Poster Mountain

Poster Mountain is located in Southern California, an area that is known for its fruit production. We are regularly treated to the sight of massive trailers of oranges, lemons, and other produce driving along the freeways. Before transport trailers became the method of shipping produce, everything was shipped in crates. These crates had labels on the ends that displayed the type of produce and the grower/distributor. Almost every group had its own personal design that they modified slightly for different types of produce, although there were some stock designs kept by printing houses. In some cases labels were produced in the thousands and even tens of thousands. Although like any collectable ephemera, there are some extremely rare labels that are highly valued. Some of the labels are still in good condition because they were never used and were found sitting on shelves in warehouses. However, most of the ones that we work on have been glued to crates, are missing sections and are r

This last month has been very busy! Fortunately some of those projects will turn into blog posts that we will put up over the next few months. However, I am proud to announce that the first episode of our video blog is out! It covers the history and conservation of a rare Harry Blackstone the Magician lithography from the early 1900s. There will be two more episodes in this series about the Blackstone. We will post them here and on our Facebook page.

We hope everyone is safe and healthy after Superstorm Sandy hit the East Coast last week. We  understand that the basics like food, water and electricity are still the top priorities, but for those collectors whose posters and prints have been damaged we have some very basic advice for what to do to stabilize collectables until your life has calmed down to a point where you can begin to think about dealing with your collection. Also, please don't endanger your life for your ephemera. We all love these items, but they aren't worth injuring yourself over. The first step is to remain calm while dealing with any damage your collection sustained. We know that's difficult, but you need to work calmly and slowly so as not to cause more damage while sorting through everything. In general, a lot of issues caused by water damage can be fixed. To alleviate some of your fears here is a before and after of a poster that was badly damaged by water and was conserved and fully restored.

Since it's Halloween, I have been compiling a list of the staffs' favorite horror movie posters. The guys had multiple favorites, picking both posters for the art's sake and ones where they liked the movie. The girls, well, we struggled a little more with this one. However, I think we have a pretty awesome and spooky range of posters. Robin's pick is "Screaming Skull" because she liked the movie, plus how can you pass up the offer of a free burial if you die from fright. Gabe's choice was "The Thing" because it's the only horror movie poster he owns. We also got lucky enough a few months ago to see an original drawing of The Thing by Drew Struzen. Melissa pick was "The Black Cat." Then after a moments thought also added the one with the aliens whose heads look like Brussels sprouts. John clarified for me that this was a poster for the movie "The Invasion of the Saucer-Men."    Junior went with

In 1939 the US was looking back on the Great Depression and forward to the possibility of war with clouds of conflict looming overseas, but they were also looking towards what they hoped would be a brighter future. (Sounds kind of familiar, right?) Technology was thought to be the hope that would spark a turning point in a new world order and the 1939 New York World's fair had exhibitions from all over the world that demonstrated this dream of a better future through technology. And as you might expect, the posters from the fair show the sleek, modern and sometimes futuristic design style that was starting to become popular. And as the title and this brief history lesson suggests, we have the restoration of a New York World's Fair poster as this week's featured project. Pictured: You know when a client tells you to be careful opening the package its never a good thing. This particular package contained a poster that was broken in half. The poster depicts the iconic T