Flipped my whole approach to bidding on movie props after a disaster at a Prop Store auction in LA

Used to just go in hot on stuff I loved, then I overpaid by $300 on a fake "Terminator 2" prop that turned out to be a replica from a fan film. Now I spend the first 15 minutes of any auction just watching and checking the cert docs before I even raise a finger. Anybody else get burned on a bad COA early on?

2 comments

2 Comments

noahbaker27d ago

Yeah that sounds like the exact kind of burn that makes you step back. I've been doing this for a few years now and the biggest thing I learned is to always call the auction house directly before the sale if the cert looks fishy. Prop Store is usually solid but I've had a couple close calls with smaller sellers listing "screen used" stuff that was really just a replica from a warehouse. I also snap a picture of the back of the cert and zoom in on the paper grain. If it's glossy and thin it's almost always a fake. Did you keep the bad prop or just take the loss?

the_lisa26d ago

@noahbaker the glossy paper thing is dead on, but I've actually started checking how the ink sits on top of the paper. Real studio certs from the last 15 years usually have a slight raised feel to the ink, almost like a screen print. Fakes are always flat, like someone printed it at home on a laserjet. I also check the font kerning on the date. If the letters and numbers look even a little cramped or spaced wrong, I back out. I kept the bad prop I got once, a "hero" knife from a horror movie, just to use as a reference for what to look out for.