Milton Glaser offers his posters for sale on his own site, where you can buy reprints of his famous Dylan poster, an unsigned Hugh Masekela for $300, or a signed Lovin’ Spoonful poster (above) for $200. Some of them may be more expensive based on scarcity. But he was surprised when he began posting some of the works to eBay and discovered that some of his original posters were already available for upwards of $500. “It’s astonishing to me that a poster that I did in the 70s is now $800, when it was given out for free when it was done,” he said over the phone last week. “I can’t stop people from doing this, but most people don’t know that there is a site already that sells my work. They go online and find a bunch of undifferentiated posters.”
Apparently, one of the sources for these works is someone who received several of these posters a few years ago and is selling them for what he thinks the market will bear. “People pick up posters from place to place from time to time and think they can make some money,” Glaser says.
So, designers: Does anyone have a similar story? Have you ever found someone selling your work for more than you are selling it for? If so, how do you handle the situation?
In the meantime, if you’re interested in getting a Milton Glaser poster and not spending a small fortune on eBay, you can see all the available posters here.