Yes, we're tackling another almost impossible task.
National Screen Service actually started in 1920 with
trailers. In 1935 National Screen ventured into posters by providing a
few specialty posters. Because they already had a national distribution
set up for trailers, they were in position to also handle studio advertising
material. Here is when the major studios signed with NSS.
Paramount
signed with NSS Dec. '39, RKO in '40, Loew's in '42, Universal
in 44, Columbia
in '45 , UA
and WB
in '46 and 20th
Century in '47. So the early 40's didn't have all the studios.. For
more info on this see the NSS history section.
There are logs from National Screen that start in 1920
and go to 2002, but those are job logs. This section is trying to document
the posters numbers issued. The following is a list of the NSS numbers
in chronological order as we document them by year. We have attaching
them directly to our archive so you can see images of the posters issued.
We started the list at 1940, so when you look through
the list remember that the first years were a little chaotic. You will
notice in 1940, some of the numbers had a prefix. We have not been able
to establish WHY(??) yet. It may have been regions or studios. We will
continue compiling and researching until we can find out. 2 other years
are quite odd; 1946 and 1948 did not start with the traditional #1...
but started at later numbers. Again, we don't know why yet. And finally,
notice that specialty titles, such as serials, cartoon, newsreels were
issued larger numbers at the bottom (notice the change in sequence each
year)
Also I grouped all the '90's together. As NSS collapsed
there were less being handled so I put them together.
1940
41 42
43 44
45 46
47 48
49
1950
51 52
53 54
55 56
57 58
59
1960
61 62
63 64
65 66
67 68
69
1970
71 72
73 74
75 76
77 78
79
1980
81 82
83 84
85 86
87 88
89
1990s
NOTE
FROM ED
I started this section
with about 2500 NSS numbers that I have gathered through the years of
handling posters. I know the internet is a place where everybody looks
for ways to get FREE information, and we've done our best to provide that
for everyone interested in posters.... but if it wasn't for the few that
recognize that this type of site needs support to remain free (our
sponsors) then we wouldn't be able to keep the site going at all.......
Anyway, I would like to ask for some help in this section.... and I know
that there's bound to be some that are willing to share a little with
us.... and I know that EVERY US poster collector has posters around that
have NSS numbers on them... SO.. I'm asking everyone to check their collection
to see if you have ANY that we don't have listed...
If you have one
or more that we don't , take a minute and send us ..
the name of the movie and the NSS number ... that's all..
In Addition... if you
have a number that is different than what we have listed... also please
send that info.. Nationa Screen made many mistakes and we're trying to
find and document those as well.
Here's a special
email to get it straight to me. click here.
Anyone that sends
us info, we'll add them to our list as contributors below .... just so
everyone can see who's willing to help and who isn't.
ed
CONTRIBUTORS
TO THE NSS SECTION:
A special thanks to
all our number trackers:
Andy Schoenhorn

with over 3000 numbers submitted
Lou Ann Wooley 
with over 400 numbers submitted
Francis Brewer 
with over 200 numbers submitted
Christopher Jones

with over 200 numbers submitted
we really appreciate
the help of ALL our contributors: