This is part of my ongoing coverage of San Diego Comic-Con 2014. As per tradition, Hollywood memorabilia auction house Profiles in History are exhibiting at their usual space, Booth #1605. I’ve been attending Comic-Con since 1987, and have been covering it on the Original Prop Blog since 2008, and if I’m honest, I would say this is their most disappointing showing to date. The entire back wall are costumes for the Expendables franchise (which, if you haven’t seen the film(s), isn’t too exciting). With what little space is left, there is not too much to impress… and I think that this is maybe the second or third year running where the big promo is a signing from Sean Astin.
For all coverage of Comic-Con International: San Diego this year, click the link below…
I don’t know, maybe I’m being a bit hard on them, but I get the impression that they are just phoning it in – same booth, same display set-up, same sort of material – only this time there is no imminent auction, no auction catalogs, no TV show, nothing new… no excitement. It’s all feeling a bit routine, and even the players behind the counters looked kind of bored, just an hour or so into Preview Night.
Included among the props in cases were some of the Lord of the Rings pieces that failed to sell at the Julien’s Auctions event in December (see “Observations from Julien’s Auctions “The Trilogy Collection: Props and Costumes From Middle-Earth” Sale of Lord of the Rings Assets”). Now rebranded as “The Lord of the Rings Auction”, the marketing and design work is horrid, particularly the style showcased on the hand out cards and on the big banner over the booth – it looks like it was thrown together in Microsoft Word, and represents some kind of hellish purgatory. It is just awful and amateurish.
Doing a side-by-side comparison of the marketing collateral – with Julien’s having an understated and minimalist approach, while adopting the design style from the film trilogy, the comparable efforts from Profiles just lacks the sophistication:
Having said that, it is all about sales performance, so we’ll see if Profiles can do better with the material come September, though a big factor will obviously be the reserves and estimates. Though I suspect that the Profiles in History “Lord of the Rings Auction” will be a few pages in a much larger catalog, and not a stand-alone auction event as was the case with the Julien’s Auctions sale last year.
I would love to see Profiles do something next year as they did with the LOST auction in 2009 (which was my favorite exhibit that they’ve done at Comic-Con in recent years).
As I think I mentioned last year, Comic-Con in 2013 overall did not impress me – it felt more like Comic-Con 2012 all over again. This year, with the 2014 show, everything is bigger and better and it seems like exhibitors across the board are stepping it up, so I’d love to see Profiles in History come back next year with something bigger, better, and more exciting than what they brought in 2014.
In any event, all of that aside, below are some photos taken at the Profiles in History booth #1605 on Wednesday, July 23rd, 2014 (“Preview Night” at Comic-Con) – click any image for higher resolution version of each photo:
Jason DeBord