Re: Charlie Chan's Courage - Vintage Movie Theater Pressbook
Lou,
My pleasure. Sorry if my original reply was negative in tone. I’ve been a Chan Fan and collector/watcher of Chan collectibles for many years. Press books are indeed very cool and yes, some of them are quite scarce or even never been found as of yet. Same with much of the Chan print material. However, some of it is more common than sellers would have us believe. It’s just that unless the owners are pressed to sell they have no interest in listing what they have and thus letting people know how common some of the stuff is, otherwise it will lower the potential price (excess supply relative to demand).
It is this way with many collectibles, even the stuff that wasn’t designed to be collectible. Such is the blessing and curse of eBay. Broad access to many collectibles which also shows how many of an item are available.
As for the eBay listing. Yes, $159 is the opening bid and of course someone could win it at that price or be out bid with the potential for bidding to exceed the “buy it now” price of $314.50, which as you surmised, is the “I don’t want to bid, I just want to buy it” price.
Anyway, always happy to shed light on anything Chan related that I can.