Please accept my apologies in advance, but Quad Royal is going to be a bit flakey for the next few weeks. Not only is it the summer holidays, but we are apparently moving house next month too. A normal service will resume in September, I hope.
None of which is the reason for the short state of today’s post, that’s all eBay’s fault. The summer holidays have got to them before they have me, and there really isn’t very much out there for the picking. But I did want to point out this.
It’s a bit expensive at £150 (or possibly quite a lot expensive if I’m honest) but it’s by Karo, and it’s rather good. Now I know very little about him, and haven’t been able to find out much more, but what I can say is that pretty much every single bit of his work that I come across, I like. He seems to have done quite a few bits for the GPO during the 1950s and 1960s, including a few very wonderful Properly Packed Parcels Please posters. Unfortunately the BPMA’s catalogue is down right now, so you’ll have to put up with our slightly more homely photographs of the couple we have.
They’re both from 1968 and one day when we have enough walls that top one will be framed and up on them. This one already is.
I know I’ve posted that before, but it still amuses me far more than it should, as well as being a lovely thing to look at too.
Karo also did quite a few coach posters as well as the one which is up for sale – a good dozen at least must have come up in the last Morphet’s Malcolm Guest sale. This went for £140.
But in amongst all of that, I can find out almost nothing about him and his life. So if anybody does know something, please do get in touch.
And finally, given the recent discussion of vans, this.
At just 99p right now with only a day and a half to go, it’s a bit of a bargain. But it’s also a reminder that the modern design wasn’t the only game in town back in the 1950s, and the Ladybird Books school of illustration was probably as equally ubiquitous.
Gosh. This is the very first time I’ve looked at your blog (searching generally for information about travel posters), and as it happens I bought a Karo at the Morphets sale – the first travel poster I’d ever bought. (Lot 1044, if you’re interested: http://www.morphets.co.uk/BidCat/Catalogues.asp?F1=3072&F2=4169&status=A&F4=0&select=210710&offset=1050)
I can tell you absolutely nothing about him. But I’ve found your blog an absolute delight, and I expect to be a frequent visitor.
That’s a rather fine one too, isn’t it – according to the LT Museum website it’s the one one he ever did for them. I would like to find out more about him one day. You sound as if you might have bought some other posters since then too…
Thank you for the kind words, too, and do keep commenting,it’s always great to hear from other enthusiasts.