Although I covered the walls of my room with posters in my early youth already (to the despair of my dear mother), I only began to collect them - as a hobby - in large numbers in 1977 during a business trip, like one of my idols Fred Schneckenburger.

The story of my life as poster collector is the subject of my first web poster exhibition, which also shows the type of works that I collect. I consider Rene Wanner's Poster Page a very personal form of expression, and therefore many private details are distributed throughout the pages, for example in a web exhibition that describes a typical collecting trip to Poland, my relation with Jan Mlodozeniec and Franciszek Starowieyski, a meeting with the Faldin family in St. Petersburg, or Aleksander Chantsev, Iurii Bokser and Igor Maistrovskii in Moscow. Occasionally, the police tries to participate in my poster trips.

Since September 1997, I am in so-called early retirement (not quite voluntary), and spend my time on Rene Wanner's Poster Page and various other poster activities, but I am neither a poster dealer, graphic designer, art historian nor journalist and run this page for fun, and at my own expense, so far. I had the honor to be a jury member in international poster competitions in Kharkov (UA), Moscow (RU), Tehran (IR), Hangzhou (CN), Paris (FR), Skopje (MK), La Paz (BO), Heidelberg (DE) and in many international online competitions.

In addition to collecting posters, both in printed and in digital form, I also collect information on posters and their designers for a Poster Bibliography, an activity that brought me in contact with many poster centers and libraries and specialists and designers throughout the world.

I live in a small town close to Basel, Switzerland, and my hobbies include the internet, computers, photography, travel, books and posters, as you may have guessed.

 
• What's this poster worth ?
  I am not a dealer, and cannot help you with this question. Also, appraising is a professional activity, has legal implications, and the advice is usually not free.

  How could you find out yourself ?

  • Try to find the poster, or a similar one, on ebay. Look at the prices that are actually paid, not the ones that are asked. You could also offer it for auction, setting a very high reserve price, and see how high it goes (but many buyers hate reserve price auctions)
    
    
  • If you know the name of the designer, google or another search engine may bring you to a poster dealer who has it listed
    
    
  • Many poster dealers in my link list have databases with price lists and reproductions of the posters
    
    
  • The International Poster Gallery has a page with general guidelines on poster values
    
    
  • Poster Auctions International regularly publishes a list with thousands of poster prices from their auctions
    
    
  • Buy one of the poster price guide books
    
    
  • For movie posters there is Jon Warren's movie poster price guide, John Kisch's Poster Price Almanac in online and book form, Bill Weiland's Movie Poster On-line Price Survey, Stanislas Choko's book on french movie poster prices, and finally Bruce Hershenson's excellent FAQ with more comments on movie poster prices, and price guides.
   

• Is it an original or a reprint or a reproduction or a fake?
  Only an expert can tell, and even they are sometimes fooled. They look for paper condition and print quality, printer's marks and numbers, picture and paper size. An expert is usually familiar with the characteristics of known reprints, like off-colors or print method. Sometimes only a direct comparison with a undisputed original can tell. What makes it even more complicated is that originals are sometimes printed on different stock of paper, with or without or with different lettering, or the color may change during the print process, purposely or by accident.  

• Where can I buy a poster of a green whatchamacallit?
  
  • Try the shops that sell contemporary posters and reproductions
  • Try the picture search function of google or another search engine
   

• Can you help me to sell my posters ?
  No.  

• I am a poster designer and a fan wants to buy my posters. How much should I ask ?
  If your fan's name is Rene then give it to him for free, you make him happy and it may even wind up some day on his web page.
  For all others you could consider the prices that top people like Niklaus Troxler or Milton Glaser or Henning Wagenbreth are asking. If a dealer buys it from you, you will soon after find it in his shop or auction for a multiple of what he paid you. That's life and he wants to eat too.  

• Who are you ?
  I am Rene Wanner, a poster fan and private poster collector.  

• Who pays for this page ?
  Me.  

• How can we help you ?
  I am a poster collector: If you like what I am doing please send me posters, or poster books. I am also collecting digital images of posters.  

• Where do you get all the information from ?
  From my friends and readers like you. And I surf a lot.  

• Can you make a link to my page ?
  Yes. I always check if the link would be useful to the readers of Rene Wanner's Poster Page, and that the page is up and works. Flash pages that take longer to load than my attention span might have a problem. I would appreciate a reciprocal link on your page, and a catalogue, if you are a poster dealer, or a poster, if you are a designer.  

• Can you include my email address on your list?
  Yes; again, it should be useful to others on the list.  

• Can you show my posters on your page ?
  Maybe. When it comes to posters, I am too easily excited, and I regret that I have promised web poster exhibitions to more designers than I can ever make, and so there is a long waiting line. Unless I get excited about your poster. In any case, I would expect to receive a paper copy of the posters, see this news item for more details.  

• Can you change a poster, or phone number, or portrait on an old web page ?
  Posterpage is a historic document that preserves what happend in the poster world since 1997, but also reflects changes in web technology, cameras, social websites and so on. My changing poster preferences and web skills also influence it. Each page shows the date of creation or last change.

  Posterpage currently has about 30'000 objects (texts, pictures, links). The average lifetime of a link is about 3 months, because many web designers just delete or move what is no longer current. I prefer to keep everything like it was when I entered it to underline the documentary character of Posterpage. I also hope you understand that I lack the time to keep all old pages and links up to date.

  Obvious mistakes when I make a page do happen, and are still fixed on request.  

• How can I access the information in the Poster Bibliography ?
  The database is not publicly accessible, and I do not give it away for free, considering that I worked on it for about 30 years without any outside support. Please if you have a specific request.  

• When will the Poster Bibliography be published ?
  As soon as I find a publisher.