Article Summary: A Featured Interview with Tim Ketzer of YourProps.com and Ketzer.com.
Featured Interview: Tim Ketzer, YourProps.com
Tim Ketzer is a longtime collector and hobbyist and one of the pioneers in the hobby in helping to craft an online community.
In addition to his long running Ketzer.com site, which includes a wealth of information and photos, Tim also launched YourProps.com over three years ago, which gives collectors of both original and replica props a resource with which to share photos of their collection. This has been a tremendous service to the hobby to help share these artifacts with other collectors, all in one place, in a uniform format, searchable via a variety of criteria.
I’ve been fortunate enough to be friends with Tim for many years, and thought he would make an appropriate first candidate for a Featured Interview.
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Q: How long have you been collecting original movie props and how did you get started?
I started collecting props in 1993/1994. Back then, basically before the Internet, I found some ads in Toy Shop Magazine.
Most of the prices back then I thought were crazy though. Like an original Hoverboard for 1600 bucks. Those were the good old days… :)
Q: Have you ever ended up with a “bad” piece? Can you discuss it?
The first two props I bought turned out to be fakes.
Back in 1994, a lady named Jules Dean out of Studio City, California, sold me an original Luke Skywalker lightsaber from The Empire Strikes Back for 750 bucks. It even came with a COA! (Well, I was young and had the money… so don’t ask).
The lightsaber obviously was fake. About a year later, I actually met the guy who made it who confirmed he had sold several of these to Jules Dean.
Jules also sold me several “original” blank Sports Almanacs from Back To The Future 2. The Almanacs turned out to be blank notepads, available at Universal Studios at the time.
A few years later, while living in Los Angeles, I ran into Jules Dean at a memorabilia store, and asked her about the lightsaber. She asked me if I had expected to get a real saber for that kind of money…
Q: What steps do you take to ensure that what you are buying is authentic?
Most of the props I bought over the past few years came either directly from the propmaster, the studio, or some of the high-end dealers. And most of these props match up on screen.
Q: Do you think (in terms of provenance and legitimacy) things are better or worse now than they were five years ago? Why?
Actually, I think things are getting worse. A lot more people realize there is a lot of money in props, and so the risk of buying a fake prop is getting bigger.
About 10 years ago, I saw an original Stormtrooper helmet sell for $8000. Now, they are about $25,000 to $30,000. Back then, there was a lot less knowledge available about how these props were constructed than there is now, so I think the risk of getting ripped off was lower back then.
Q: Do you have any general predictions for the future of the hobby in the near term?
Yeah, judging by how the prices keep going up, I will very soon not be able to afford anything high-end. :)
Q: If you could change one thing in the hobby, what would it be?
Make the large auction houses that sell props do their homework and check if the item really is what it is supposed to be.
Q: What is your “holy grail” piece? Do you own it yet or are you still looking?
Both, since there is more than one Holy Grail. A second one may not show up until you have the first one, but there are more than one, at least for me.
I acquired my first Holy Grail in 2000, and sold it a while back (the Mattel Hoverboard from Back to the Future).
My second Holy Grail was a space suit from Armageddon, which I acquired in 2003.
Right now, my Holy Grail is a Mondoshawan from The Fifth Element.
Q: What is your favorite piece currently in your collection? Why? What can you tell me about it?
My favorite pieces are my Armageddon space suits. The detail in these is amazing. A LOT of work went into these, and I love the design of them.
[click here to see all of Tim’s Armageddon Collection at Ketzer.com]
The suits weigh about 90 pounds each and have fans built into the backpack that blow air into the helmet.
Q: What kind of work do you do in the film industry?
Originally, I wanted to build models and blow them up in front of a bluescreen. But while I was in college, Jurassic Park came out, and so I got into CG instead, and have been working as a visual effects artist for about 12 years.
[click here to see Tim’s professional site and filmography at TimKetzer.com]
But since there are no souvenirs to keep from working in CG (unless you want a dinosaur texture on a compact flash card on display in an acrylic case) I am collecting props.
Q: How long has Ketzer.com been on the Internet?
I launched Ketzer.com in early 1998. Back then it only had about 10 pages or so. Now we have close to 500.
Q: When did you start YourProps.com?
I first thought about creating YourProps in early 2003 and then launched YourProps.com in February of 2004.
Q: What gave you the idea to start up YourProps.com?
All the props you see sell in auctions and movie prop boards usually never show up again. So I thought it would be great to have a site where people can share what they have.
Q: How many members are currently registered on YourProps.com?
We currently have about 2,200 members, although not all of them have items listed.
Q: I noticed that propking and docholl have been neck and neck for the number one position (for the collector with the most original props listed on the site) for some time. They are current tied at 348 original items each… Who do you think will “win”? ;)
Yeah, I noticed that too. :) I think we will need to come up with a YourProps.com trophy for the winner, although I think neither of these guys will ever beat the other for very long. :)
Q: What is the weirdest message you’ve received through the messaging system?
I have not really received any weird private messages.
But as the owner of the site, I do get a lot of weird messages through the “Contact” form/link, like this one:
Subject:
Maltese falcon replicaMessage:
How tall, what weight, how much?
And there was this guy who sent me his shipping address and credit card details in order to buy a prop from me. Not only did he not realize that I did not own that prop, but also he never even asked for a price.
Q: What is the coolest piece you’ve seen contributed to the site?
My personal favorite is the original space suit worn by John Hurt in ALIEN.
[link to full page and description on YourProps.com]
Q: What item has received the most number of hits?
While we do track how often an item was viewed, that number cannot be used to determine the “coolest” prop, because it started counting the day the item was listed, and so items that have been listed for a longer period of time, obviously have more hits than items that are new.
Also, the number of hits depends on whether the item is linked to from another site (i.e. a discussion forum), which can greatly increase the number of hits.
We recently had a lot of hits to the beetles from the banquet scene in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” from a Japanese insects forum.
About a month ago, we introduced a system which lets registered users add other user’s items to their “personal favorites lists”. We are tracking these lists, and now have a Top 50 Props list which can be seen HERE.
My personal favorite, John Hurt’s space suit from Alien, is one of the items that were voted Number 1.
Q: Any future plans or enhancements for the site that you can talk about?
We do have more features planned, but since we are running this site in our spare time, the site is developing a lot slower than I thought it would when I launched it. But the site keeps growing steadily, prop wise and feature wise.
Lots more to come!
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Tim, many thanks for putting up with my questions and sharing your insights and experiences with the readers of the site.
Also, I know many hobbyists are extremely grateful for the YourProps site that you provide to the community at your own personal expense in time and resources. You provide a great service to the hobby. Thank you.
Jason De Bord