Thanks to the diminishing importance of the domestic movie market, studios have invested tremendous resources into developing internationally attractive merchandise. Foreign box office draws, like Jackie Chan and Chow Yun Fat, have opened up huge new markets in Asia for American films. Similarly, the importation of film stars, like Spain's Penelope Cruz and India's Bollywood divas, has stoked the international market for U.S. exports. Collecting internationally oriented movie merchandise may be logistically harder than collecting domestic ephemera, however. First and foremost, you have to deal with the fact that international movie collectibles are spread across the four corners of the Earth. Even if you find the gentleman in Thailand who has the special Titanic poster you're after, you'll have to pay serious shipping and handling charges. It's much more difficult to guarantee the authenticity and condition of international merchandise. Trade rules don't provide much protection for fan collectors. Yet given the difficulty of the task, the rewards can be great. If you can complete a comprehensive foreign language set of Titanic posters, for instance, you may garner thousands of dollars at auction. Watch out for counterfeiting attempts. Approximately 90 percent of American movies posters produced between 1939 and the present contain something called a National Screen Service (NSS) code. You can find this code at the bottom margin of any poster. Look for crisp margins. In addition, remember that original movie posters measure 27 inches by 41 inches in dimension, give or take an eighth of an inch. | 
