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John Willis' Theater World Archive (150,000+ pieces)
An amazing archive of theater-related material is from the famed movie theater and movie archivist John Willis of Theatre World and Screen World magazines. This collection consists of approximately 150 boxes of material with a total of about 150,000 pieces. Each box consists of plain manila files on various Broadway and theater shows, venues and stars. Within each file is myriad vintage material including original publicity photo stills (the best stuff in the collection), Playbills and programs including from rare, quickly-closed, obscure shows, various promotional materials, folded posters, movie material, handbills, press releases, letters with signatures from theater execs, tear sheets, clippings and more. There are approximately 1,000 pieces in each box with the breakdown of each (out of the 1,000) to be about 350 photos, 200 programs and the balance of the 450 pieces to be clippings, letters and other publicity materials and theater memorabilia described previously. These numbers are an approximation but should be fairly accurate. We have photographed a group of stuff from ONE BOX. This represents the most attractive items in that single box to give you an idea what one random box entails rather than a group of cherry-picked material taken from throughout the collection. You can also essentially break the collection down into two somewhat equal parts. The first half is older material from the 1940s to the 1970s. Most is '50s and '60s. The second half is more modern consisting of the 1980s to the 2000s. This is a goldmine for the theater collector or dealer. There are tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars of potential breakdown value. Overall excellent condition. The collection is available to be viewed by private appointment in both locations. Because of the immense size of the collection, it is in two locations and the buyer will be responsible for shipping and/or pickup. One is in Central Maine and the other in our Bohemia, New York office
Past Sports Card, Memorabilia, Non-Sports Card and Collecitble Auction Items
Other past auction items that may be of interest to you.
1904 Ringling Brothers Art in Original Frame (21x27" framed)
19th Century Trade Card Collection
Turn of the Century Huebach Figurines with Marklin Bicycles
1954 Ernest Hemingway Original Photographs (9)
Handcarved Wooden Black Boy On Watermelon (35" tall)
Westinghouse Mazda 1932 Jackie Cooper Die-cut Sign
19th Century Alligator Suitcase
