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Apologies in advance if this post ends up being a bit like the parish newsletter today, but there are a few things I’d to tell you about, even though they aren’t entirely related. So bear with me, and the flower rota will be at the end.

Firstly and also excitingly, the BPMA have also got in contact with Pieter Huveneers, and he is going to answer some questions on their blog in January. So if there’s anything you’d like to ask him about poster design, the GPO or being a design guru in Australia, now is your chance. All the details are on their blog.

The artwork above with the bite taken out of it is from their collections, as is the poster below.

This is of course a poster announcing the arrival of a medium – television – which would in the end kill the poster itself stone dead. Still, Huveneers wasn’t to know.

While I’m on the subject of the BPMA, they are once again selling lovely poster Christmas cards, including this lovely Hass.

But there are a whole range of designs, quite a few of which have already featured on Quad Royal before now, and you may find them here.

Most of the rest of our parish consists, as ever, of eBay. In summary, there are some nice posters out there; however people mostly want rather larger sums of money for them than we – along with I suspect most of the rest of the parishioners – are prepared to pay. With that in mind, here’s the best of the bunch.

Your starter is a lovely Dorrit Dekk, mounted on linen too. Starting price, £224-ish (it’s in America), although it doesn’t deserve that on the grounds of the foreshortened photography alone.

Another photography award goes to the seller of this Pye Radio poster, who has managed to photograph it looking like a giant billboard on the A4.

It is in fact only 74cm long, which probably also means that £49.99 is a fairly optimistic valuation.

All of which means that when both the above Guinness posters start at a slightly more reasonable £99, I am pleasantly surprised. The top one is, I think, by R Peppe and dates from 1962, although the listing doesn’t tell you any of that. The other one I have never seen before in my life, and all I can find out is that it might be by someone called E Hanna, so if anyone can enlighten me further about it, please do. Rather good, though, don’t you think?

Cheaper, and possibly even more fantastic still, are these two Australian emigration posters.

The listing (which in turn wins a prize for being one of the longest I have ever encountered) describes them as being possibly the work of Douglas Annand. A brief trawl through google leaves me unconvinced, but he did do this poster.

And also these rather great P&O Menu cards too (via this Australian blog).

Regardless of whether he did those other two posters, they are very still good. Even better, both auctions started at a thoroughly reasonable £9.99, but with bids already in I am expecting them to go higher.

Digression over, I can also tell you that it is possible to buy expensive posters in places other than eBay.

This GPO poster is up for auction by Poster Auctions International with an estimate of $400-600. I’m usually quite fond of this series of posters, but this one has to be one of the least appealing. So have this one as a palate cleanser instead.

There that’s better, isn’t it. All that remains a reminder that the Church Christmas Fair is this Saturday and Holy Communion is at the usual time of 11.30 on Sunday. See you all then.

Posters past

eBay

A while ago I posted, as did many other people, about the ghost posters of Notting Hill Gate, thanks to the wonderful photos taken by Mike Ashworth.

In the late 1950s, this tunnel, which ran between different lines at Notting Hill Gate tube station, was replaced by escalators and sealed up. What remained there for more than 60 years was a fantastic set of posters, a glimpse into what was really being advertised at the time.

What’s particularly fascinating is that they’re not all good. Of course there are some classics like Daphne Padden’s poster for Royal Blue coaches, but some of them are frankly quite average. Dial FLE 5000 for the Evening News.

The reason I’m reminding you about this is that a similar set of posters – only this time not stuck to any walls – have just been sold on eBay. There are seven of them, and it really does look like the contents of a pile given to the poster hangers at the start of the day.

Once again, there are some lovely pieces of design – my favourite is probably this Victor Galbraith image.

The LT Museum dates that to 1959, and my guess is that they are all from about the same period.

So far, all so wonderful, but there are also some decidedly average ones.

Some which can only be described as looking like newspaper ads magnified.

Along with a couple which aren’t even that interesting.

I have no idea where the set have come from, but I’m going to ask, so if I find out more I will let you know.

But they’re not just interesting as a cross-section, they also tell me, at least, something new.

All of these posters are 20″ x 30″, so Double Crown size, which was the standard advertising format of the period (if you want a full explanation of imperial poster sizes, Tom Eckersley will be your guide) Which is what you’d probably expect, given that, just like today, all kinds of companies advertised on the Tube network.

But two of the posters are for institutions – British Railways and London Transport – who usually used the 40″ x 25″ Double Royal poster for their advertising. That’s the size that posters on railway stations and on the outside of Tube stations always were, and that’s the size that most railway and London Transport posters are when they survive – take a look at any auction if you don’t believe me.

Except here we have two posters, one for the railways and one for London Transport itself, which don’t fit that format and instead have been designed to sit amongst all the other commercial advertising. Which surprised me, as I’d never really thought that they ever produced posters in this format.

Of course it makes complete sense when you do think about it, especially for London Transport who must have printed at least some Double Crown posters just to fill in any gaps which appeared in their commercial advertising spaces. Victor Galbraith’s elephant is probably doing that job on the tunnel walls above.

And even a cursory search on his name in the London Transport Museum archives produces other designs in a Double Crown size too, so while they might have been uncommon, they weren’t entirely unusual. Here’s another one from 1959.

But that BR and London Transport produced these posters is also not surprising because this point, the late 1950s, is the final heyday of the poster. This was an advertising medium of such importance that even British Railways, with its own poster sites in its own poster sizes, couldn’t afford not to be part of it. This wouldn’t last though, within a few years commercial television would have ended the dominance of the poster forever.

My Victor Galbraith search also brings up this wonderful bird, who is a Double Royal this time.

I wonder how the decisions were made as to which posters were chosen for which sizes. That, like so many other things, is something to find out more about one of these days. Unless there’s someone out there who knows already.

Quite a Lot

eBay, Uncategorized

Incoming at Crownfolio Towers has been the story this week.

Three times in the last couple of weeks a job lot of posters has come up on eBay and, as no one else seemed to want them very much, three times they’ve ended up as ours. Net result, more posters than one household strictly needs (35 in total, if you must ask).

So we are now the go-to people for vintage dental hygiene,

food hygiene posters

and 1960s road safety messages.

Lucky old us.

Now, these kinds of lots are interesting for a whole heap of reasons, many of which I’ve gone over on here before. They’re a window into sets of posters which might otherwise have disappeared entirely. I can’t imagine there are too many collectors of posters about dustbin hygiene management, to start with.

Or supersized flies.

Lots are also interesting because they tend to preserve bad posters along with the good, and quite a few of the posters we have bought are, if I’m honest, second-rate. But then, if we’re just writing about what’s graphically appealing, is that a proper reflection of what really happened? To start with, we’re writing a story that’s going to change every time tastes alter. Although some posters might never make it back into fashion.

If they were ever there in the first place.

What’s more, there’s quite often something to be learned from seeing a group of posters together, even if it’s just the taste of the person who collected them at the time. These lots offer an insight into some of the less glamourous jobs the CoI were doing in the 1950s and 1960s.

While the RoSPA posters do give a real sense of an entire campaign, probably at about the same sort of time.

All of which is the intellectual justification, but an even bigger reason for buying job lots like these is the hope, never far from the mind of the collector, that lurking in the pile might be a hidden gem. And we did get lucky this time; the dental health set included this Reginald Mount which I’ve never seen before.

Which considering that the entire set only cost us 55p, really has to be a bargain.

I also quite like this RoSPA poster, even if it is a bit battered.

But for us, lots have a particular compulsion. This is because, once upon a few years ago, we bought a huge lot of posters from eBay, based only on a single shot of a pile of posters spread on someone’s floor. Admittedly that pile did seem to contain a Guinnes poster, two 1950s London Transport posters and quite a bit more, so we bet quite a lot of money on it, having both promised each other that there would be no recriminations if it turned out that we had spent a lot of money on a pile of rubbish.

Fortunately, it was worth every penny. Below are just a couple of the unexpected joys that came out of the package when it finally arrived.

There were plenty more too – most of the classics in our collection came from that one single purchase.

We’ll probably never get anything like that again. But even so, it’s still almost impossible to pass on a lot of posters when we see one, just in case.

The Price of Everything

auctions, eBay

Today, a miscellany of stuff, mostly for sale. And it’s a mixed bag of good, bad and ugly. Shall we start with the latter?

This, um, rarely seen poster is being sold by an American auction house in an internet auction on Sunday. Although I tell you this more as a warning than an invitation to buy.

Truly, proof that the golden age of the railway poster was dead and buried by 1978. Amazingly there is a bid on it too.

To cleanse your eyes after that, some lovely Daphne Padden. Travel On Paper are selling this classic for what looks to me like a very reasonable dealer price of £275.

Now I’m not sure what Daphne Padden is actually worth these days (and I know that I’m saying this from the persepective of someone who’s got quite a few of her posters, and am therefore not exactly an unbiased observer, but hey). On one hand, other dealers are selling less good posters by Daphne Padden for £450+; on the other, we got our copy of the poster above at Morphets, last year, for just £65 and something else came with it, even if I can’t remember what. So, what’s the actual value? I haven’t got a clue. Anyway, Travel on Paper are at MidCentury Modern in Dulwich on Sunday 20th if you want to look at some of their posters or just say hello.

Over on eBay it’s the same story, posters of varying quality at seemingly random prices. Shall we start with cheap, but rightfully so.

It’s a National Savings Bank Poster, but I can’t tell you any more than is on the listing I’m afraid.

While this railway poster, with a similar womens’ magazine styling to its illustration, has a starting bid of $210.

But it is being sold by a dealer, PosterConnection, so perhaps the price isn’t so surprising.

Meeting them somewhere in the middle is this H M Bateman Save Fuel poster which seems very reasonable at £48 Buy It Now, especially considering it’s 20″ x 30″.

The more I think about that, the more I think it is a bargain; the better known examples of these can go for £200 or more at auction. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

The seller also has this ATS poster, from a series which has been mentioned on here before, and I believe is by Beverley Pick.

This is currently on a £68 Buy It Now, which is rather more like what it would fetch at auction, but still not unreasonable.

Finally in this heap of odds and ends, a couple of follow-ups to previous posts. When I wrote about John Burningham the other day, I couldn’t find an image of his cats in a boat coach poster that I’d liked so much at the exhibition. But Liz Dobson very kindly sent me a photo.

I’ll add it to the post as well, but I thought I’d show you here too as it’s so great. And if you do happen to have a spare one…

And following on from my musings about airline posters, Martin Steenson of Books & Things pointed me at this Lewitt-Him AOA poster, which he currently has for sale.

While it doesn’t have the expansive blue skies or vapour trails of their other posters, I still think this has a strong connection to the visual language of the war in the air. Because it looks to me like nothing so much as a wartime aircraft recognition poster.

Were there other areas where the visual memory of the war spilled out of the national subconscious and into peace time like this? Surely there must have been: the war was too all-encompassing to be easily forgotten, however hard people wanted to try.

A Gay Old Time

eBay

I haven’t posted about eBay for a bit, mostly because there hasn’t been anything of note for a while. At last, though, there is something worth a look. Even if it’s not, in rather too many cases, worth the amount of money they’re asking for it.

First out of the blocks is this, which is both wonderful and cheap (as least for now).

I don’t really need to say any more than that, do I?

I mentioned this very David Klein just the other day, because it’s coming up in the next Christies auction.

Christies are expecting between £700 and £900 for it, which means that this eBay version is currently stupidly cheap at only £140. I do not, however, believe that this is going to last.

Also a bit of a bargain (no, quite a lot of a bargain as they are currently just at 99p) are these two 1950s London Transport posters by Lobban.

While they may not be my favourite posters ever, they are for sale and for a mere 99p starting price, which can only be applauded these days.

Rather less of a steal is another London Transport poster from the 1950s, in this case by Denys Nichols and from 1954.

It’s a wonderful, wonderful poster that I would seriously consider buying it in a normal auction. But £499 is more than I think it would fetch at any kind of auction, never mind on eBay. Am I right though? We will have to wait and see.

If that annoys you, all is not lost as there is also the chance to buy your London Transport posters in bulk. Fourteen of the little fellows for just £100.

Now we have one of each of these Harry Stevens designs and so probably don’t need any more (for some reason these two particular posters have kept appearing everywhere over the last year). But if you fancy going into poster dealing, Sotherans had copies of each of those in their most recent catalogue, at £85 a piece, so there is some scope for a mark-up. (Sotherans never sent me an email when their new catalogue came out, probably because they knew I was going to mock the prices. Now that I have found it, I will duly do this in a post next week.)

In further bulk buying opportunities, this seller has a comprehensive selection of greetings telegrams for sale, of which this 1939 design by Alan Sorrell is my favourite.

I like the design, which is probably even nicer in focus, but am even more pleased by the fact that someone thought fit to commission and produce a telegram of this kind of landcape. If you do want any of them, though, you’ll need to be quick, as the auctions all end this evening.

Finally, a warning. The most unnecessary piece of poster memorabilia ever is back, back, back on eBay.

But this time they want not £50 for it, but £150. When it looks like a slug. Consider me speechless.

Show Card

eBay, railway posters

The designs here may at least be familiar to careful readers and/or shoppers.

Because both of these appeared in the final Morphets sale last year. The blue bird above is by Tom Eckersley, the happy beach kit below by Abram Games.

But these particular examples aren’t posters, instead they are rather wonderful display cards, presumably for use in ticket offices and travel agents.

This might seem like an extravagant piece of publicity, but Holiday Haunts was a major production for British Railways, with over 200,000 copies printed at its peak. (If you want to know more, I’ve gone on about it at some length before.)

The design alone was quite enough reason to get these (from eBay, for a reasonably small sum), but actually the format is fantastic. They’re small and have their own stands. We don’t need to frame them or find some wall space and they look very fetching on the mantlepiece. I’m starting to think all posters should look like this.