I've never heard of movie lobby cards, but do remember that 25 cents used to buy a candy bar, a coke, and a ticket to the Saturday Matinee at the local movie theater. Got a nickle back in change too.
These original lobby cards, which are really works of art in their own, were apparently a big thing back when a theater lobby was a lot more formal. They appear to be of various mediums: B&W photographs, lithographs based on movie stills, offset B&W lithographs that look to be colored at the lith stage, etc.
I wanted to like this article, but it may need fact checking. It mentioned that 90% of silent films were lost because they were on silver nitrate........ but that's just the conservator's guess. Who, by the way, is also a realtor and historic preservationists, so those figures are, well, just figures.
A quick google search showed the amount of lost films were estimated to be from 70% to 90% (on the first page), and not all silent films were on silver nitrate. I guess they're scanning everything, some of the cards are over a century old. Hopefully that's not Realtor Speak for "They look old. Let's say they're a century old, just to be sure."
These original lobby cards, which are really works of art in their own, were apparently a big thing back when a theater lobby was a lot more formal. They appear to be of various mediums: B&W photographs, lithographs based on movie stills, offset B&W lithographs that look to be colored at the lith stage, etc.
I wanted to like this article, but it may need fact checking. It mentioned that 90% of silent films were lost because they were on silver nitrate........ but that's just the conservator's guess. Who, by the way, is also a realtor and historic preservationists, so those figures are, well, just figures.
A quick google search showed the amount of lost films were estimated to be from 70% to 90% (on the first page), and not all silent films were on silver nitrate. I guess they're scanning everything, some of the cards are over a century old. Hopefully that's not Realtor Speak for "They look old. Let's say they're a century old, just to be sure."
Silent films to live on in movie theater lobby card project
More than 10,000 lobby cards once hung in movie theater foyers are now being digitized for preservation and publication, thanks to an agreement between a collector and Dartmouth College