Here is the reply from Star Wars Movie Posters
Hi Peter, Thanks for your inquiry! It's very cool that you won this poster as a prize from Anthony. To my knowledge there are no bootlegs of this poster so I'm guessing that it an original since it came from Daniels. I can tell you that there are not very many of these larger B1 one-sheets still floating around for sale, either the first Japanese ESB version or your 2nd advance version. Most of the ones that come up for sale are on eBay and they come from collectors in Japan for the most part. You can also find them occasionally for sale on http://auctions.yahoo.co.jp/ where I see a couple of them for sale every year. Search term: スター・ウォーズ ポスター Anyway, Tomart's Price Guide to Worldwide Star Wars Collectibles gives the poster a value of - $45 - $75. However, in my opinion considering its rarity, the fact that it is a foreign SW poster "meaning not from the domestic country of the films origin - USA", and after seeing numerous finalized prices of these Japanese posters for sale in auctions over the last decade, I would say the real world collectors value on it would be around $300 - $500 (185 - 305 GBP). Also, remember that movie poster dealers from around the world would probably want to sell it for at least 2x that amount, simply because they can – because they know collectors want "Star Wars theatrical stuff". Dealers will also only want to give you about half that value, if you were considering them one of them as a buyer. Of course do remember that the condition of the piece affects value (eg. Rolled/folded, tears pinholes etc.) but I looked at your framed copy and the poster seems to be in excellent shape from what I can see, so you don't have to downgrade the price because of its condition. Please keep in mind that ultimately the value of the poster is what you can get from someone willing to pay for it, and for the last few years prices on these type of collectibles (movie posters) have been down due to the economic downturn of most of the countries. If you are going to pass it on to someone else that will appreciate it, do know that what you have is an original ESB theatrical movie poster advance from Japan and it is clearly more valuable than any of the tens of thousands of commercial posters from the Star Wars saga. If you are looking to sell the poster in general, it seems lots of people with these posters go the eBay route when they just want to see if anyone wants to look over their sale items. Also there might be buyers on the many forums around the world like the one you posted on. Also, the two best general poster sites where you could advertise in the "for sale" sections would be these– http://www.movieposterforum.com/ http://stylec.yuku.com/ If you are trying to reach Star Wars collectors in general – I would try here under their classified section- http://threads.rebelscum.com/ubbthreads.php I hope this info helps and please consider donating any sum of money to the archive so that we can continue to help collectors with honest, factual information about these movie posters. I will talk to you soon! Best Wishes! Sincerely, Paul
