Welcome to the second installment of Prop News! It's been a big
couple of weeks for PropPeople.com. If you look at the bottom of the
home page, you'll see that in the past 2 weeks there have been over 800
hits on the site! And as of today there are 66 people subscribing to
this newsletter! I never dreamed that the site would take off so quickly.

When I started working on building this site about 6 months ago, I
had doubts about how well it would be received. But the
overwhelming response that I've gotten since I launched the site has
completely reassured me. Thanks to all of you who have written in to
tell me what you think of the site, your feedback and support is much
appreciated. If you haven't dropped me a line yet, please do so! I look
forward to hearing from all of you.

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In this issue:
1. eBay: A Gift From Above for Prop People
2. Props in the News
3. Is there interest in a props listserv?

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>eBay: A Gift From Above for Prop People

It's probably safe to say that all of you have heard of eBay. I mean,
you're obviously on the internet, and even if you've arrived in
cyberspace recently, you've still probably heard of it. It has quickly
become part of our popular culture.

Chances are you've visited eBay, browsed around a bit, maybe even
bid on a few things. But I want to let you know a few things about
eBay that you may not have known that can really help you as a
props person. There are many ways that eBay can be helpful that you
may not have realized before. What follows are just a few. If you've
come up with more, please let me know!

>Finding props
This is the most obvious resource that eBay provides. Looking for a
hard to find prop? If you search eBay, chances are you'll find
someone trying to sell it. And I mean any prop. Furniture, paper
goods, hand props, almost anything is for sale on eBay at some point.

My favorite recent example: I worked on a show last year set in a Nazi
concentration camp. The script had an SS agent smoking cigarettes.
We decided to find out what brand of cigarettes a Nazi officer would
have smoked in 1944, and it occurred to us to look on eBay. Sure
enough, we found an actual, unopened pack of German cigarettes with
a Nazi party embossed governmental seal on them. The seller was in
Germany, and luckily we had enough time to get them shipped over.
We also managed to get a collection of period German paper
ephemera from the same vendor. Needless to say the director and
actors were quite impressed.

One of the main problems that you'll run into when buying stuff on
eBay is the auction schedule. You find something that you want, and
of course you needed it yesterday. But the auction doesn't close for
another week. What do you do?

I've had good luck in the past by contacting the seller directly by
email. Explain to them your situation (time schedule, lack of funds,
etc) and see if you can negotiate a price and a sale outside of the
auction. If their reserve price hasn't been met, see if you can find out
what it is. Make them an offer, just like you would if you were at an
antiques shop. Sometimes people really like the idea of their stuff
finding its way on stage, and they'll cut you a deal.

>Research
Even if you don't have the budget to buy something on eBay, you can
still use it as a research tool. There are some really big ticket items for
sale, that can be very hard to find information on. It's a great place for
find visual research of a variety of different things. The following is
just a small list:

-Antiques of any kind
-Telephones
-Phonographs
-Stamps
-Glassware
-Photographs (daguerreotypes, tin types, old family pictures, etc.)
-Foreign and period currency
-Food and alcohol labels
-Cigarette packs
-Magazines, newspapers, comic books

And that doesn't even scratch the surface! Read on to find out what
you can do with some of that research.

>Prop Construction
eBay is a treasure trove of resources for finding paper goods. There
are thousands of magazines, documents, and other printed materials
for sale. But you don't need to buy them to take advantage of them.

Requests for period accurate magazines are pretty common. It gives a
show that special touch of authenticity if you can have that 1911 copy
of the Ladies Home Journal sitting on the coffee table. Normally, it
would be difficult to provide this kind of detail. It's usually not in the
budget to be able to buy actual period paper goods. Even if you did,
you probably wouldn't put the actual item onstage, because it could
get ruined and you wouldn't have a backup. So you make color
photocopies the cover and put them onto newer magazines, and the
original goes someplace safe.

Here's where eBay becomes incredibly valuable. There are literally
thousands of magazines for sale on eBay. The sellers have scanned
in the cover, or taken a digital picture of it, so that you can see how
nice it is. What they have really done is a big favor for you. If you
bought the magazine, you would have just scanned in the cover
yourself. But they've done it for you! All you have to do is save the
image to your hard drive, do a little digital manipulation, and print
it out!

Here's a great example. Say your show requires you to find a copy of
the comic book Amazing Fantasy #15 (the first appearance of
Spiderman). It just so happens that right now there is an issue for
auction on eBay. Follow this link to see it.
http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=267525749
The seller has done us the favor of taking a high quality digital image
of both the front and back covers. You get a great copy of the cover
for free, for a comic book that is selling for over $9000 dollars!

Now granted, you need to have a computer that has the requisite
digital imaging software, a scanner, and a high resolution color printer
in order to do most of this. But if you have the means, your money
would be well spent on buying the hardware and software. Look for
articles about what computer components you need to start your own
little desktop publishing suite in future issues of Prop News.

>Selling props

If you have props in stock that you want to unload, consider selling
them on eBay. It's really easy to do, and it could be a great way
squeeze some more money out of an already tight budget. To learn
how, simply go to their home page and look to the top right hand
corner where it says "Welcome new users" and click on "How do I
sell?" The instructions are pretty simple. You do need to have a
credit card on file in order to sell items. Selling on eBay could be a
great way to get back an investment that you've made into a
particularly expensive prop.

If you have a prop that has been used by a famous actor or actress,
you could make you, your company, or your theatre a considerable
amount of cash. Celebrity items are really popular on eBay, and can
make some real money!

To visit eBay, follow this link:
http://www.ebay.com

If anyone else has any tricks they've learned while using eBay, drop
me a line at propboy@proppeople.com and let me know!

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>Props in the News

I thought I would mention that in this week's issue of Entertainment
Weekly (March 3rd), on pages 30-32, there is a photo layout on the set
dressing and props for Fox's "That 70's Show". Production designer
Garvin Eddy and set decorator Tara Stephenson are both quoted in
the article. If any readers out in LA happen to know either of them,
please pass on our congrats!

I'm always on the lookout for news coverage on props such as this. If
anyone runs across news coverage about props, let me know and I'll
include it in the newsletter. Any attention we get for our craft is rare,
so let's celebrate it when it happens!

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>Is there interest in a props listserv?

If there is interest, I've thought of starting a listserv for props people.
I've gotten some feedback on this on the discussion board, which has
been in favor of the idea. A listserv is a subscribable mailing list
similar to this one, except that anyone subscribed is allowed to post to
it. You send a message to the list and everyone else subscribed to the
list receives the message. The list would be similar in format to the
Stagecraft Mailing List, for anyone who is familiar with that. It can be
found at the following address:

http://www.theprices.net/lists/stagecraft/

If you are interested, let me know by dropping me an email
(propboy@proppeople.com) or posting it on the discussion board.

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As I said before, I'm really excited about how well this site and
newsletter have been received. Please spread the word about it to
anyone you know of who would be interested in it.

I'm glad to see that the number of people using the discussion board
is increasing every day. If you haven't tried it yet, please visit and
register so that you can post messages. Let's get some threads
started!

That's all for this week's issue. Thanks, and I'll see you next week!

Sean McArdle
Owner/Webmaster
http://PropPeople.com
propboy@proppeople.com

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Prop News : The PropPeople.com Newsletter Vol.1, Issue 2 2/27/2000
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