National Savings poster Archives

Golf and pageantry

auctions, eBay

The weather is grey, the economy going into a tailspin, but still those auctions keep on coming. This week’s offering is from The International Poster Center in New York.

Because it’s in New York, it’s heavy on the usual suspects of Art Nouveau, bicycle posters (which for some reason that escapes me are disproportionally collected and expensive), French travel posters and so on. Although I do quite like this Cassandre, if only as a terrible warning of what television might do to you.

Cassandre 1951 vintage poster for Phillips television
Cassandre, 1951, est. $1,400-1,700

Naturally there are golf posters too, although here at least there is a small amount of British interest.

Rowland Hilder come to Britain for golf vintage travel poster
Rowland Hilder, est. $1,200-1,500

Andrew Johnson, 1930, est. $2,000-3,000

People with lots of money do choose the oddest things sometimes.

Elsewhere there are a few more British odds and ends, although they tend towards the traditional, you might even say stereotypical view of Britain. Golf and pageantry, that is probably what we mean to the Americans.

Christopher Clark Trooping the Colour poster 1952 vintage travel british railways
Christopher Clark, 1952, est. $1,500-2,000

Seeing as we’re here, the poster above raises an interesting question about dating. The auction house have dated it as 1932. Which is approximately when the picture was painted, but given that it was previously issued in 1930 as an LMS poster, I’m not even sure that that’s quite right. Here’s the earlier poster from 1930.

But neither of these are really the date of the poster, as the British Railways logo shows – it was actually printed in 1952. So which is the answer ? I suppose it depends whether you’re seeing this as a print of the painting, or as a poster itself. I’d date it at 1952 on that basis – what do you reckon?

Along the same lines is this, which might as well be a print of a painting rather than the Southern region poster it claims to be.

Anna Zinkeisen Southern Region poster Laying of Foundation Stone at Southampton Docks
Anna Zinkeisen, 1938, est. $2,000-2,500

The frame is particularly bemusing, because the description says merely,

B+/ Slight tears at horizontal fold.

but the image on NMSI has no such frame. So what is going on here? Search me.

Fortunately there are a couple of pieces of modernity to lighten the day. Like this Austin Cooper, even if the image is stubbornly retrograde today.

Austin Cooper golliwog vintage London Transport poster Shop between 1928
Austin Cooper, 1928, est. $1,200-1,700

Along with this McKnight Kauffer.

McKnight Kauffer vintage shell poster lubricating oil 1937
McKnight Kauffer, 1937, est. $1,000-1,200

Now the McKnight Kauffer isn’t alone, because one thing that the New York auction does have going for it is an interesting selection of Shell posters.

Vintage Shell poster friend to the farmer Applebee 1952
Leonard Applebee, 1952, est. $700-900

Harold Hussey, 1952, est. $700-900

These two are the most pedestrian of the bunch, but I’m putting them here because the estimates seem quite high. I can say this from a position of some confidence, given that we bought one of these on eBay for the grand sum of just £12.50 a few years ago.

This Ben Nicholson, however, is great.

Ben Nicholson vintage shell poster Guardsmen use Shell 1938
Ben Nicholson, 1938, est. $800-1,000

But I also rather like this, by Sir Cedric Lockwood Morris.

Summer Shell vintage poster by Cedric Lockwood Morris
Cedric Morris, 1938, est. $800-1,000

I like it and him even better for having read this fantastic reminiscence. Anyone who gets into a fight with Munnings has a lot going for them.

Should any of these take your fancy, you can bid online via LiveAuctioneers. But I have to warn you that buyers’ commission comes in at a rather painful 22.5%, and then you’ve got to get the thing back over the Atlantic too.

All of which makes eBay seem an attractive option. If only there was anything out there to buy. All I can offer you at the moment is a lot of rather late Public Information Posters. Which I’m mainly pulling out to reinforce a point I’ve made before, which is that National Savings posters are rarely design classics.

The only one I come close to liking is this incentive to teeth-brushing.

But I’m not sure I’d pay the £9.99 they’re asking, although I am sure someone will.

The best lot I can find at the moment isn’t even a poster.

The cover design for this LP is by Reginald Mount. But it would be wasted tucked away on a shelf.

There was one good thing on eBay this week, but we bought it. So I’ll share that with you when it arrives.

Boarding

auctions, Uncategorized

Our theme today is things mounted on board. Because twice today I’ve looked at a promsingly low-priced item, only to discover that the apparent cheapness is justified, because it has been glued to a large lump of chipboard. Sigh.

The first offender is this – estimated at a mere £80-120, which is a pittance for such a lovely thing.

This Deco splendery is by Alfred Clive Gardiner from 1926 and I like it very much.

It’s on offer in the forthcoming Bloomsbury Poster and other bits and bobs Auction on 20th January. Sadly, there isn’t a great deal else there to detain us. A McKnight Kauffer perhaps. estimated at £200-400.

Of interest to me at least is this Norman Wilkinson National Savings poster, estimated at £100-200.

It’s the estimate that I’m most interested in, as we have two of these (I know, I have no idea why) which we’d happily sell now, so if they end up being worth anything like that it will be what is known as a result.

Other than that, it’s the usual run of Art Nouveau, sleek Art Deco cruise liners and pictures of people skiing. Although this one did at least make me laugh.

Estimate £250-35o for the political animals amongst us.

The second piece of boardery turned up on eBay. £199 Buy It Now seemed very cheap for a vintage Claude Buckle GWR poster.

Until you get close to it. Not only is it mounted on board, but someone seems to have been taking pot shots at it too.

The seller does have a couple of other interesting poster too, albeit at a price. This Percy Drake Brookshaw comes up every so often in auctions and so on.

And every time it does, it gives me a headache, so I certainly wouldn’t pay £200 for it (and, judging by its auction record, neither would anyone else).

But I do quite like this 1958 image by John Cort.

At £150 Buy It Now or a bright bit of 1950s moderne, I suspect that will go quite soon (although Mr Crownfolio thinks I am wrong there). And if it doesn”t, it should.

But I do also have a question about chipboard, or rather the posters that are stuck to them. I am assuming that these have such low estimates because it’s not really possible to get the poster off the board. Is this so, or is the process reversible?

This isn’t an abstract question, either. We’ve got this lovely 1922 London Underground poster by Alfred Rutherston in just that state.

So if it can be released, I’d really like to know.

Big. But definitely not clever.

posters

Having mentioned posters the size of houses yesterday, I thought I might share with you one of my and Mr Crownfolio’s less sensible purchases. Which is this.

Although I might be less embarrassed if that were all there was. In reality, there’s rather more to it – here’s the top half.

And this is the bottom.

All of which put together is a giant 16-sheet billboard poster for National Savings. It’s stupidly big.

To give you an idea of exactly how huge it is, here it is with a real life (and hence uncooperative) black cat for scale.

What were we thinking of? Although, at the time we bought it, we were living in a flat with a double-height end wall that could have fitted this quite nicely. I think this was my intention. But Mr Crownfolio said no. He was probably right.

It gets worse, though. I dug the cardboard box out (which, I have to say, we haven’t really opened much since we bought it) only to discover – and I really hadn’t remembered this at all – that we seem to have bought three. Eh?

So we also own this National Savings billboard poster. Again, I’ve had to photograph it in pieces; I think I could just about spread it out in this room, but only if I removed all the furniture.

Finally, there’s this one, which I am rather delighted to find, although I am not sure whether I like it because of its Orwellian style or despite it.

There is another strip of text which goes along the bottom, but it doesn’t make sense on its own, and, again, I just don’t have the space.

The graphic bubbles are great though

Here is one with a (more co-operative) iPhone for scale.

I can’t tell you a whole heap about them, I’m afraid. Judging from the serial numbers, they are from 1951, and we bought them from eBay. And they’re not in quite as good condition as they look – there is a lot of foxing and watermarking on the back, and quite a few holes along the folds. But the colours, as you can see, are pin-sharp. More than that I do not know.

But now that I’ve rediscovered them, I feel a bit guilty about just putting them away and letting them sit when we’re never ever going to put them on a wall and I can’t imagine that many other people are daft enough to actually buy them. At the moment, our thought is to donate them to the History of Advertising Trust. Unless someone else has a better idea.