The area located around, but not a part
of, the artwork of a poster is generally considered its border. Most often
the border is white, but in some cases black strips are present around the
outer edge of the poster. An example would be Indiana
Jones and the Temple of Doom advance, we have both in our archive
and you can see them together.
Sometimes, there are only top or bottom
borders, or borders just on the sides. An odd example would be the 1982
release of Cat
People style B. It has a black border on 3 sides and a white bottom
border. In other cases, a poster will have no obvious border whatsoever.
All movie paper sizes include the area considered
the border. For example, the older one-sheet
is normally sized 27" x 41", which includes the border area. If the border
is trimmed from the poster, it is no longer 27" x 41".
Since the mid-1980's, a growing number of
studios opted to bleed the picture artwork all the way to the edge
of the paper on the one sheet, thus eliminating the border. To do this,
printers had to shorten the poster, so most one sheets now measure 27" x
40" and do not have a visible border. Before this time, the majority of
all one sheets were 27" x 41". Most one-sheets released today measure 27"
x 40" WITHOUT A BORDER.
DOES IT AFFECT THE VALUE OF A POSTER?
Since the border of a poster is NOT considered
to be part of the artwork, common blemishes generally do not have much negative
impact on the value of a poster. However, when these blemishes continue
beyond the border and into the artwork, the value of the poster is affected.
The degree to which the artwork is affected determines just how significantly
the poster’s value is affected.
Trimming the border does have a negative
affect on the poster's value. Border damage should be repaired and/or framed
out. Trimming is never recommended.
