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Just squeezing this post in close to the wire, as the next Christies Poster Sale has rather crept up on me and turns out to be tomorrow.  But still, I do assume that most of you – no, actually, make that every last one of you – only read this blog in the spirit of a window shopper rather than a purchaser.   All opinions here are both personal and biased, and definitely not intended to be investment advice.

That said, back to the window shopping.  And I’m feeling quite well disposed towards the Christies sale for once, and I think there’s a very simple reason for it.  The English posters are first in the catalogue.

McKnight Kauffer, 1931, est. £8-12,000

There, I told you it was simple, but it is nonetheless true.  They’re not just shoved in between some Muchas and a load of other French posters, for once they get pride of place.  And so the sale begins with a nice slew of London Underground posters, including the very expensive McKnight Kauffer above (other expensive McKnight Kauffers are also available should you so wish) and a rather cheaper Edward Bawden at just a tenth of that estimate.

Edward Bawden, 1936, est. £800-1,200

It then moves on to the best set of Shell posters I’ve seen at auction for some time.  All the classics that you’ve ever wanted to own (alright, all the ones I’ve ever wanted to own at least) are out there, starting with the graphic designers.

Eckersley-Lombers, 1938, est. £800-1,200

Hans Schleger (Zero), 1938, est. £1,000-1,500

And then moving on to the fine artists.

Paul Nash, 1937, est. £800-1,200

Graham Sutherland, 1937, est. £800-1,200

The  Nash and the Sutherland are oft-reprinted classics, but the Bawden is less well known but still rather lovely, although admittedly none of these come at the most affordable of prices.

Edward Bawden, 1936, est. £1,000-1,500

It’s worth noting that the Bawden is more expensive because, like quite a few other posters in the sale, it is the lead item in a job lot.  Here there are three other Shell posters on offer, also including Llanthony Abbey by one of my minor obsessions, Denis Constanduros.

I have two observations about this.  One is that the set up is a bit poor for those of us who are only able to view via the internet, because the three other posters are not shown anywhere on the website.  (The image above is one that I’d used previously on the blog, and nothing to do with the actual poster up for auction.)

The other is to do with Christies’ minimum lot price, which is presumably something even heftier than the original £500 these days.  Goodness knows I have gone on about this often enough, but now they do seem to be a bit hoist by their own decision, because they’ve been forced to have a lot of combined lots when the auction would have been a lot better as just single lots really.  How do I or anyone else know what that Bawden is actually worth now?  Or the Constanduros come to that?  I know that’s not the function of auctions, they exist to sell things, but even so, it’s annoying.  And the deal would be even more even more annoying if I wanted to buy the Bawden, because then I’d have to offload the other three posters.  And if I wanted to buy the Constanduros, well I would be in an apocalyptic fury by now.

But enough of that, and back to the offerings.  There aren’t many railway posters for once, but this Purvis is rather lovely.

Tom Purvis, c.1935, est £2,000-3,000

While this is both enormous – three metres by two – and rather pleasingly bonkers.

Anonymous, est. £800-1,200

Brine bath follow by a “Q” Ray Radium Pad anyone?

And that’s about it for the British posters, well apart from this specimen.

Anonymous, 1939, est. £6-8,000

They’d better stop finding these, and sharpish, otherwise those values are going to plummet.

And that’s about your lot.  Well, apart, obviously, from lots of other, foreign posters, for which this Cassandra can stand representative.

Cassandre, 1931, est. £7-9,000

You’d think we’d all be winding down for Christmas by now, but not in poster world, oh no.  We may be almost half way througb December, but there are still two auctions on the horizon.  The first is Swann, whose next auction is on 17th December.  Fortunately for my Christmas relaxation, this time they are selling two turn of the century collections.  So if you want to see a lot of high quality American and French art nouveau, you know where to go, but that’s all I am going to say on here.

The day before this, however, is the Onslows winter auction, and this is a whole other story. Or several other stories in fact.

Some of these tales we know already.  It is – just in case you hadn’t noticed – one hundred years since the start of World War One, and like every other auction with any self-respect this year, Onslows is celebrating by selling a lot of recruiting posters.  For some reason, these also bring a whole lot of Second World War posters travelling in their wake, and this sale is no exception.

This is probably my favourite, partly because I’ve never seen it before and partly because I keep thinking it wants me to get rid of iron dumps.

Anon, est. £40-50

I’m easily amused, me.  And I do also like the typography, and the etc. etc at the end.

However, I do worry sometimes that this blog can get a bit jaded; I’ve already written about so many World War Two posters one way or another that perhaps I don’t get excited enough when they come up for auction.  So I feel duty bound to say that there is also a good Dig for Victory poster too.

Anon, 1941, est. £1,000-1,500

There’s also yet another copy of Keep Calm and Carry On, but I don’t really need to show you a picture of that, do I.  After all, it doesn’t actually look any different to any of the reproductions.

The rest, though, aren’t actually that inspiring when I go back to look at them again.  So perhaps I am not quite so world-weary yet.

Story two, about which I am not so much jaded as bemused, consists of a group of Shell educational posters.  Every so often I spy these in an auction and say that I have no idea what they are worth.  This is still true, but it now seems as though my confusion has spread to the auction houses as well.  Onslows is offering one group of 21 posters in middling condition for £150-200, some smaller groups of posters for £50-80 and then this solo poster for a bit more even though it is just one.

Walter Hoyle, 1963, est. £70-100.

If anybody feels like writing in and explaining the economics of Shell educational posters to me, along with some reasons why, I’d be very grateful.  From what I can see on eBay, the going rate seems to be £20-30 a go if they are in good condition, with a few exceptions, but please feel free to disagree.  I do have a vested interest in this, as recent explorations have revealed that we seem to have dozens of them, with many multiples.  So if theres a county you particularly want, please let me know.

The main excitement though is neither of these but a positively extravagent quantity of GPO posters.

Elizabeth Moore, 1963, est. £100-150

The vast majority are of this type, art paintings of places, commissioned by the GPO to make us address letters correctly and intended, even at the time, to be collectable objects.  I offer you the highly typical one above mainly because it shows Worcester, the ancestral Crownfolio homeland.

Generally, I’m not wild about these,  even when it’s an artist of the calibre of John Minton.

John Minton, 1957, est. £50-100

However this collection (which I think was found as a single in a provincial auction by someone who is going to do quite well out of it all) is so huge that it includes some which are entirely new to me and I also rather like.

Peter Edwards, 1960, est. £100-150

Robert Scanlan, 1965, est. £70-100

I can’t tell you anything about either of these artists, but the posters are great, and there are two more equally good Robert Scanlan’s in the sale as well as that one.

But that’s not all, either, there are also a smaller number of commercial GPO posters too.  We’ve seen this Eckersley before.

Tom Eckersley, 1957, est. £200-300

Its even-more-frequently reproduced dog companion is also for sale.

But I have never seen this Manfred Reiss anywhere.

Manfred Reiss, 1955, est. £200-300

Crownfolio says that’s a bit freaky.

And there’s also these two as well.

G. Parkinson, 1955, est. £100-150

Barnett Freedman, 1938, est. £80-120

I shall watch all of that go past with interest.

Railway posters also make up a reasonable showing, although they are predominantly pre-war and quite a conventional bunch, while London Transport material is very thin on the ground indeed.  Although if you like this bus poster, you will be pleased to hear that it is also available in blue.

M Barnard, 1938, est. £70-100.

This was meant to be a Friday afternoon treat, but got unavoidably delayed.  Still, these four posters are delightful any day.

These first two for the GPO, I have never seen before, and they don’t seem to be in the BPMA archive either.  While this one I have no idea about at all, except that the colours are particularly lovely.

Finally, this one has been on the blog a few times before, but until now I had no idea that it was by Patrick Tilley.

The BPMA didn’t know that either, but you’ll be pleased to know that they do now.

And as ever, many thanks to Patrick Tilley for allowing me to share these with you.

I’m still catching up with the auctions, but I think we are nearly there now.  I missed the recent Van Sabben auction entirely, but then there were only three or four bits of British interest in there, of which this Reginald Mount poster was perhaps the most interesting.

There seems to be an almost unfailing rule with Van Sabben, that they will always have a Reginald Mount poster and it will usually be one I’ve not seen before (we’ve been known to buy them in the past, too).  I wonder where they come from?

This one, however, is unsold, and so you could still get it in the aftersale if you wished, along with these two.

In the interests of accuracy I must point out that the Buckle poster dates from 1938 so much of Bristol’s medieval architecture was subsequently bombed, then quite a lot of what remained was trashed by planners, so don’t go looking for it on the basis of what you see on here.

There’s also a poster of the Queen’s Coronation Regalia still on offer should you desire, but I don’t.

More troublingly, I also missed out on the most recent Christies Sale, but I am inclined to think that this was a bit of a Freudian slip, as I didn’t much care for it.  There was a tonne of French and Russian stuff – and I know that this is just them doing what auction houses do, following the money, but even so.

There were a couple of London transport pair posters that I tend to follow in the auctions, because we’ve owned one and still own the other.

And so I can tell you that as both went for £750, prices are dropping, because they did used to fetch £1,000 each a few years ago.  Other than that it was a pretty dreary selection, so no wonder I forgot.

On a  more cheery note, Onslows have put up a preview for their December auction (carefully timed so that we can all forget about it thanks to Christmas parties and so on).  Highlight for me is this delightful Henrion.

I said to Mr Crownfolio that there would be no point buying it as we’d never have a Christmas poster framed.   He laughed at me, and quite rightly, because this is our hallway.

There are more on the other side, too, so that’s me told.

Apparently the Henrion is just part of a large collection of GPO posters.  These seem to be all the rage as almost every auction seems to have had something similar this year.  There are other ones illustrated, including quite a few of the fine art location ones like this.

But also this lovely Eckersley too.

There are Cuneos, and railway posters and all sorts of other things too, but who cares about those in comparison to the GPO delights?

Finally, something happening in real life rather than on the internet.  This Saturday, November 22nd, I will be at a Vintage and Other Things fair (the other things include macaroons, so I’m quite looking forward to this) selling all of our lovely Daphne Padden prints and tea towels and mats and cards, along with a selection of vintage posters.

It’s at the Silkmill, Merchant’s Barton, Frome, Somerset BA11 1PT.  Do come along, and if you mention Quad Royal, you’ll get a free Party Ring biscuit.

For goodness sake, I’d just written an entire paragraph pointing out that this is half term, I’m meant to be having fun but instead the auctions are coming at me so thick and fast that I can’t keep up with them.  And then WordPress only went and lost it.  Which didn’t exactly make things better.

So we’ll dispense with the preamble and get on with the auction.  Fortunately for both your entertainment and my good humour, there are two rather good ones coming up.  (The implicit comparison here is with the forthcoming Christies poster sale which is dreary in the extreme and so will be summarily despatched next week instead).

First up is the GW Railwayana Auction at Pershore, which contains enough posters to constitute a full sale on their own.  But fear not, you can still also buy a GWR bottle should the urge strike you.

It’s a small COD bottle.  Insert your own fish jokes here.

Or, alternatively, have a poster of some fish.  On holiday.

Of course there is one thing which prevents the GWRA sale from being like a proper poster auction which is that, still, despite all my complaints, there are few dates and furthermore, no estimates.  So you pays your bid and you takes your chances.  Or, if you’re me, you don’t.  And I won’t even be tempted to do so by this Daphne Padden poster, either.

If you share my tastes, then the other prize lot is probably this Eckersley.

But there are also a few other noteworthy lots, including a Lander which is entirely new to me.

While Pat Keely’s vision of the future via Centrepoint doesn’t come up often enough.

This image of Nottingham, meanwhile is by Kerry Lee, about whom I know precisely nothing, but it’s rather good, don’t you think?

These two posters, by Bromfield and Stevens respectively aren’t exactly news, but it’s still good to see them up for sale.

And the catalogue is prepared to tell me that the Stevens, at least, dates from 1956/7.

That’s by no means the end of it, either.  There are plenty more posters that I have a soft spot for, like this Frank Sherwin.

As well as Kenneth Steel’s bonkersly technicolour vision of British Industry in the early 1960s.

And there’s still more to look at, even just in the railway posters.  Who knew, for example, that Chester was on the coast?

There must have been a few disappointed travellers after that was published.

I’ve hardly scraped the surface of the railway posters on offer, and I’m exhausted.  But there’s more than just those up for auction, too, the sale also includes a handful of London Transport posters.  The Keely is illustrated above, but I also rather like this 1955 example, by Anthony Rossiter.

The quote is by Tennyson, should you be wondering.

And, as I hinted in an earlier post, there is also a reasonable slew of wartime propaganda, from both World Wars, of which this Beverley Pick is probably the best.

Although I don’t think I’ve ever noticed this wartime poster about wartime posters before, whose subliminal message seems to be that reading government propaganda makes you more attractive to the opposite sex.

But really, you need to go and see for yourself.  There are nearly a hundred posters in the sale, and I’m bound to have missed some of them out.  And that despite the fact that I’ve gone on for too long already.  The second auction, I think, will have to wait for a post all of its own.  Watch this space.