Rare Frankenstein Insert Card

It’s a bit of a miracle when something like this surfaces. Long ago, movie posters, paper ephemera, were typically discarded after use. Miraculously, 82 long years later, this insert card — 14 by 36 inches — survives, and it is likely the only one of its kind still in existence. Click the image to see it bigger.

ABCNews.com reports that this Frankenstein poster was bought by a Chicago man “for a few dollars” in the late Sixties. It is now up for auction with bidding currently at $75,000. It could top $100,000 by the time it is adjudicated, on July 27.

The image of The Monster’s head floating above Mae Clarke sprawled in a faint, here bathed in golden light, was used on several different posters and in newspaper ads. Karloff’s underlit face (see below) is one of the most striking of a series of promotional photographs by Universal’s Roman Freulich.

Unique here is the poster size and the gorgeous color treatment, with orange and yellow dots splashing off the image. It is, by far, the most colorful and jazzy of all the Frankenstein posters.

Follow the bidding on the new, redesigned Heritage Auctions website. Heritage Auctions is America’s biggest auction house and the third largest in the world.

Update! The Frankenstein Insert Card was sold on July 27, 2013 for a staggering $262,900.00, more than twice the top estimate for this item.