1931 Charlie Chaplin "City Lights" Poster
GUEST: Well, I wasn't really expecting to come, uh, ended up, uh, volunteering to drive my brother over. And so, uh, as I was coming out the door, my wife said, "Take Charlie with ya." Tell me the story behind Charlie. Well, Charlie is from my wife's childhood home, along with a number of posters that were glued to drywall at one time. Uh, this was among those. And of course, during remodeling, we needed to save some things, and... and this came off the wall.
APPRAISER: How did this come to be in the house in the first place?
GUEST: My wife's brother traveled a lot and, uh, uh, picked these up, uh, picked up posters when he traveled.
APPRAISER: And my other question is, how did it end up stuck on drywall?
GUEST: Uh, he did that to a lot of posters. Um, he, uh, things from Fillmore East and Fillmore West, and, and concert posters, uh, ended up just, uh, glued to the wall.
APPRAISER: And how did you get it off the drywall?
GUEST: Um, uh... drywall knife, and, uh, careful lifting. So, yeah, it's, uh... There is a little hole that we think, uh, is from a drywall nail pop, which drywall does.
APPRAISER: Is it still mounted on the drywall?
GUEST: Um, ah, no, it's on the paper. Just on the paper itself.
APPRAISER: So, City Lights was, uh, a Charlie Chaplin film in 1931.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: And it was four years after the silent movie industry became the sound movie industry. And Charlie Chaplin stubbornly and defiantly and rather proudly decided he didn't want to do a sound movie. He wanted to keep up with the silent movie tradition that had been so kind to him and that he-- that he had dominated. And so this movie, done in 1931, even though sound technology existed, was still done silently. That's a pretty extraordinary and a pretty bold step indeed.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: Charlie Chaplin himself was an iconic image in the film industry. He was the biggest star. My news to you, on, on this particular beautiful Sunday afternoon, is that this is an original lithograph...
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: ...from 1931, advertising the movie when it came out in Chaplin's time.
GUEST: Wow. That's really amazing. Um, the colors are beautiful, yeah.
APPRAISER: The colors are beautiful. There's something else about this, condition-wise, which we can't quite see because of the frame. The poster had a larger blank area at the top, originally...
GUEST: Uh-huh.
APPRAISER: ...for text of the theaters it was in.
GUEST: Yeah.
APPRAISER: Uh, and there also would've been a margin at the bottom.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: So, it's... I don't know if you remember when it was framed, were those areas still there?
GUEST: Yes-- those are not there.
APPRAISER: Oh, so they, they had been trimmed off.
GUEST: Yeah.
APPRAISER: Um, so you have a poster that is an original lithograph...
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: ...from 1931.
GUEST: Uh-huh.
That has, by all accounts, seen better days.
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER: With posters like this, they can be restored. In this condition, were it to come up for auction, it would sell for between $3,000 and $4,000.
GUEST: All right, all right. Wonderful. That's, uh, that's, that's nice to know.
APPRAISER: In perfect condition...
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: ...this most recently sold for almost $7,000.
$3,000 - $4,000 Auction
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