Do you remember when movie posters used to be a popular collector's item? Covering the walls of your basement or bedroom, it served as a reminder for all of your favorite movies and stars.
It seems like there aren't many people that accumulate movie posters the way we used to, but as it turns out, some of the ones that have been collecting dust in our storage room may actually be worth a small fortune.
Considering Dracula was released 86 years ago, not many of the movie's original posters exist today, especially not in near-mint condition.
The vast majority of posters that people see for the movie now are reprints.
A number of factors go into to determining a poster's value. Firstly, they have to be an original copy and not a reprint. Secondly, they need to be in near-mint condition, not rolled or folded. It was customary for the posters in the 80s to be folded down to approximately 11x14 inches and shipped flat.
The value of the poster is also considered by the popularity of the film as well as the number of original prints issued. If the movie flopped or didn't have a big impact on the movie industry, its posters will have a much lower value compared to movies that broke box office records worldwide.
Oddly enough, 12 of the top 15 most expensive movie posters ever sold at auction belong to Universal's Monster movies, including Frankenstein, The Mummy, and Black Cat.
Two examples of this iconic movie poster are known to have survived all these years, and one of them just sold at auction for an unbelievable amount of money.
The 1931 Dracula poster went up for auction on November 18. Heritage Auctions based out of Dallas, was able to sell the vintage memento for a whopping $525,800, setting a new world record for the most valuable poster.
The poster, which features Bela Lugosi as Dracula, was put up for auction by the family of longtime cinematographer and photographer George J. Mitchell Jr., who owned the poster since the 1950s.
The buyer has chosen to remain anonymous.
The previous auction record for vintage movie poster was for $478,000. Two posters went for that amount, including a Michael Curtiz 1946 copy of Casablanca and Browning's London After Midnight printed in 1927.
While Dracula may be the post expensive movie poster sold at auction, it's not the most-valued poster in the world.
That would be the German international print for Fritz Lang's 1927, Metropolis, which sold for $60,000 at a verified gallery sale in 2005.
Do you have any old movie posters hiding in your basement? They could be worth something some day!
Source: Screen Rant / Fox News