Dig This Treasure!

The best things I’ve found at an estate sale BY FAR were two original Goonies posters. Actually, Erin unrolled them, but then gave them to me. I’ll bet she regrets that now. I honestly did not originally have the intention of reselling them–I just thought they were cool. Again, a product of my childhood. Here’s what they looked like:

Anyway, this person clearly had owned a theater or at least had worked at one, because he/she had HUNDREDS of original movie posters, all rolled up, most in poster tubes. There were so many in this condition that it was really difficult for us to keep track of what we had already looked at and what was a fresh roll of posters–they were rolled in stacks. Erin thought she was finding gold when she found two Bette Midler movie posters that were signed by that diva, but little did she know that she had given the real gold to her BFF.

Erin and I began hoarding the posters we each wanted to purchase, the whole time uncertain about how much they were charging for each poster. In the middle of our digging, this weird dude (who I will name Shit Disturber) who we’ve seen at other sales came down and started nosing into our bidness, which irritated the hell out of me (shocking), because I did not want to share that giant pile of posters with ANYONE. He started asking us about what we were doing and getting in our way, but I think my bad attitude toward him finally made him leave. Of course, five minutes later, this big burly dude who was clearly one of the dudes hired to look menacing at the sale came down and told us that each poster was $4. Now, at the time, this sounded like highway robbery because we thought these posters were not valuable. We were also pissed that Shit Disturber obviously sent that dude downstairs.

We told the burly man, “Oh really? These aren’t worth anything…” because one thing I have learned from Erin is that if you act like you really know more than someone running one of these sales, they believe you. Sometimes we DO actually know more than the people running the sales about specific items. Other times we don’t. But acting like you do goes a long way. We honestly thought the posters were worthless, but whoops! We were wrong!

Because of this, we started being more selective about which ones we were keeping in our piles. My largest regret, knowing what I know now, is that I did not purchase the two mint original Monsters Inc. posters that were in that basement, because those look to sell for about $90 each. At the time, all I thought was, “Where in the hell are we going to hang a Monster’s Inc. poster?” (You’re welcome, Adam. See? Proof that I DO think of where things that I purchase at these sales might go.)

The task of sorting through the massive number of posters down there starting making us cranky, and we eventually gathered our finds and moved on to another part of the house, where we found a stack of Playboy Magazines from the 1960s. When we determined those weren’t valuable, an old perv swooped in and took most of them. I still bought a couple.

When we checked out, the guy didn’t even LOOK IN OUR TUBES to see how many posters we had! He just took our word for it. (But because we are both very honest people, we told him the truthful count of how many we had.) He also only charged us $3 per poster. Anyway, I ended up with the following original movie posters: Goonies (2 different ones), Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, The Outsiders, Edward Scissorhands. Erin ended up with those Bette Midler ones. Once again, I’ll bet she regrets that decision. Here are pics of the Pee Wee and Outsiders posters:

So one thing we learned right away when we started researching these posters was that most posters from the ‘80s that were sent to theaters were folded. The fact that these were all rolled and never folded made them even more valuable.

So I’ll bet you’re all waiting to hear how much those badboys sold for… right? Well, the first thing I’ll tell you is this: Nobody wants an original Outsiders poster but me. Second thing–Adam really wanted that Pee Wee poster, but once the two Goonies posters sold for so much bank, I told him to deal with it–I was selling it. Unfortunately, Pee Wee only sold for $60 (still… I’ll take the $57 profit).

The first Goonies poster sold for $90.99. The second one (the “Map-Style” rare one) sold for $231.49. Those Goonies nerds all had sniper things on that poster because it went from a $60 bid to $230 in like, four seconds. IT WAS THE BEST.

-Sarah