I will trade any poster/s on this site for Richardson Studio daybills.

Welcome to our website, a site for collectors. Over a period of time I will list a variety of items including movie posters for sale.  Have a look around. I have created several categories and will be listing items regularly.

www.aussieposters.com has evolved from my username on ebay.com. My feedback rating has over 1200 positive transactions. I have been a collector/trader/seller of vintage movie posters for the last 10 years but I only sell to afford to collect:-) My passion is primarily Australian movie posters but I am always seeking the best artwork for a favourite title. Often the best artwork for a title is Australian especially if Richardson Studio produced the poster.

Richardson Studio daybills are among the most highly sought daybills and one of the few movie posters that are collected as much for their art as for the movie they advertised.

John Richardson started Richardson Studio and provided art primarily for Paramount releases from the 1920s to 1960s. Even when art was not created by Richardson himself, the daybills design provided a consistency of style and fine use of both the earlier stone litho and later hand-litho printing processes.  

From the 1940s to 1960s most Australian movie posters were produced with far more human involvement/assistance than other techniques therefore daybills from this era are often referred to as “hand litho”. This unique process is recognisable by its rich texture of colour and subtle tones.

"Hand lithos" were made using flexible zinc plates that were rolled around a large printing drum. The term 'hand litho' comes from the fact that the inks were applied to the plate by hand by the printers/artists who worked from tracing drafts they either executed themselves from reference material supplied by the distributors, or where the distributors contracted art studios (like Richardson for example) to execute the artwork.

Some collectors classify them as the same. Also for some reason some dealers think that listing the poster as 'stone' litho raises the value.

It's fairly easy to tell the difference between them - simply put a hand litho next to a stone litho daybill and the differences are obvious. Stone lithos have a finer grain to the inking, a greater subtlety to the shading and colors, a finer line to the black plate art, and so on.

A hand-litho actually requires a degree more skill than stone-litho.

On most of my ebay listings I refer to the artwork and the colours on an Australian "hand litho" movie poster as “off the planet” and “leaves all other versions for dead”. See for yourself with "The Blue Dahlia" a great example of a Richardson Studio daybill.

Prior to the 1940s stone lithography was the most common movie poster printing process in Australia. This process was replaced primarily due to World War II.

Stone lithography was the first printmaking technology that allowed artists to work using traditional techniques, and to create prints that could rival an original painting in terms of detail, mood and color variations. Stone lithography was extremely popular and invented in 1798, and even though more modern methods have replaced the majority of its uses, it is still practiced today by some artists and lithography studios.

The basic idea used in stone lithography is extremely simple:

1. The artist draws/paints on the stone with a greasy substance. For example, a litho crayon is a soft waxy/greasy crayon. There are also litho paints and pencils. The stone picks up this greasy substance and holds it.
2. The stone is moistened with water. The parts of the stone not protected by the greasy paint soak up the water.
3. Oil-based ink is rolled onto the stone. The greasy parts of the stone pick up the ink, while the wet parts do not.
4. A piece of paper is pressed onto the stone, and the ink transfers from the stone to the paper.

The artwork and borderless format produced for RKO is very appealing. Have a look at this beauty - "Where Danger Lives"

Vintage Australian movie posters are often extremely rare. Print runs prior to 1960 serviced a population of under 10 million people. Therefore print runs were very small, especially 1 sheets. Most cinemas didn’t want to afford the cost of a 1 sheet so very few were printed. It is also believed that as few as 200 1 sheets were printed for films prior to 1950. Daybills were cheaper to buy but they were also used and discarded. If the film was popular even less survived.  What a rarity, an Australian 1sh for Forbidden Planet. Colours are far more rich than the USA version!

There are numerous other printers including Jno Evans & Son, Marchant & Co., W.E. Smith, Hackett Offset, Simmons Ltd., Paper Products Litho, Victory, Mathews & Co., F. Cunninghame, Robert Burton and a few others. Each have there own distinct charm and character and they too have artwork that is unique and special.

NOTE:
Daybills after 1940 measure 13x30 inches in most cases.
Daybills Prior to 1940 measure 14x40 inches.