On 06 Sep 97, Dave Shea wrote to All:
 DS>  My mother has a rather large collection of photographs of some major
 DS> Hollywood actors from the 50's and 60's. These photographs are the ones
 DS> given out by the stars specifically to be autographed, which many are.
 DS> She's got Marilyn Monroe, Ceaser Romero, etc. etc. etc.
 DS>  Is there much of a market for photographs like these?
There is, if you are in the right place.  There is a national magazine 
devoted to Autographs and photos.  You should be able to find it at Barnes 
and Noble; I think it is called "Autograph".  You can check ads in that 
magazine to see what the going rates are for some of the photos and 
autographs you have.  You should know that the core group of people, 
nationally, who avidly collect photographs of celebs is pretty small.  There 
is a peripheral group that collects certain things -- like Star Trek fans 
collecting cast autographs, but there aren't a lot of people who collect 
*everything*.  I have seen many instances where signed celeb/actor/actress 
photos fetch only a few dollars. Unless they are a MAJOR star, like Marilyn, 
of course, or Rita Hayworth or Clark Gable or Cary Grant or early stuff like 
Claudette Cobert or Marlena Detrich, they are not worth too much.  I've seen 
autographed studio stills of famous people like Esther Williams or Billie 
Burke (Zigfeld girl who played Glinda, good witch of the north in the Wizard 
of Oz) going for less than 5 bucks.   Bob Hope stuff is cheap, so is Steve 
Allen.  Ironically, Johnny Carson stuff, much more recent, is much higher 
valued than earlier stuff like Jack Parr stuff.  Same with Jackie Gleason, 
whose photos and studio stills are very collectable.  If what you have is of 
really famous people, you may have some stuff of value.  I'd check with the 
autographs magazine.
There is also another cool magazine out there called "Wanted to Buy".  It 
consists of hundreds and hundreds of business card sized ads of poeple 
wanting to buy (obscure) stuff (as opposed to people wanting to sell stuff.)  
I'll look in the current issue to see if I can find any ads of people looking 
to buy old celeb photos and/or autographed studio stills.  If I find 
anything, I'll post the names and numbers here.
--- GoldED 2.50
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