travel poster Archives - Page 4 of 8

Continuation

auctions

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.

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.

Surf, psychosis and Audrey Hepburn

The New Wave

auctions, railway posters

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.

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.

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.

Missing

designers

Meet Royston Cooper .

I rather wish I had, actually. Quite a few people have contacted the blog over the last year or two about him, and they all remember an extraordinary and extrovert character.

The picture was drawn by James Holland, a friend of Royston’s, in 1954, and was very kindly passed on by the artist’s daughter, Jane.

I would have liked to honour the picture by digging out a few new Royston Cooper designs for you, but frustratingly, I can’t find any. But they must exist, because not only did Jane Holland remember a campaign he designed for Ribena, but Artist Partners have also put a brief professional biography on their website. From which you can see that he did simply tons of commercial work which must be out there somewhere, even if most of it probably wasn’t signed. I think a trip through Designers In Britain may be called for one of these days.

Until I get round to that, however, you can have one of his fine art prints.

You can actually have this if you want, because it’s on eBay as a Buy It Now for just £44.99. I quite like it, but wall space is at a bit of a premium round here so I think we’ll pass.

While I am on the subject of unobtainable delights which have been lost by history, it’s probably worth mentioning the John Burningham exhibition at the London Transport Museum. He designed a new poster in honour of it, which is mostly ordinary type, but his bit is lovely.

We visited the show at the weekend. It’s small but perfectly formed, and contains as well as the better known LT posters, a good handful of designs for coach posters which I’ve never seen before. One in particular, of cats in a boat, is wonderful, but I can’t find a picture of it anywhere. The closest I can come is this, on the right, part of a lot from last year’s Morphets sale.

And if anyone can explain to me why this lot went for just £10, and not to us, I’d like to hear it. Mind you it was Lot 908, I think my brain had probably gone into overload by then.

It’s probably worth reminding you that not only is his autobiography wonderful, but John Burningham is at the LT Museum tonight, in conversation with Robert Elms. I, sadly, will not be there, as I have a prior engagement with a children’s party at a soft play centre. Let joy be unbounded.

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.