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There are three main kinds of re-release lobby sets:

1) This type of set is pretty much the same as the original in every way. Sometimes there is a "Back Again" or "A re-release" added, and of course the NSS changes (if both sets are after 1940). Sometimes they were apparently trying to fool people into thinking they were seeing a new movie, and there is no mention of a re-release (an example is some of the Warner Bros re-releases from 1944 and 1945 when their top stars were off at war, and they re-released their top films from 1935 to 1939 with no indication of being re-releases, except that they switched the kind of paper used, perhaps to save money, because they went from a paper with a high quality linen-like look, to simple "flat" paper).

Original The Adventures of  Robin Hood lobby card	R1945 The Adventures of Robin Hood with same scene and near identical layout

2) This type of set is pretty much the same as the original, EXCEPT the re-release is duotone or one color where the original was full color. This was done to save money. It usually means the film was not expected to make a lot of money (or it was on its third or fourth re-release, so they felt a lot of "selling" wasn't necessary).

Original Mr. Smith Goes to  Washington lobby card	R1949 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington with similar scene but in duo-tone

3) This type of set has a different title card (if there is a title card) and/or the scenes are somewhat to quite a bit different. This normally means this is a good movie that took in a lot on its re-release, so it paid to have all new material designed. Sometimes a star who was not major when the movie was first released has become major in the interim, so their billing and size of them images changes on the re-release (examples are Marilyn Monroe, Alan Ladd and many others). Also, the person who picked the scenes for the first release lobbies often did not know what the best scenes were, so those are sometimes not pictured. On a re-release where new scenes were picked, they often made sure to include the most memorable scenes, so often the re-release set can have better overall scenes than the original.

Original Casablanca lobby card	R1949 Casablanca card with different scene (but it is now 2-color)

There are no hard and fast rules to this, so there are many exceptions to all of the above!

If you want to see what originals vs. re-releases look like (or, in the case of specific cards, to tell if they are originals or re-releases, because it can be tricky in many cases), then please go to http://www.emovieposter.com/agallery/archive.html where you will find the results of 198,249 lobby card auctions, and start looking.

But please, if you find ANY mistakes, no matter how trivial, please email us to let us know what you found, and we promise to correct it! If you solely post here (or on any other forum), we may not see it, and miss it.

Thanks very much for any help you provide!