Is This The Largest Private Collection Of Costacos Brothers Posters On The Planet?

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This isn’t the first time you’ve seen Costacos Bros. posters on LobShots. I’m obsessed with them. After writing about them, I got a call from John Costacos himself. We met up, and we’ve become friends, having dinner and drinks a few times together. Sadly, I only have a few of these posters in my personal collection, which was put to shame when reader CJ Cain reached out to me:

Here’s my Costacos Brothers story.

I have 4 children. My oldest are girls ages 13 and 8, the boys are ages 5 and 1. The girls bedrooms are covered in posters. One Direction, Taylor Swift, Austin Mahone — all of the popular artists amongst girls ages 8-13. I am in my oldest daughters’ room looking at her posters and British flag thinking two things —- 1. I used to do this to my room with these larger than life sports posters and 2. I want to do something cool for the bedroom my boys share.

The posters I had as a kid were the Costacos Brothers posters. My room was covered in them. Wall to Wall, floor to ceiling. I used to bike to KMart and Pamida to buy them after Little League games. Even made the 8 mile round trip bike ride to Abelman’s in Bessemer, MI to buy them on occasion.

I’ve been able to acquire all but 1 poster that I hung in my room as a kid “Chicago Vice” with Walter Payton & Jim McMahon. Seeing how much my oldest son enjoyed the posters — I ended up buying more than what I had in my room as a kid. I am now up to 30 posters! I’ve got many of the classics “Land of Boz”, “Mad Mac”, “The Terminator”. Still looking for them. If people have them, they can email me if they would like to get rid of them.

Ultimately, what I want to do one day is have an art show where kids and adults who like me had these posters as a kid can come out and see them. They are works of art. If you walk into a sports authority today and look at the posters — they suck! The Costacos Brothers posters made the athlete (not the other way around). When I was a kid — before the twitters, mass marketing — these posters were how it in terms of marketing your image. And they were the best. The best sports posters ever made.

Thank you for your time —- CJ Cain

All the posters you see above are from CJ’s personal collection. Here are a few more with his kids:

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Pretty incredible collection. The photos you see above aren’t even all of that he has. Very impressive. But he wants to grow it. If you have any Costacos Bros. posters, especially Chicago Vice or 44 Magnum (the top 2 on his wish list for the kids), hit him up! His email is ccainfamily7@yahoo.com.

Also, if you’ve never seen/read the SB Nation piece by Amy K. Nelson on the Costacos Brothers, you simply must go check it out.

-bp

 

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