LONDON - A mystery buyer has just forked out £10,200 ($28,180) for Casino Royale film posters, nearly treble their valuation at a Christie's sale here. The six door-sized posters for the 1967 James Bond film, featuring gun-toting women, had a top estimate of £3500.
The buyer also bought about 60
lots in the first two hours of the sale, paying £3600 for a Goldfinger poster, five times the top estimate.
"The really amazing thing was, it wasn't just him who was bidding up prices," said Tony Nourmand of London's Reel Poster Gallery, who snapped up a second Goldfinger image below the top estimate, and lost La Dolce Vita to the unknown buyer.
Prices are soaring for vintage posters as they become more popular with decorators and as collectors are priced out of the contemporary art market. In November, Nourmand sold the most expensive vintage poster, for Fritz Lang's 1927 movie Metropolis, for US$690,000 ($1 million) to a Californian collector.
The previous record of US$453,500 was set in 1997 by Sotheby's for a poster of the 1932 film, The Mummy.
Christie's four-hour sale took in £333,180 from about 400 lots ranging from Humphrey Bogart and Brigitte Bardot movies to Sleeping Beauty and King Kong.
The top lot was Dead of Night from the 1945 movie. It went for £13,200 or more than twice its top estimate. A 1933 Swedish poster for King Kong was bid up to £10,800, compared with a top estimate of £6000.
- BLOOMBERG
