Las Vegas collector purchases Movie Star News inventory

Las Vegas collector purchases Movie Star News inventory

Ira Kramer packing up the Movie Star News inventory for shipment to Las Vegas

Here’s an interesting story.

A Las Vegas collector purchases Movie Stars News inventory.

Movie Star News was a huge store in New York – huge – and it’s inventory included almost 3 million film stills, posters and negatives.

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The world famous store has been in business for 73 years, since 1939 and is credited with creating the concept of pin-up art.

Ira Kramer, the current owner took over the business that his mother, Paula, and uncle Irving Klaw, started in 1939.

Among the collection there are 2,000 original prints and negatives of Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando, 1,000 of Gary Cooper, 400 of Bette Davis, hundreds of movie images of “The Godfather” and “Gone With the Wind, and other never before seen pictures.

Kramer laments that things are different today and said, “Today, if you want a picture of a star you can go on the computer and download it. So what do you need me for?”

Kramer decided to sell his collection and the world is buzzing that Stuart Scheinman, a Las Vegas collector purchases Movie Star News inventory in it’s entirety.

Stuart Scheinman in New York looking at the collection. (Photo: Richard Drew / AP)

But who is Stuart Scheinman?

Curiosity took hold and we wanted to find out about the person who had the megabucks to purchase the multi-million dollar collection.

After searching and searching, there didn’t appear to be a website at first. None. We typed in Scheinman’s name and all that came up is the current news of purchasing the collection.

We kept at it and our internet search yielded some interesting findings.

Stuart Scheinman is listed on Mantra as the President of Desert Collectables on Sunset Road in Henderson.

There’s another Mantra listing for Desert Collectables with the same phone number at a Teco Avenue address in Las Vegas.

There’s yet a third Mantra listing for Desert Collectable Corporation.

We did find a LinkedIn profile listing him as the owner of Animaland and Premiere entertainment so we knew we had the right person.

Here’s a screenshot of the LinkedIn profile.

Once you are in his profile, it indicates that he is from New York, since he attended Long Island University and C.W. Post College.

There are a two website links.

The first one is Animaland which takes you to a site where you hear children’s music and can purchase stuffed animals from authorized retailers. There is also a business opportunities section that looks like an affiliate program link for the Animaland program at a cost of $229 per month to run your own Animaland Kiosk.

The second link takes you to Premiere Collectables which is the collectable site. On the site, they say that they have purchased many estates over the past 3 decades.  There’s a link where people can wire money directly into their bank and also a paypal link but no physical address.

The site says,

For specialty items that need to be examined in person, we provide a service where our clients can be met anywhere in the world and in certain instances a portion of the cost of the trip is deducted from the purchase price of the item. All travel expenses to be paid for by prospective client prior to the trip taking place.

Further confusing the mater is that the company is listed in the Daily News and Fox News as “Entertainment Collectibles”

News that the Las Vegas collector purchases Movie Star News inventory has some wondering if the purchase was an outright purchase or not.

Since the collection is slated to be sold in a series of auctions on ebay, it is unclear if Scheinman purchased the collection outright or not. Maybe it is some type of commission deal or even a distress sale since the New York owner said the upkeep was very expensive.

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