Drymounting a Large Autographed Photo? A No-No?

[Kco]

In the 10 years I was at Steiner, we dry mounted tens of thousands of photographs to foam core backing. Never had issues with damage, just ensure whoever is running the dry mount machine covers the front face of the photo when they dry mount it so nothing gets on to the photo.

[drcy]

Talk to someone who restores/conserves movie posters. They almost always back the fragile paper posters as part of the conservation-- in part to protect it and in part to make it ready/sturdy for display--, and will likely know. A vintage movie poster is probably much more fragile and delicate than a photo.

[JustinD]

I am an art collector and personally if someone dry-mounted one of my prints I would sue them for the value and the mental duress they caused me.

I had a crappy mall framer do that to me in the early nineties and that print would be worth 2k more had that not happened.

Use archival removable linen tape from a framer that handles expensive pieces. The glue will not yellow is acid free and removable.

Poster collectors will often be fine with linen backing, but it is still restoration and anything pristine and untouched will always be worth more than pristine and touched. Resto work is great when needed to make it presentable. In art and posters dry-matting completely destroys the value of the piece. To remove the piece for sale it will cost roughly 400 dollars to have a restorer remove the item but often the damage is still noticeable.