Posters may be bought from other collectors, from dealers and and from auctions. Information about where to buy posters can be found in any of the publications which cater to collectors. I have listed several of these in the section on selling.

Buying from dealers and collectors is usually pretty straightforward. He has something for sale. You want it. You ask about condition, you ask for a description. You ask about the price. Is it negotiable? Maybe yes, maybe no. What about a return policy? What about postage charges? Is postage refundable? What are the terms of payment? Dealers may have credit card options like Mastercard, Visa or American Express. A collector is more likely to want cash upfront, but may not have to worry about sales taxes and the like. A dealer operating in the same state usually will. Most collectors are good guys, honest and true. But sending $500.00 or $5000.00 through the mail to someone you never met is daunting. Know who you are dealing with. A dealer who advertises regularly and who has been in business is going to be easier to appraise in this way. A dealer may publish his own catalog; this is very time consuming and expensive for him and increasingly rare. Many dealers now have computerized databases from which you can inquire by phone.

Buying from an auction house is really bidding. An auction house gets an auction together and publishes a catalog of what will be auctioned. The catalog will publish low and high estimates for each poster - a range of prices in which the poster is expected to sell. Most posters will have a reserve. This is the figure that the auction house and the poster's consignor determined is the lowest price that the auction house will actually sell the poster. Reserves are not published. If the reserve is not met, the poster will not sell. Sometimes the auction house may be approached after an auction has concluded about a poster or lot, that has passed or gone unsold. The auction house may then approach their consignor as to whether the consignor wishes to sell the item at the reserve or some other price. A sale may result from this or not. But any poster that is purchased in an auction is subject to a buyer's commission. These commissions range from 10% to 15% of the hammer price. That is, if a poster hammers for $1000.00 and there is a 15% buyer's premium, then the actual amount that will be paid to the auction house is $1150.00, plus any additional fees such as taxes and shipping. Shipping charges from auction houses can be steep.

The above are some of the objective concerns of buying. But there are subjective concerns as well. One man's trash is another man's treasure. This is another way of expressing that the concept of value, in poster collecting, is a relative one, and issues of worth are hard to define in terms of strict money. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Caveat emptor. A poster for Frankenstein recently auctioned for $198,000.00. That is the world record for a movie poster sale. It's an impressive figure, but what exactly does this event mean?