eMoviePoster.com

I (Bruce Hershenson) was a major comic book collector/dealer since 1967, and a movie poster collector since 1969. Over the next 20 years I attended or participated in well over 100 collectible auctions, and I was struck by how much mis-representation there was (some due to poor research, and some seemingly due to purposeful deception), how much over-grading there was, how often I was overcharged for shipping, and just generally it seemed that if someone was setting out to make it as hard as possible to participate in these auctions, they could not do a much better job!

So in 1989, when I became a full-time movie poster dealer, and planned for my first major auction the following year, I made up my mind that I would do all I could to "do things right" because I felt that an honestly run auction that treated all buyers and consignors (not just the wealthy ones!) the way I wanted to be treated when I was the buyer or consignor would soon have most of the buyers and consignors flocking to our doors!

From the very start, I did all I could to have accurate condition descriptions, and honest price estimates, but because I was working through Christie's, I could not do anything about their "buyers premiums" or high shipping charges. Still, I found that buyers loved the accurate condition descriptions, and honest price estimates, and those Christie's auctions were all great successes. In 1997 I parted ways with Christie's (because they raised their buyers premiums and refused to let me publish the catalogs myself, as I had done with all the previous ones) and I partnered with Howard Lowery to run three very successful auctions in California.

But I knew that I wanted even more control over the auctions, most importantly to get rid of the buyers premiums, which solely exist to trick consignors into thinking they are paying far lower commissions than they actually do. Of course, when I ran those auctions with buyers premiums I made sure all consignors were fully aware of them, but I don't know of any other auctions that do so.

My time came in late 1999 when I began experimenting with eBay auctions, and I loved that I could not only finally have NO buyers premiums whatsoever (or hidden fees of ANY kind!), but I could also offer giant detailed full-color images of every item (and unlike many other sellers I never "improved" the images in any way), and as an added bonus, I started putting lots of research into the accuracy of our descriptions of the items we auctioned, not only their condition, but also as to the originality of each item (both that it was genuine, but also what release it was from, difficult with non-U.S. posters) and we started offering a LIFETIME guarantee that what we represent about each item is entirely true.

But what does that really mean? It means if we state an item is original (or a reissue, or from a specific country, or in "very good" condition, etc), we stand behind those statements for your lifetime. If you EVER discover we made a mistake on an item you bought from our auctions, you should tell us and we will make it right even YEARS after the fact!

But we don't just stop there!  When we discover any mistake we have made (either because someone has notified us, or simply because our endless research has uncovered a mistake) we immediately research past sales of that same item to see if we made the mistake with them so that we can make it right with those other buyers we sold those items to, even YEARS after the fact (we have contacted buyers about items we sold them a decade ago; see below for more on this!).

Over the next years I have kept improving this "Buyer Warranty" (especially when we left eBay in 2008 to start auctioning on our own site, eMoviePoster.com). This iron-clad "Buyer Warranty" is unmatched by ANY collectibles auction anywhere! For 250 years, auctions everywhere have hidden behind a policy called "Buyer Beware" (which is "A warning that notifies a buyer that the goods he or she is buying are "as is," or subject to all defects.").

This has enabled auction houses to auction mis-described items, mis-graded items, and even fake items, and when a customer calls them on any of these issues, they hide behind their "Buyer Beware", and tell the customer that all they warranted was the TITLE of the item (meaning that when they auctioned a "Casablanca movie poster", all they warranted was that it was in fact a movie poster from Casablanca, and NOTHING about the year it was from, the condition of it, or even whether it was an original or reproduction! This has resulted in tens of thousands of customers being flat out cheated at auctions, with no recourse.

Now you know that we at eMoviePoster.com have NEVER subscribed to this odious "Buyer Beware". But to make certain that there is no doubt as to how safe you are when you buy from us, our iron-clad "Buyer Warranty" guarantees that what we sold you is what we said it was, in terms of originality and condition, and this warranty has no time limit whatsoever! Not only that, but when we discover ANY mistake that we made in the past, we TRACK DOWN all of the past buyers who bought an incorrectly described poster, and we offer them a full refund for the return of the poster (and we even pay shipping).

THERE IS NO OTHER AUCTION HOUSE THAT OFFERS THIS WARRANTY, OR WHICH FINDS THE BUYERS AND NOTIFIES THEM (rather than leaving it up to the buyers to find out about the mistake and contact the auction house).

There are two small conditions to this warranty. One is when we auction Italian posters, where there is no way to accurately date all of them (due to very confusing re-releases that even Italian dealers often can't identify). In the case of those posters, we put what we know about the release of the poster on the auction, and buyers have to accept this uncertainty if we are not certain of the release. The other is when we auction autographed items. We give all the information we know about how the autograph was obtained, and a 30 day unconditional return period, but after that, we do not take returns of signed items. But other than these two conditions, ALL items we auction have our "buyer warranty".

So, know that EVERY TIME you purchase from eMoviePoster.com, you get this iron-clad "Buyer Warranty". Before you buy from other auctions, ask them if they will match this guarantee in writing. And if they won't, shouldn't you be asking yourself whether you aren't better off buying in eMoviePoster.com auctions rather than in other auctions?

See Also:
Did you know... how you can educate yourself on how to tell originals from reproductions?
Did you know... that eMoviePoster.com is the most trusted movie paper seller in the world?
Did you know... that beginning Monday August 27th eMoviePoster.com will have a Hershenson Help Hotline for any problems you may encounter?
Did you know... that we are constantly improving our website and our business in many "behind the scenes" ways?
Comic Strip Archive - Which contains 12 full-color comic strips we commissioned artist Erik Andresen to create for us, many of which illustrate how we stand behind our guarantee.