Posts - Page 81 of 96

It’s the economy, stupid

auctions

At least that’s my theory. I can’t account for the Onslows’s sale otherwise. More posters than usual didn’t sell, or didn’t make their reserves, and very few indeed made more than their estimate. It seems that after two weeks of hearing about nothing but austerity budgets and cost-cutting across the board, everyone is now too frightened to spend money on posters.

There were a few honourable exceptions. This World War Two poster reached £420, from an original estimate of £100-150.

I don’t quite know why; plenty of other wartime posters didn’t sell that well, or at all, and it’s not even a particular design classic – I prefer the idea of the Londoner’s Land Club (which I would join in a flash if it still existed) to the actual poster itself.

A few other categories did well – Munich Olympics posters, and a smattering of French things and old things that I can’t get too excited about. This Frank Sherwin poster also went for £20 over its £600 high estimate.

But many classic railway posters weren’t as popular as they might have been. Lots of Terence Cuneos and landscape Quad Royals were passed over. As was this delightful chap, from Studio Seven.

I’d have thought him irresistable, but not even cute can sell in a recession it seems.

Mind you, I can see why there might be a shortage of buyers here. After Morphets and Bloomsbury’s big railway poster sale in New York, I imagine quite a few collectors may have spent over their annual budget already. Or they may just have auction fatigue. I’m getting quite close to it, and I’ve hardly bought anything.

There were some exceptions to the general trend though. The Shell Educational Posters all did well, almost all of them selling at their £50-70 estimates.

Which is possibly surprising, because the set on eBay which I blogged about recently, have almost entirely failed to sell for £60 each. (Should you fancy a bargain, they’re now coming round again at a more enticing £39.99 each.)

Other than that, the strange rule of the poster world was once again proven, which is that original artworks are less valuable than the mass-produced reproductions that sprang from them. (Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr Benjamin). There were a whole set – nine in total – of Frank Newbould railway safety posters. Each one paired the poster with the artwork and one or more original design treatments.

You’d have thought it would be a museum or a collector’s dream; but none of them made their £150-200 estimate, and a few failed to sell altogether. I’d love to know where they came from.

Also of interest is that a selection of 1960s London Underground posters (like this 1963 Frank Dobson) almost entirely went for £55-60 each.

Which perhaps makes the estimates at the Morphets sale look more reasonable, a thought which quite perks me up. Perhaps I’d better go and order that truck then…

But if you fancy buying any posters in the meantime, Onslows will consider offers on any of the unsold lots, so take a look, there may be a bargain or two to be had.

Disclaimer: this is an entirely personal view and has probably missed lots of interesting prices out. Please feel free to point them out, or to suggest any other theories you may have about why auctions and prices are as they are.

Starting Small

designers

I did promise some more Daphne Padden a couple of weeks ago, but there is a vast mound of posters to photograph (forty or more, not counting the duplicates) and with all the windows open for a breeze to stop my brain boiling in the heat, it’s not the easiest job right now.

So, as a starter, here are some small things, but ones that you might not have seen before. (One or two of them might make it onto eBay in the next week or two, as we do now have quite a bit of her stuff…)

I’m guessing that this is another menu for P&O, but I can’t say for sure as it’s blank inside. There is also a rather delightful trident-load of little birds on the back.

Then there’s a BOAC children’s menu.

I don’t know when this was done, but the food police weren’t too much in evidence then; the menu includes chocolate biscuits, preserves and Madeira cake, but no mention of vegetables at all.

This equatorial certificate was for BOAC as well.

She clearly liked all three of these designs, as they’d been framed for display and kept that way.

Finally, there’s a jigsaw for Nestle. My guess would be that this came with a box of chocolates or biscuits.

The lions are particularly fine – and there will be plenty more animals when I do get round to photographing the posters properly. Here’s an owl and four rabbits to whet your appetite until then.

The return of Mr Huveneers

designers

Mike Ashworth, whose Flickr stream brought us the wonderful lost posters of Notting Hill Gate, is clearly a man with much design ephemera to his name. He very kindly sent me a link to this – a wonderful brochure cover by Pieter Huveneers from 1956.

Now I blogged about Pieter Huveneers a while back, trying to find out discover whether the British designer of the 1950s then became the Australian corporate design guru of the 60s and 70s. I had one enigmatic reply which said that this was the same person, but no more information than that. Still, it’s good to know that he didn’t just disappear. And it does give me an excuse to post this, which I love.

It’s a 10″ x 15″, and while Google has taught me that the June Dairy Festival was a big and regular do in the 50s, I still don’t really know what it was, or what the postie had to do with it. So, once again, any information would be gratefully received.

Throw a Coach Party

auctions

It’s here. The much anticipated Morphets everything-you-ever-wanted-to-own-from -the-sixties-and-seventies Malcolm Guest catalogue has arrived at The Saleroom and on their website.

Wales and Coach tours 2 vintage posters from morphets
Donald Smith, two posters for Hants and Dorset Coaches

My brain is going to take a while to absorb it all, especially in this heat – there are over a thousand lots, and with many of them multiples of between two and fifteen posters, I haven’t a clue how many posters are actually for sale. Really quite a lot I should think, and all I’ve been able to do is skim through them. So, for the moment, here are a few nice items chosen at random for your entertainment. And a few first thoughts too.

Bruce Angrave, Party Travel for 8 or more, vintage rail poster morphets sale
Bruce Angrave, Party Travel, British Railways poster

There are huge numbers of posters which I certainly have never come across at auction or illustrated before, from, the whimsical to the modern.

Longman Party Outings By Rail vintage railway poster from Morphets
Longman, Party Outings By Rail, British Railways

John Wright, Rail Rover Tickets, British Railways

And a few which seem to have fallen off the first sale, like this rather lovely bit of GWR modernism.

Ralph Mott Factories and Factory Sites, GWR

There are also a lot of coach posters in addition to the railway collection – well over three hundred.

Studio Seven, Hire a Coach

Karo/Jacques, Luxury Coach Tours; Send Your Parcels by Bus

But mostly it’s the sheer quantity of posters itself that I find overwhelming. I could – and probably will – do a whole post just about the Royston Coopers that they have, most of which I’ve never seen before.

I should also point out that, once again, the estimates are insanely low. That Royston Cooper is estimated at £50-100, as are the two Daphne Paddens below.

If even half the lots go for close to these estimates I will a) eat my hat and b) need a removal van to bring all of my purchases down from Harrogate.

It gets even madder when you start to look at the multiples.

Anyone fancy the Games, Eckersley and two Ungers above for £100 to £150? I do, but I also don’t rate my chances too highly on that.

A full appraisal will follow in due course, but it really is worth going to take a look yourself – and then please do come back and tell me what you think.

Lucky for some

eBay

I posted a few weeks ago about our giant black cat, but this more manageable version (well, manageable-ish at 40″ x 60″) has just come up on eBay.

This sleek feline could be yours for just £99. Ours, meanwhile, has been re-homed at the History of Advertising Trust, to be properly looked after.

Also on eBay at the moment, your choice of pretty much any Shell County poster you want. Here’s Wiltshire, by Keith Grant, by way of an example.

But with 22 on offer, you are spoilt for choice. At £59.99 a go, that could be a nice little earner for the seller. If they get that of course. Some very similar ones come up at Onslows tomorrow, so it will be interesting to see what they make.

(These are offered as Buy It Now or Best Offer, so might go for less. Am I the only person who is regularly tempted by Best Offer to make a really low punt, just in case they say yes? Or is it a universal urge?)

Don’t Burn Your Shoes

auctions

I saw this poster at auction almost seven years ago now, but have never forgotten it.

This poster really brings home to me the Orwellian side of Britain during the Second World War, a place where posters are shouting at you about things you’ve never even thought of doing (I’d never worried about burning my shoes until I saw it, but perhaps I should have done).

What I always wonder about though, is what people felt about it at the time. Did they feel nagged or did they accept it as a necessary part of the war? Or did they just ignore it? I could, possibly, find out the answer to those questions, as there is some Mass Observation research on what people thought of the wartime posters. But to do so I’d need to travel down to Brighton, and I haven’t quite done that yet. I will one day, though – and then let you know.

More to the point of this post, ‘Don’t Burn Your Shoes’ was designed by Beverley Pick. As is this one, which, although not quite as shouty, gives you more of a feel for the colour and design.

They’re all from the Onslows’ auction in November 2003. Although we were there, it was very early on in our poster-collecting days, so I had no idea what things were worth, or even what I particularly liked. Which is why ‘Don’t Burn Your Shoes’ up there went for just £30 – and not to me.

This one went for just £10.

And there are more (and more and more).

With hindsight, I think the Beverley Pick archive was being sold off. There were at least thirty or more posters up for sale, and some duplicates. But after posting about Beverley Pick a few weeks ago, I thought it was worth bringing these posters into circulation, as quite a few of them aren’t illustrated anywhere else.

Sadly, I have not been able to find out a single thing more about Beverley Pick since I last posted. I can’t even bring you a picture. The best I can do is this.

Designer Mr Beverley Pick at work on drawing board. CU. His hand painting star on sketch of Regent Street. CU.

So at least I know he’s a man. He is, I believe, painting stars on the 1955 Christmas decorations for Oxford Street. But if you want to see his face, you’ll have to watch the Pathe News footage here. If anyone can improve on this, please do let me know.