A New York auction house yesterday facilitated the sale of two Dartmouth Winter Carnival posters for $2,000 and $4,250.
"Over the past five years, ski posters have been a very hot niche market," Swann Galleries President Nicolas D. Lowry said.
He noted that buyers like posters that they are familiar with or that are close to home. Whereas European buyers will choose a poster from the Alps, New York buyers will choose posters from New England.
The Dartmouth posters fill a smaller niche in this specialty market. Lowry said most of the Carnival posters go to Dartmouth alumni who remember the posters of their college years or ski historians searching for artifacts from when skiing in America was a rarity.
Most of these posters come from alumni who bought them as students. They usually go through collectors and dealers before ending up on the auction block. As the posters' popularity increases, more people are searching through the attic for these lost treasures and selling them though online auction houses such as Ebay.
Lowry said that until 10 or 15 years ago, people didn't know these posters existed or didn't consider them art. Now they are a very popular form of decoration. He admits, however, that "posters are in a bubble, and the only question is when is it going to burst ... these prices are getting out of hand."
The highest price ever fetched by a Carnival poster was $4,800 for a 1941 piece by Stanley Samuelson, featuring a skier wearing a race bib and carving a turn through a large D.
This poster may sound very familiar, as it is one of seven hanging by the stairway in Thayer Hall. These posters range from 1939 to 1950, and are some of the most highly valued years.
When asked about security for these valuable artifacts, Tucker Rossiter, the director of Dartmouth Dinning Services, replied, "The posters are screwed in; hopefully that will be enough."
According to Safety and Security, however, one Carnival poster valued between $500 and $1,500 was stolen from the Collis Center on Jan. 31, where old Winter Carnival posters also decorate the walls.
Rossiter said, "These are the only posters we have, and we'd like to leave them where they are to remind everyone of past Winter Carnivals and the history of Dartmouth ... maybe they can help to inspire new posters."
This year's poster, created by Caryn Karo '04, features Dorothy approaching the Emerald City on ruby skis, with Toto at her side.
The poster was chosen by the three Carnival Chairs -- Anne Cloudman '02, Amish Parashar '03 and Ryan Bennett '04 -- from 25 submissions.
"After looking at all the posters and talking about them, one clearly just rose to the top," Bennett said.
