I was in process of writing the seller to tell him it was fake when I went to make sure.
Question 1 - aren't the "L"s the printing stops; should there be any text outside of them? I was able to only find one unbacked copy of the questionable printing.
Question 2 - Could these "L" violation be because of a second printing or possible restrike?
Here are the two printings:
Normal - many unbacked copies...
Text overrun:
Larger Image (from heritage - who has sold numerous copies of this version all linenbacked and in pristine condition)
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So one is expensive and the other is expensive?
but also, sometimes NSS printed posters regionally to save shipping costs. so one NSS in the East may print a poster and an NSS in the West may also
LAMP NSS
why Charlie? linenbacking seems to be what everyone wants to do with valuable posters today, regardless of condition.
look at those star wars posters that were sold.
backed for conservation reasons, but why?
conserving posters that are damaged is one thing. to me, backing nice condition posters is the opposite of conservation
I see lots of stuff Dario has been getting when he posts to Facebook and I shake my head that people will do it for the slightest of reasons.
a mint poster unbacked is worth twice as much to me as a backed copy
although that part of my post was tangiential to Charlie's question of authenticity
I see no reason to believe that either copy is not an original release poster, whether it be printed on the East coast, West coast or in Kansas City or as a second run during a popular film's extended showing. Attempting to research any such issues regarding printing, 54 years later, would be difficult at best, especially if no one even knows what printers were used by NSS and no one knows hardly anyone who can be asked any of these question and if they have the answers.
there is so much variation in posters and most people don't realize it because they never really looked
I have had 2 of these 3
on MoPo Cory stated that the KC branch ordered about 4000 posters and if they needed more, they ordered again
there were 7 regional NSS warehouses (or 9?) and all probably used diff printers.
separations might be made at one location, but if they printed again and used a diff printer, the original separations might not be available and the key setup might need to be photographed again.
sometimes one printer may "edit" the color separations to make the item look better in their opinion. The variables are so high that I never bothered questioning them as it would probably drive you insane.
If yuo know what it's supposed to feel like and look like, you know what you have and that was the only question any of us ever had except back then we didn't have all these forgeries and repros and bootlegs. There was no need for minutae
what data do you have that either one is before the other?
Also, you have never had one of the other in your hand, so you can't make a good judgement of what your "gut feel" would be if you had both in hand at the same time
at the same time, we already know that diff NSS distributors printed at different locations with different printers, all during the same time.
ergo, at best what can be said is "there are these variances between the 2 posters. we have no further information" and that's as much as should be stated as factual. Insinuating that one is before another without information doesn't make sense
I don't think that anybody ever considered if a poster was from the opening day or from 3 months later until Star Wars. Generally speaking, the only differentiation in descriptions were "Oscars style" and the like where we knew it had to be after a certain date. super-popular films needed a ready supply of material. I don't think a theatre owner would say "hey. make sure that BAT poster is a first run, first printing and if possible first one off the press. We only exhibit first run pictures so we want first run posters!
Like you, all I can say at 100% is there are clearly two versions.
Now why not a third if they were printed all over the place? Why is it not possible they could be a 2nd printing, or third... Can anyone find other 60s poster where text had been shifted 3 inches? Weird...
I want to know more about how these 60s posters are printed. Why would text move a good three inches when the rest of the poster image is the same. There are a lot of tale tale sign on a BAT - upper left, the left to right slant on the right border. They are all still there. I'll understand more as I understand how posters were made in the 60s...
Now lets say the original plate was done correctly, which it most likely was. It is honestly hard to think that 99 percent of the posters out there get all their text within the printing brackets and this one plate maker would fuck up the first run of posters that the majority of ended up theater used. Now the earliest re-release was in 1965 four years later.
OK my LAMP membership already paying off:
In 1957, National Screen bought Continental Litho in Cleveland. By 1960, NSS made a transition to regional printing and warehousing to help eliminate huge amounts of shipping costs. Plates were made in Cleveland and shipped to the regional print shops where the posters were printed and stored for regional distribution.
So what this means is that there is a good chance that the original film plates were all made in one place, Cleveland and shipped to 18 different regional printers/warehouses. The 4000 Kansas statement is BS...
Now my assumption would be with a regional system that most plates were destroyed or tossed after the first print run. If there was an extra need for posters they would come from other NSS regional locations. However if all regional offices ran out of posters, one of the regional locations would need a second run they would then request Cleveland process and make a new plate.
Cleveland would then drag out the old negatives and make a new plate. All the imagery is consistent between the two version (the pitting and scratch in the right blue border) meaning the same image negative was used.
In the mean time storage and heat (most likely) has deteriorated the adhesive (like Matias' lobby cards negative - which I am now certain are for offset printing) and loosened the text bits.
Cleveland places the negative, straightens the loose bits exposes the plates and sends it off to the regional location.
Some make it out, the other end up in pristine condition and stacked.
saying "The evidence is there. How about somebody prove me wrong? Your statements are no more evidence than mine." starts with a falsity (the evidence is there, when the only evidence is more than 1 printing) and proceeds with a circular argument (you can't prove it isn't so I must be right)
the bigger problem is that with a complete lack of any information, you claim one must be first and the other must be second but if that were true, you still can't show which one was first and when you do something like that, you damage the material.
when you find real facts, we'd all like to see them. WHEN you find real facts