On the buses

Last week, Mr Crownfolio and I scored that increasingly rare thing, a bargain on eBay.  Although this did involve us chancing a reasonably large sum of money on what was described as

a lot of old railway posters that i got when i was turning out my grandparents old house they are at a ruff guess about 25 plus

along with a picture that didn’t give a lot away.

lot of posters on eBay

A bit of additional description says that there were some half-page posters as well as some full page ones, but we had no idea what would turn up.  Well apart from this, of course.

Llandudno tourist information poster 1950s vintage seaside

And the knowledge that at least some of the posters would have tatty edges.

Fortunately we weren’t disappointed.  As a starter, this Alan Durman on its own would have been quite enough to keep us happy.

Alan Durman butlins poster for coaches 1950s vintage classic

Fortunately there were more goodies even than that.

Vintage coach poster Llandudno

But what I don’t think we’ve ended up with  is a set of railway posters.  The Butlins one does say ‘Travel by Train’ at the bottom, but there’s no British Railways logo or anything.  More importantly, they’re all 20″ x 30″, so standard advertising display size, Double Crown,  rather than British Railways standard display size of 40″ x 25″ or Double Royal.  To prove my point, here is the Alan Durman Butlins poster as a Double Royal with the British Railways logo on.

Alan Durman vintage british railways Butlins poster 1950s bathing beauty

I don’t think I will be complaining about the misdescription though.  Because Double Crown wasn’t just the preserve of commercial advertisers.  The other big advertisers who used it as standard were the coach companies, and that’s what I think we’ve got here, a batch of coach posters.  Which isn’t a very difficult deduction to make looking at a set of posters like these.

Vintage Coach poster for Bridlington

Vintage coach poster brighton and hove 1950s

Vintage coach poster wye valley lander

The bottom one is by Lander and is I think particularly nice.  If you needed any more persuading, this one even says coach on it, with a handy picture too.

Vintage coach poster isle of man

That seems pretty certain then.  Even better, there are some good posters amongst the lot, not least of which is this Daphne Padden.

Daphne Padden vintage coach poster scarborough

There are also some artists I’ve not come across before.  These two posters are signed Greene.

Vintave coach poster morecambe greene 1950s

Vintage coach poster colwyn bay greene

I think this is John Greene, quite possibly working with his wife Margaret too.  But I’m not going to go off on a research digression for once, they can wait for another day.  Meanwhile one of my favourites isn’t signed at all.

Vintage coach poster portsmouth navy days

There are few more as well, and among them a set of these oddities.

Bus destination poster, vintage 1950s

Mr Crownfolio reckons that these must have been put up by the various stops at bus stations so that people knew they were getting on the right coach.  But if there’s a transport historian out there with a better theory, do let me know.

Now we just need to decide what to do with a whole heap of posters with a lot of blank space on.  Perhaps we’ll frame them on magnetic backing and use them as notice boards.  Even then, we’ve probably still got quite a lot…

 

Give that penguin a fish!

A recent acquisition on eBay was a few copies of Modern Publicity from the late 1950s and early 1960s.  I was going to share their delights with you anyway, but when I looked into the archives I realised that I’ve never actually blogged about this properly at all. Then when I looked a bit harder I discovered that Designers in Britain has only ever been mentioned in passing as well.  As both are rather fabulous resources, I will endeavour to put at least some of this to rights over the next few weeks. But first, a brief introduction.

Modern Publicity is an international annual, published by The Studio group, which covers what would now be called graphic design – posters, printed material, packaging and trade marks – from around the world.  In contrast, Designers in Britain does what it says on the tin and only deals with UK design and designers, but includes everything from letterheads to large pieces of industrial machinery.  While both of them suffer from being predominantly printed in black and white, they are nonetheless well worth your attention.  Not only do you get to look at lots of wonderful pieces all in one place, but they’re also fascinating insights into what critics and designers thought was good at the time it was produced.  Which isn’t always the same as the things we like now.

So, what did people admire in the late 1950s and early 1960s?  Or to be more precise, which pieces of graphic design were considered good enough to stand next to the cream of international design?  One answer is not the designers that you might expect.  Tom Eckersley gets just one poster included in the two Modern Publicity annuals from the 1950s.

Eckersley Aer Lingus vintage European route poster

You’ll be relieved to hear that he does rather better in 1962, with three designs included, amongst them this Omo poster which I’ve never seen before.

Tom Eckersley Omo poster 1962 Modern Publicity

Abram Games also receives a rave review in 1958 for this Guinness poster, which is chosen to open the entire book.

Abram Games Guinness poster 1957 big G

Only where both name and product are already household words is such a method possible.  To adopt the plan for an unknown advertiser would be to court disaster.

After that, it all gets a bit more unexpected.  I’ve mentioned before that Harry Stevens is very popular in these kinds of publications, and that’s as true in these annuals as it ever was.

harry Stevens tilling group luggage poster 1958

harry Stevens victoria coach station poster 1957 from Modern Publicity

Printed in lemon, vermilion, cobalt, orange, pink and black, the caption says.  I don’t think black and white is really fair on it, do you?  And should you have a copy in colour, please do let me know, I’d love to see it.

An even more surprising regular is Ken Bromfield.  Now he comes up every now and then on here, mostly as a designer of quite nice railway posters.  But the editors of Modern Publicity love his work – he gets four pieces of work in the 1959 edition alone, including this poster.

ken bromfield artwork for windsor poster 1960 it says on NMSI

This is the artwork from the NMSI collection, because I can’t find the actual poster anywhere.  But he’s clearly an artist I should take a proper look at one of these days.

There are also a few unexpected gems to be discovered, like this poster by Lander.

R M Lander Folkstone poster 1958 in black and white sadly

I can’t find a decent picture of this anywhere, which is really frustrating as it looks great, and must look even better in colour, (and I am getting quite close to having another rant about the inadequacies of the National Railway Museum catalogue as a result of my looking too).  Again, any pointers gratefully received.  Or indeed copies of the poster.

There are others of this ilk as well – it’s always worth being reminded of this London Transport poster by Edwin Tatum.

Vintage London Transport Poster natural history museum Tatum 1956

I’m also happy to see anything at all by Arpad Elfer, although these penguins are particularly splendid.

Arpad Elfer penguins DH evans poster 1958

There’s plenty more where that came from.  Here, just as an example, are Karo and Zero together on one page (did you see what they did there?).

Karo WH Smith ad and Zero Macfisheries ad from Modern Publicity

What a world it must have been with those advertisements in it.

Then there are the people I’ve just never heard of before.  Who, for example was Petronella Hodges?  She did this.

Petronella Hodges G Plan booklet 1958

And this too.

Petronella Hodges cutlery leaflet J Walter Thompson 1958

But she appears precisely nowhere in Google.  A mystery, it seems.  But the clue lies in the small print.  Both of these designs were produced by J Walter Thompson, so my guess would be that Petronella Hodges was an art director there at the end of the 1950s.  Quite apart from conjuring up images of a British version of Mad Men, it’s also a pointer to a very specific change that was going on.  The jobbing freelance designer would become an increasingly rare species, with only the very best surviving.  More and more, this kind of design would be done in house at the agencies, by this new breed of Art Director.

In amongst all of this, I realise that I’ve hardly even mentioned the 1962 edition, and there’s lots going on in there, as even the British make the move from whimsy to modernism.  So that will have to get a post to itself another day.  In the meantime, have a couple more rare gems from the late 50s, by Abram Games and E Tatum, again.  There’s someone else I’m going to need to find out more about, isn’t it…

Abram Games green rover ticket poster 1958

E Tatum train to the continent poster 1958

Continuation

So, time for another attempt at reaching the summit of the Onslows auction.  There was certainly a fair amount left out of my last post.  Not least this Lander poster, which I am contractually obliged to reproduce on the blog once every few months.

Lander (Eric dates unknown) The English Lakes, original poster printed for BR(LMR) by Waterlow
Eric Lander, est. £700-1,000

This time it gets in because of the rather juicy estimate.  Perhaps Lander is now becoming the new Tom Eckersley, perhaps everyone wants their sitting-room to look just like mine.  Who can tell.

Elsewhere, there is also this McKnight Kauffer, which is interesting because it’s not one which comes up very often in auctions or in books, and is also very fine in its Bloomsbury-ish kind of way.

E McKnight Kauffer (1890-1954) Now the pine-tree's waving top, original poster printed for London Transport by Vincent Brooks Day 1932
McKnight Kauffer, 1932, est. £200-300

It has a pair, or companion too.

E McKnight Kauffer (1890-1954) Look under the broad beech tree !, original poster printed for London Transport by Vincent Brooks Day 1932
McKnight Kauffer, 1932, est. £200-300

There are a couple of other unexpected London Transport productions as well, like this poster celebrating London’s Statues (which I assume was once one half of a pair poster).

George Chapman Statues, original poster printed for London Transport by W&S 1955 - 102 x 63 cm
George Chapman, 1955, est. £100-150.

I’ll be interested to see what that goes for, at least in comparison to the Henrion.  They both have the same estimate, but there’s no doubt in my mind that the Henrion is a much better poster, even if it is slightly un-nerving to live with.  Am I right though?  There’s only one way to find out…

I also like this little Herry Perry too.

Heather (Herry)Perry (1993-1962) Dining Out Your Car original vintage poster printed for Green Line 1934
Herry Perry, 1934, est. £100-150.

While this Hans Unger is, I know, a railway poster, it feels more as though it belongs with this batch instead.

Hans Unger (1915-1975) Starlight Special, original poster printed for British Transport Commission by Waterlow 1960
Hans Unger, 1960, est. £70-100

Unger also designed this undated Ideal Home poster.

Hans Unger (1915-1975) Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition Olympia, original poster printed by S H Benson
Hans Unger, est £50-100

But the main category which was left out of last week’s post is World War Two posters.  As usual with Onslows, there is a good selection up for auction (there are also a smattering of First World War ones in there too but I can’t warm to them I’m afraid).

Probably the best-known of them is this Abram Games design.

Abram Games your britain fight for it now vintage WW2 poster 1942
Abram Games, 1942, est £700-1,000

‘Your Britain – Fight For It Now’ is one of the most famous series of posters produced during World War Two, and are worthy of a blog post all to themselves one of these days, because their fame and constant reproduction gives a slightly misleading view of British propaganda during the war.  But that’s another story for another day.

They also have an air of glamour about them for having been banned, as the Onslows catalogue relates:

Along with two other similar posters by Games this poster design was criticised by the War Office and withdrawn after initial distribution to the Army and display at the Harrod’s poster exhibition . This is a rare poster and is the only copy we have offered for sale.

Now I had always been under the impression (and have posted accordingly on here) that it was only one of Games three posters, that of Finsbury Health Centre below, which had been banned.

Abram Games abca Finsbury Health Centre rickets vintage ww2 poster

Allegedly Churchill objected to the portrayal of the child with rickets, calling it libellous on the state of Britain and insulting to the serving serviceman to say that these were the conditions prevailing in his home country.

But I might be wrong, so please do get in touch if you can clear this up one way or the other.

There are also a nice selection of Dig for Victory posters.  This, my favourite, comes up twice.

Norman Wilkinson vintage dig for victory poster 1940
Norman Wilson, 1940, est £200-300

So there’s no excuse for not having a copy.  Imagine how enticing that cornucopia of vegetables must have looked while almost everthing else was rationed.

I’m sure there are plenty more posters I should have included in here, but I’ve nearly exploded my brain just getting this far.  So if you’ve got anything to add, the comment box is below and I’d love to hear about it.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to lie down.

The New Wave

I thought I’d said pretty much everything I could say about Sotherans by now, in particular about the unlikelihood of being able to sell posters at such prices in a world where, thanks to the internet, everyone should agree on what a poster is worth.   But it seems that modern technology  has made precisely no difference at all to their business model, because this year they have once again produced a new catalogue, and the prices are just as jaw-dropping as they have ever been.

Anglesey Norman Wilkinson LMS Poster 1930
Norman Wilkinson, 1930, £1,995 – sold

So far, so not news.  But this set of posters is worth taking a look at, because it marks an interesting change in the focus of the company, and so perhaps also a movement in the market more generally.

It is true that they still begin with the traditional railway landscape/Terence Cuneo favourites that we have come to know, like this Somerset poster by Jack Merriott.

Jack Merriott Somerset British Railways vintage poster 1960
Jack Merriott, 1960, £1,500

I do also have to note that this Somerset British Railways Map is apparently £760, unbacked, mostly because we bought one for £16.99 on eBay a while back.

JP Sayers British Railways Somerset Map
J P Sayers, 1937, £765

And then sold it for £56 a few years later.  I thought we’d done well, but clearly not.

But there aren’t as many of these as you’d expect.  Very soon the catalogue shifts into an entirely different gear, one which might be called cheerful British kitsch.

Bexhill on Sea vintage british railways poster 1961
Anonymous,1961, £800

In fact a few pages in the catalogue look more like a romp through Quad Royal than an up-market poster sale.

Page from sotherans catalogue

There are some good posters in here – I did actually type great and then deleted it, because mostly they’re not.  They’re bright, they’re very 1950s, but what they are not is classic graphic design (although I might just have to make an exception for a this stick of rock).

Eastbourne vintage travel poster 1950 Bromfield British Railways
Bromfield, 1950, £685 – sold

What’s really interesting though is that almost all of them have sold, and for prices that they just wouldn’t reach anywhere else.

Southport, vintage British Railways travel poster 1965
Anonymous, 1965 (??), £485

The interest in this style is not entirely a new thing.  When I first started going to poster auctions in about 2002, Christies had just started selling these kinds of poster, and they were doing very well in the their auctions too.  But when Christies introduced their new £800 minimum lot price, this rather ruled them out.  Clearly though, as this catalogue shows, the demand for them hasn’t gone away.

R M Lander come to hastings by train vintage british railways poster 1962
Lander, 1962, £685 – sold

Sotherans could be accused of pushing it to the limit, mind you.  As I’ve mentioned before, these two Harry Stevens posters are not exactly rare.

Harry Stevens vintage London Transport poster Travel Enquiries
Harry Stevens, 1974, £85 – sold

HArry Stevens litter vintage 1974 London Transport poster
Harry Stevens, 1974, £85 – sold

In fact they have been swilling all over eBay for some time.  Right now you can buy a framed copy of the top poster for £21 should you wish, and a portrait version of the lower one for £23.  Which does make me wonder whether Sotheran’s buyers are too foppish and tweedy to have come across the internet at all.

But it goes further.  There are a slew of posters on there without much in the way of merit.

Birthday Savings vintage post office savings bank poster Rex Moreton 1960
Rex Moreton, 1960, £195 – sold

Happy and Carefree vintage Post office savings bank poster GPO 1960
Anonymous, c.1960, £125

They’ve sold too, when you’d struggle to get a tenner for them on eBay.  Really, who are these people? And how can I sell them some posters?

To be fair, there are also one or two nice GPO posters in there too, like this Eric Fraser.

Eric Fraser, vintage GPO poster, Neutron generator c1930-40
Eric Fraser, c.1930-40, £225

Along with one or two good LT ones too.

Peter Roberson London Museums vintage London Transport poster 1956
Peter Roberson, 1956, £500

Enid Marx vintage London Transport poster 1965 The Science Museum
Enid Marx, 1965, £500

Although this William Fenton has to be in the ‘stretching it to get a tenner on eBay’ category.

William Fenton dull bus vintage London Transport poster of dull buses
William Fenton, 1969, £250

While you’d have to pay me to take this one away.

Bus Stop Poster 1970
Anonymous, 1970, £55

Worth noting too is this Mount Evans, which has to be one of the better pieces of post war design in the whole catalogue.

Mount Evans Britain CoI poster 1967
Mount/Evans, 1967, £350

The style is modern rather than kitsch, but it still represents the same movement away from landscapey railway posters and towards something more interesting (at least if you’re me).

So what does it all mean?  My first guess would have been that the world is running out of railway posters and so dealers like Sotherans have been forced to diversify.  But in fact, it’s the more modern posters which have been selling for them, leaving more traditional fare like the Somerset posters still for sale.  So this must be what people, even the rareified breed who go to Sotherans want these days.  Which is probably worth noting, not least because it gives the rest of us a good chance to do some upselling from eBay.

Now, I would send you off to the Sotherans catalogue to take a look at what’s sold for yourself.  But literally while I was typing this post, they took that page down, although you can still see an online version of the print catalogue.  So I think that more of the posters than I have listed are sold, but I’m not able to check that any more.  They have, however, replaced it with a new set of posters for sale, including a very interesting set of GPO Savings posters. I’ll take a proper look at them (and their prices) soon, but if you want to take a peek before then, you can find them here.

Selective Vision

As I mentioned at the time, the two Paignton posters in the forthcoming Christies Sale got me thinking.  To be precise they’ve made me wonder why these two posters keep coming up for auction when the rest of Reginald Lander’s vast and varied output doesn’t.

Lander Paignton vintage railway poster

There’s a simple answer, which is that these particular posters are a bit reminiscent of Abram Games, and so are seen to be good and therefore get sold by Christies. Lander did some more in this vein, such as this Jersey design: these come up too, just not as often as Paignton.

LAnder Jersey British Railways poster 1959

Which is fair enough, but it’s a thought worth unpicking a bit further, mainly as a reminder that the market does not equal design history which in turn does not equal what was produced at the time.

Let’s start at the far end of that.  Lots and lots of posters were designed in 1958 when Lander’s designs were first produced – I can find over 120 on the National Railway Museum catalogue alone.  So in part the Paignton posters must keep appearing because quite a few of them were saved when they were produced (there is a chance, of course, that there are just four or five of them, endlessly doing the rounds of auctions, but I’ll discount that for now).  In the case of railway posters this probably means that people bought them for themselves because they particularly liked them.

Another Lander Paignton railway poster

Now this may be people choosing an excellent piece of contemporary design as decoration, but may also be because, depicting such holiday sundries as a deckchair and a bucket and spade as they do, the images make rather good holiday souvenirs.  Perhaps also more people went to Paignton; or it may even be that Paignton Town Council spent more than anyone else on its publicity and so printed loads more posters.  Even at the moment of production there are a mindboggling set of reasons why some posters might survive in greater numbers than others.

But that’s only the beginning of it.  Because then, from all of the railway posters which do survive, Christies and collectors together do a kind of negotiation about what is ‘interesting’.  Interesting, in this sense, is pretty much interchangeable with ‘valuable’.

For whatever reason – perhaps, as I mentioned above a resemblance to the work of Abram Games, a perception that they are ‘good design’ or even just because people still like a cheery picture of a deckchair or a bucket and spade – these posters are now seen as having greater worth than many others.  More worth, for example, than those newsagents advertising posters which I posted on here the other day (and then as a result ended up getting the one below on eBay for a tenner).

Woman magazine advertising poster

But there’s nothing definitive about these decisions; while I don’t think the Woman magazine poster is as good as the Lander, is the Paignton poster really sixty or even eighty times better?  That’s what the Christies’ estimates would like you to believe, but I don’t think so. And will the relative values be the same in five or ten years time?  Who knows.

But Christies are not only making relative judgements, they are also performing a kind of selection.  They’d never sell our Woman poster, because it wouldn’t reach anything near their minimum lot value.  So some posters are on the inside, others are excluded.  Some are seen, some are unseen, and it is thus much harder for the unseen ones to be part of the argument, or indeed the history.

But even that is not the end of it.  Because here I am, sifting through what’s on Christies – and elsewhere – to point at the things that I like.  There’s a personal opinion in there, for certain; I mostly ignore posters like the one below, even though Christies value it at £800-1,000, over the Lander, because I don’t have anything to say about them.

Devon.  From Christies.  Pretty but dull

And don’t even get me started on Terence Cuneo.

But that kind of selection is what happens on the surface.  What I’m also doing as I wander about the internet looking for posters, is filling my mind with images, each and every one of which have a small effect on what I think, and write, about their history and design.  The same is true for every single person who’s thinking about them too.   But what I get to see – however hard I try – is such a tiny segment of the whole, which has been pre-selected by everything from the marketplace to 1950s holidaying habits.  Such a partial view, in fact, that it’s hard not to conclude that my opinions are in the end, not really much use at all.

Clearly you can’t take a word I have to say on the subject seriously.  Which is a shame, because I also wanted to tell you that the rest of Lander’s output is seriously under-rated.  I did blog about this last year (please do take a look, you will enjoy him) so I will content myself by saying that he did a good line in sharp colours as well as the more tasteful stuff.

Lander Plymouth artwork British Railways 1961

We have both of these posters (in a tatty state, so the above image is of the original artwork from NMSI instead).  Plymouth does come up now and then, but I’ve never seen the Morecambe one anywhere else at all.  For whatever reasons.

Morecambe poster Lander 1950s

Although while I was double-checking that just now, I did find this.  Which is now definitely on the wanted list.

Lander another Morecambe poster

 

Auction fever (or not)

The next Christies poster sale is upon us; the lots are online, the printed catalogue is sitting on my desk.  But I’ve been avoiding writing about it for the last few days, mainly because I can’t work up much enthusiasm for what’s on offer.

This, if I am pushed, is probably the best of the bunch.  But it’s American, so it doesn’t really count, even if it is by Herbert Bayer.

Herbert Bayer Eggs vintage American wartime poster
Herbert Bayer, c.1940, est £700-900

The next best offerings are also American, a selection of TWA travel posters by David Klein.

David Klein travel poster Christies Auction
David Klein, c.1958, est. £1,000-1,500

David Klein vintage TWA travel poster
David Klein, c.1960, £1,500-2,000

I’ve pondered the excellence of these before, because they have a quality which no British poster of that era really manages, an intense optimism about modernity, not simply as an ideal to be aimed for (which is much more the British mindset) but as something experienced in the present moment.  They are glad to be alive in this modern world and the joy is infectious.

David Klein vintage TWA poster
David Klein, c.1960, est. £700-900

In the realms of things which I really should be contemplating, there is a Fougasse I haven’t seen before.

Fougasse vintage WW2 propaganda poster salvage
Fougasse, 1942, est. £600-800

Along with an interesting and early McKnight Kauffer.

McKnight Kauffer Cornwall vintage Great Western poster
McKnight Kauffer, 1933, est. £800-1,200

And then two Landers which are not new but now come with quite eyewatering estimates.

Lander Paignton vintage railway poster
R M Lander, 1956, est. £600-800

Another Lander Paignton railway poster
R M Lander, 1956, est. £600-800
I’m intrigued by these posters; they’re not necessarily the best of his work but they come up time and again at auction, unlike anything else he did.  It could be that there are just more of them about, or it may be a self-perpetuating phenomenon: because people have seen them fetch good prices before, that brings more out of the woodwork.  But he did do more interesting stuff, and I’ll post a few of our (rather battered) examples one of these days.

Then there is also this.

Daphne Padden vintage railway poster Hastings and St Leonards
Daphne Padden, £1,00-1,500

Now it is by Daphne Padden, because it’s signed Daphne Padden, even if at first glance it looks much like her father’s style of work.  Judging by  the style of clothing, it must be from the very start of 1950s, so is probably one of her very earliest posters.  Which makes it interesting, but I can’t say I particularly like it.  Although the estimate suggests that Christies think that a large number of people will be expensively intersted in it.

There are other mildly interesting lots; a few from London Transport, of which my favourite is this Bawden.

Edward Bawden 1936 Vintage London transport poster Kew Gardens
Edward Bawden, 1936, est. £600-800

As ever, there are also the usual slew of railway posters including lots of pretty landscapes and detailed pictures of trains.  This one does at least get a prize for being, er, different.

Flying Scotsman Greiwurth poster 1928
Greiwurth, 1928, est. £3,000-5,000

Oh to live in the simpler age before Freud thought of phallic symbolism.

Overall, though, the excitement just isn’t there.  Really I think that – with the odd exception when a great collection comes up for sale – Christies’ sales just aren’t for me any more.  The higher minimum lot value means that so much of what I’m interested in – the Royston Coopers and Tom Eckersleys – just don’t appear there any more.  But these posters also not turning up anywhere else instead.  So where have they gone?  Are you sitting on a heap of these things and don’t know what to do with them these days?  In which case, I might be able to help.

While I’m on about auctions, I should for the sake of completeness tell you that Poster Auctioneer have a new auction coming up tomorrow, but again with very little British interest in there, so you’ll have to make do with this Donald Brun instead.

Donald Brun

Most of their posters are Swiss, which isn’t unreasonable for an auction house in Switzerland.  What’s more puzzling is that Poster Connection, who are in the States, also have an auction stuffed with Swiss posters this time round.  You can choose between an ample selection of Swiss graphics.

Hans Neuburg Zurich artists poster 1966
Hans Neuburg, 1966, est. $360

Or simply posters for Switzerland.

Herbert Leupin Pontresina vintage travel poster 1949
Herbert Leupin, 1949, est. $500

There are a very few British posters in amongst all the snow and sans serif, of which the most interesting is this Norman Weaver.

Norman Weaver vintage 1948 travel poster BOAC
Norman Weaver, 1948, est. $500

With a rarely-seen Abram Games coming up a close second.

Abram Games Vintage BOAC poster 1947
Abram Games, 1947, est. $600

But all is not lost.  Swann Galleries have promised me that there are some lovely London Transport pieces in their forthcoming auction.  I’ll let you know as soon as it appears online.