Lithographers
took the artwork from the studios and created the 'plates' that printers
used to PRINT the posters. The early lithographers were also the printers
and quite often the shipper for the studios.
Because the movie industry was a lucrative business
for the lithographers, lithographers for the film studios were constantly
battling FOR studio business and then to KEEP the studio business.
The original posters were created by a process called
Stone Lithography.
When limestone became a problem to get, the industry moved to zinc plates
and eventually to Offset printing.
We are gathering reference information on the different
lithographers including their company logos and their plate numbers to
help with the dating process of older posters.
The largest were of course Morgan and Continental and we have a great
deal of information on these.
Before we get into the numbering system, let's take a
look what this information mean for us poster collectors and how
it can help us?
Several things:
It gives us an added resource for authenticating and
dating a movie poster, particularly pre-NSS posters.
You can look at the name of the lithographer who printed
the poster. You can date the poster within the time period that that particular
lithographer operated. For example, if a lithographer only printed
for a certain period of years, then any movie posters with that lithographer’s
name would have to have been within the same period.
In some instances, a lithographer would change his logo.
In these cases, further research could more precisely pinpoint the time
period.
The logos of lithographers can also be used in conjunction
with the movie studio logos. By identifying the time period that the two
logos were used by the lithographer and the movie studio, you can generally
date a movie poster.
Here's the Lithographers that we have on file:
