December 8 in Berlin still feels like November and Guy Clark is singing in my head:

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For those of you who are unable (or unwilling) to come and visit Galerie filmposter.net in person and see my DARK CARNIVAL exhibition, here‘s a link to the next best thing, a 360° view on Google:

THE DARK CARNIVAL is a permanent exhibition, so with the exception of my (truly exceptional) original artwork for MATA HARI everything you see on display is not for sale.

Now I have a shop that has no regular opening hours, and you can‘t buy anything you see. True Postercowboy style and just the way I always wanted it!

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Sorry for starting this post with what is called a ‘Rohrkrepierer’ or ‘barrel burst’ in German, but the obvious answer to the above question is of course NO, Stetson most likely did not copy my post. At least not that I know of. Actually, the entire quote is ‘imitation is the sincerest form of flattery mediocrity can pay to greatness’. I guess there are numerous things Stetson could be accused of these days, them being a worldwide corporation and all, but ‘mediocrity’ is certainly not one of them. At least not when it comes to their hats. They don’t come close to the quality of their 1950s models anymore, but the ones made in their original factory in the USA on mid-century machines are still top notch, no doubt about that.

So what brought this question up? I’m not the only one who couldn’t care less about the annual ‘Black Friday’ hype, so yesterday I came up with the idea to declare ‘Black Hat Friday’, and I thought of myself as mighty smart and the idea as mighty unique. Needless to say, my post did not include any kind of sale, which was part of the idea.

Imagine my surprise when I opened my Inbox this morning to see this message from Stetson, that came in at 7 am this morning, about sixteen hours after I posted my original entry:

I mean, take a look at this ad: Not only do they copy my Black Hat tagline, they also show a cowboy with a black hat, who’s wearing a bandana and hides his face, and they refuse to offer a sale as well.
Could this all be a coincidence? A case of ‘great minds think alike’ perhaps? Could it be that the great people at Stetson are actually following my silly little blog? Am I perhaps on to something really BIG here?

And while we’re at it: The Postercowboy is a life-long fan of Stetson hats, and he considers the Open Road one of the greatest cowboy hat designs of all time. There’s a reason that one has been around since 1937. That said, the black hat in yesterday’s post is NOT a Stetson, it was custom made by Texas Hatters just right outside of Austin, TX sometime in the late 90s.

So could Stetson’s ‘Black Hat Saturday’ ad be some kind of payback for not showing one of their hats in my post? Only The Shadow knows…

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Actually, we prefer to call it ‘Black Hat Friday’ over here…

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November 11 traditionally marks the beginning of the carnival season and this year the Postercowboy has decided to join in on the joy and happiness. Very funny, ain’t it?

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Sometimes, even a bad reputation is an obligation: This week a DHL parcel was returned to the sender as ‘recipient unknown’. The package was addressed to Galerie filmposter.net Helmut Hamm. It also included the correct street name, number and ZIP code, so there is NO DOUBT that the hired help driving the DHL truck must’ve been RIGHT IN FRONT of my shop.

The DHL return label states ‘Returned after address verification: The recipient could not be identified: Name not on doorbell/mailbox.’

You have to give to them, I do not have a doorbell and the mailbox is behind the green door, so TECHNICALLY the DHL moron was correct. What I DO HAVE though is a HUGE sign above a SHOP WINDOW and you would THINK that should be good enough for anyone, wouldn’t you? Better think again. Honest to God, where do they even find these people?

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Starting tomorrow, President Trump the Great and Wonderful has canceled the $800 duty-free limit for MOST imports to the US.

Good news is, there are a few exemptions, which include records, CDs, various other collectibles, and, ta-taa, POSTERS!

For these, the $800 duty-free limit is still standing, provided the customs declaration is properly filled. The TARIC Code for posters is 4911.9100 and this MUST show on the declaration. Rest assured, we know how to do the necessary paperwork.

Due to the new regulations, DHL Parcel Post has suspended services to the US for the foreseeable future. Due to their unacceptable runtimes and limited tracking, Galerie filmposter.net has suspended DHL Parcel Post years ago.

These days, we use either UPS or DHL Express exclusively for deliveries to the US, and both their services are not affected by the Parcel Post ban.

You can find the details on the new tariff exemptions here:

So it looks like either the Great and Wonderful President Trump or one of his super-rich friends might be a poster collector, who would’ve thought!

Be that as may, the exemption is quite a relief of course and the first good news we have received from the White House in LONG time…

Happy Trails,

Postercowboy

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Heritage Auctions in Dallas, the world’s largest auction house for collectibles, just published their annual sales report for 2024: Total turnaround was 1.867 Billion Dollars. That’s $1,867,000,000.00.
Judy Garland’s Ruby Slippers from THE WIZARD OF OZ sold for $32.5 Million, making them one of most expensive collectibles ever sold.

They also sold almost $10 Million in movie posters. On first glance, this is a lot of money, but if you break it down, it only makes for little over 0.5% of Heritage’s total income. Let’s face it, in the big picture that IS somewhat embarrassing… Or as my old pal Rich Haluega from Las Vegas put it: ‘movie posters is the red-headed step-child of collectibles.’

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Here’s another one I had not seen before: The original release German movie poster for SEVEN WONDERS OF THE WORLD, the 1956 Lowell Thomas documentary. I have seen the souvenir program, but never the actual poster:

The movie opened in Berlin on September 23, 1960, roughly eleven months before the wall was built. I always liked posters that were printed for a single cinema, and this one is actually somewhat special:
The movie played at the Sportpalast, a multi-purpose venue in Berlin-Schöneberg that held an audience of 10,000. Joseph Goebbels’ infamous ‘Total War’ speech was held at the Sportpalast in 1943. The building was torn down in 1973. Here’s a photo from the mid-1950s, you can see the cinema entrance on the right:

Two other things are noteworthy about this poster:

Admission prices started at 2,50 DM (app. €1,25), which must’ve been on the lower end of admission prices for premiere cinemas at the time. Yet, we can assume that the better seats were a lot more expensive, as Cinerama was quite a big deal.
Instead of buying your tickets directly at the cinema, they could also be purchased at any other box office in Berlin.

When this film was shown, Berlin was a divided city, but it was still possibly to travel between the East and the West. Visitors from East-Berlin and East-Germany would get a special deal: They could pay in Deutsche Mark Ost, the East-German currency, with an exchange rate of 1:1:

Allowing visitors from the East to pay with their aluminium coins was probably not that unusual at the time (when the wall came down, I worked at venue in West-Berlin and for time, we accepted Ostmark as well). What does make this even more interesting: While it does offer some amazing footage (like the flight over an unnamed volcano, that almost caused the plane to crash due to a lack of oxygen) the film is that the movie is basically a nasty and quite blatant work of US propaganda. One reviewer on the IMDB compares it the works of Leni Riefenstahl. With the Cold War in full progress at the time it comes as no surprise that they tried to lure an East-German audience in.

One more fact I came across when researching the background of this poster: 1960 was also the year that saw an all-time high in the total number of cinemas in Germany: In this year, more than 8300 cinemas were active, 6950 in West-Germany and 1369 in the East. The decline of the cinema civilization started soon after, by 1971 the total number was down to 4163 (3314/849) (Source: de.statista.com).

The poster will go up for sale with my next website update in January.

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John B. Stetson was born on May 5, 1830. The Postercowboy saw the light of this world on the exact same day, 134 years later. Which could be merely a coincidence, of course.

Be that as may, yesterday marked my 60th birthday. I actually couldn’t care less about birthday celebrations, but Mrs. Postercowboy has a decidedly different attitude towards these matter, so yesterday I was in for a surprise party.

Welcome to

where we met a few close friends and spent the afternoon throwing axes! I had actually heard about this place before and always thought about going there but it ended up being one of the things I never got around doing and eventually forgot about.

Silly as it may sound, throwing axes is actually a lot of fun! Like any other sport, it does take some training to really get the hang of it, but it is serious fun from the very beginning. The first things they teach you at Woodcutter is the overhand throw, as seen in the image below. I did ok with that, but not great either.

Back in my teenage days, I liked to throw knives, mostly practising an underhand swing. Turned out ‘trick shot’ axe throwing uses pretty much the same technique I trained back then. Though I haven’t thrown a knife for about 45 years, the underhand throw came back quite natural and I turned out to be pretty good at it. Not that I could actually aim the axe, but hitting the board turned out a fairly easy task from the get go. Not bad for a first day I thought.

Advertising Break: I just checked my website and noticed that while I have a number of posters for William Castle’s gimmick films (that can all be seen HERE) what I do not have is a US Onesheet movie poster for HOMICIDAL, the one with the wonderful tagline ‘WARNING! Strait-Jacket vividly depicts axe murders!’ What a crying shame.

But since it was my birthday, I was in for my own privat axe murder! I managed to slice up my victim from the bottom with a couple of throws, so that its ‘sweet meats’ fell out but the entire thing stayed intact and I could take it home for a souvenir.

After the successful kill, the guys from Woodcutter made a Polaroid:

I think this turned out quite amazing, looks to me like something that could’ve come from a 1970s stalker and slasher movie. I love it!

To complete a perfect afternoon, we had burgers. Sixteen or sixty: Who cares!!!

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