Christmas bay
For once, eBay has come up with something seasonal. Even better, it’s a classic GPO post early poster.
This 1957 design by Huveneers has already come up on the Advent Calendar here, and now you can have your own if you like. Bidding starts at a moderately steep £22 (well I think it’s steep given that it’s 22cm x 15cm, which isn’t a great deal of poster) but they don’t come up that often, so the seller may be right this time.
Elsewhere on the bay, the delightfully named i.m.weasel has some London Transport posters to sell. Only a few, but some rather good ones. Shall we start with this Henrion?
Then there’s this Sheila Robinson too.
And a rather good William Johnstone that I haven’t come across before (the colours remind me of James Fitton’s post-war posters, for what it’s worth).
But the star of the show is this David Gentleman pair poster.
Now, I do have a few caveats about these auctions. One is that – in the case of the Johnstone and the Henrion – he illustrated them with the London Transport Museum catalogue image as his main pictures. Which is a bit cheeky.
The other is that all of these items have a reserve on. And I’d suspect that these are fairly steep ones too, given that the David Gentleman poster has a Buy It Now price of £1,000 attached. Which is, yes, what it has fetched at Christies earlier this year. But firstly that was with two Sheila Robinson posters (proof once again that these multiple lots make it almost impossible to value anything properly). Secondly, if you want a good price for a poster, putting it in an auction which ends on December 22nd probably isn’t the way to get it. And finally, I think that there is a more general point, which is that if you want a Christies price, you probably do still have to sell at Christies, and pay their premiums. But I shall watch and see what happens with interest. Although probably without bidding.
It’s also worth noting that this John Bainbridge is still floating about for sale on a Buy It Now too.
Currently on for £90, which is down from its original starting bid of £120, but still a bit tatty round the edges.
While, in the endless re-settling and rearrangement of the posters from the last Morphets sale, these two are also available on Buy It Nows.
Curiously, the Bigg (above) is at £100, while the Atkins, which I infinitely prefer (always the sucker for a chalk horse though) is only £75. But in both cases that’s significantly more than their auction price.
Tomorrow, more GPO admonishments but this time seen on their natural habitat of a wall.