travel poster Archives - Page 3 of 8

Posters Produce Results

auctions

No arguing with that, is there.

Cecilia Murphy, 1932, est. $1,700-2,000

Although for today’s post, the results we are mostly bothered about come from auctions, as all at once there is a rush of new sales on the horizon and I can hardly keep up.

That poster above is included in Poster Auction International’s May 6 sale in New York. There isn’t a great deal else of British interest there, except to say that it’s always good to see something by Ashley Havinden.

Ashley Havinden, 1932, est $2,000-2,500

I’m also going to make one of my periodic exemptions for things foreign, mainly because this exhibition poster by Max Bill is just an extraordinary piece of design for 1945.

USA Baut. 1945 MAX BILL (1908-1994) vintage exhibition poster
Max Bill, 1945, est. $800-1,000

It still looks modern now, so back then it must have seemed like a visitation from the future.

Other than that, there is what looks like a chance to buy the complete works of Alphonse Mucha, but if you’ve got enough money to do that – estimates go as high as $90,000 – you’re probably not reading this blog for advice on posters.

There’s a bit more to detain the rest of us at the forthcoming Van Sabben auction on April 21st, although most of it comes from the well-trodden paths of airline advertising, wartime and post-war propaganda posters and the London Underground.

Having said that, even these can deliver a few surprises, the greatest of which is probably this Beaumont. In fact more of a fright than a surprise really; Mr Crownfolio is very worried that someone has beheaded their mum and put her in the cabbage patch.

Beaumont vintage propaganda poster 1950 cabbages
Leonard Beaumont, 1950, est. €120-400

Even at the top end, that estimate seems fairly reasonable when you consider that the lot also includes three other posters of the same ilk, all dating, I think, from after the war.

On a similar theme is this poster, although with the added bonus of an interestingly menacing tone.

Anonymous, 1946, est. €80-160

Once again, there is a slew of airline posters, many of which have featured on this blog before. Of those, the most desirable is probably this Abram Games.

Abram Games, 1949, est. €650-1,000

But there are a few novelties here too. This is one.

Glad, 1949, est €150-280.

I have never come across Glad before, but it’s really rather good, so if anyone can knows more, please do let me know.

The second is by John Bainbridge, about whom I do know more and have been meaning to post about for some time, because he is both excellent and not well enough known.

John Bainbridge, 1949, est. €150-250

Although he worked in Britain for much of his career, John Bainbridge was originally from Australia, and there is a really good archive of his work over there, which I must post about one day.

There aren’t many London Transport posters for once, but those few are quite unusual. This first one can only be from the 1930s.

Roy Meldrum, 1933, est. € 300-600.

Van Sabben also have the poster below dated to 1935, which seemed a bit odd to me. And a brief delve into the LT Museum site gives a date of 1950 instead, as well as confirming that it is one half of a pair poster.

James Arnold, 1950, est. €120-250.

Again, this looks like quite a bargain, as it also gets you this S John Woods poster from the same year as well.

Oddly, the other half of the farms pair poster is also on sale, but in a different lot.

James Arnold, 1950, est. €100

I’m no completist when it comes to pair posters – would you ever really put the other half up on the wall? So given the choice, I think I’d probably rather have the S John Woods instead.

As if all of that wasn’t enough for one day, Poster Connection also have a sale in San Francisco on 28th April. There are airline posters, and that’s probably all I need to say about it. But I did rather like this one.

Anonymous, 1948, est. $200-360.

But it’s not just the gaiety I like, it’s also a reminder of the huge gulf between Britain and America at this point. Britain was still enduring austerity, worse even than during the war, and this brightly coloured poster would have been an unimaginable luxury, depicting foreign travel which could only be dreamed off. Such stuff were for export only, as the country desperately tried to entice Americans over to spend their money, and so help pay off the war debt.

Profit Margin

auctions, eBay

Following on from the comments on my last piece about the inexplicable gap between eBay prices and elsewhere, a couple of instructive compare and contrasts for you.

Firstly, this excellent piece of sixties-iana, about which I know nothing except the rather obvious fact that it is for Pan Am.

Oh, and that its current asking price is $3,250. If you’re tempted, it’s in an online exhibition of travel posters held by the International Vintage Poster Dealers Association. I am not, you will be unsurprised to learn, a member.

However, if you are more of a fan of the poster than the price, then you can rue your missed opportunity, because it did turn up on eBay at the end of last year, where it fetched just $384.99.

Example two we have seen only the other day, as it’s Victor Pasmore’s exhibition poster which is up at Christies next month.

This too came up on eBay only about six weeks ago, when it went for just £125. In case you need reminding, the Christies estimate is £600-800.

Now I know that price can depend on condition, but even so the discrepancies are huge. And given that both these posters are fairly rare (I have never ever seen either of them before now), the odds must be quite good that it’s the same poster being sold on.

One more example, although in this case the price discrepancy is partly explained by the fact that the original listing is in German. Tom Eckersley’s book on Poster Design, the source of this wonderful illustration.

Now the last time this went past on eBay, the asking price £75, give or take a penny. But the lucky purchaser in the German auction got it for just one euro. And you can’t really blame that on the whole thing being written in foreign, because it did say ‘Tom Eckersley’ very clearly in the title.

So, eBay: an enigma and a mystery. And probably also quite a good business model if you’re interested in buying cheap and selling expensive. Any economists out there with any more interpretations?

While we’re on the subject of Tom Eckersley, another way round high auction prices is available. The V&A are selling reproductions of his Keep Britain Tidy Poster as part of the merchandising for their Modern British Design show.

Which I suppose may mean that there is an Eckersley poster in there somewhere, along with everything else. I really ought to go and see that and we are going to London in a few weeks time. But given that we are already planning to subject small Crownfolio to the Jeremy Deller exhibition, the V&A might be a step too far for one day. Perhap we’ll go and see the dinosaurs instead.

Informative

auctions, Uncategorized

Today’s post is crowdsourcing, Quad Royal style, because lots of very kind people have been sending me links to posters on sale or sold recently. So the least I can do, of course, is share them.

The first, and following on nicely from my last post, is this Daphne Padden poster for British Railways, which is up for sale in America via eBay.

It’s a great poster, and one that I have never ever seen before and can’t find much trace of either, apart from the fact that one sold in the Midlands about three years ago. Despite all that, and an attempt at a frame, the price seems a bit steep to me at £300+ for a starting bid. But thank you to Mike Jacob for putting that my way nonetheless.

Also forthcoming, and emailed to me by Mr Crownfolio upstairs, is a Christies poster sale. But don’t get too excited, this is an Olympic special, and there are very few Olympic posters I can get enthusiastic about, with this Richard Beck from 1956 perhaps the only exception.

Richard Beck 1956 Olympic poster
Richard Beck, 1956, est £800-1,200

And I definitely don’t want to buy an Olympic torch (there are a surprising number on offer too). Given that, there isn’t a great deal else to report from the catalogue. All I can point you towards are a handful of McKnight Kauffer’s.

McKnight Kauffer, 1937. est. £700-900

The one below has to be my favourite, although this is less a result of the image than the estimate.

Edward McKnight Kauffer (1890-1954) ENO'S "FRUIT SALT" lithograph in colours, 1925,
McKnight Kauffer, 1925, est. £1,200 – 1,800

We got another one of this series on eBay about eighteen months ago, only for a small fraction of what Christies thinks it is worth, an experience which never fails to please me. And it’s a nicer image, to boot.

There is also a classic Abram Games.

Abram Games, 1941, est. £2,000 – 3,000

Along with this Peter Roberson, which I am guessing only slips through Christies minimum lot requirements thanks to the Festival of Britain interest.

Peter Roberson (1907-1989) VISITOR'S LONDON, FESTIVAL OF BRITAIN lithograph in colours, 1950
Peter Roberson, 1950, est. £1,200 – 1,600

My favourite British poster is probably this obscure and slightly pallid Victor Pasmore.

Victor Pasmore, 1948, est. £600 – 800

Note the use of British in the sentence above. Because once again, the local talent is having to compete for my attention with a small but lovely set of David Klein posters.

David Klein, 1960, est. £800 – 1,200

David Klein, 1958, est. £800 – 1,200

That first one in particular is fabulous, if a touch unaffordable.

The bad news is not just the small selection of posters I want to look at either. As far as I can tell from Christies’ Calendar, this will be their only poster sale this spring. And eBay’s gone into the doldrums too. There’s nothing left for it, I may have to start trawling the railwayana catalogues to keep my hopes up.

There are still a few glimmerings in the provincial auction scene as well, although I might have to get my act together a bit in reporting them to you. James Manning pointed out that Dreweatts have been selling more Percy Drake Brookshaws in a recent sale.

Now I say more because one of my first ever posts on here was about some of his posters being sold at the same auction house. Both then and now they seem to have come from the artist’s family, who have clearly been disposing of what they have in dribs and drabs. And also saving the best stuff until last.

What’s most amusing about these lots is the discrepancy between the estimates and the results. I would have been very happy to get the poster above for the £50-60 that Dreweatt’s estimated. Sadly it went for £550. Although perhaps not sadly, given that I missed the sale.

That wasn’t a freak occurrence either, all the posters reached similarly high prices. The boat race poster below was estimated at £100-150, but sold for almost ten times that, £1,100.

While this classic would have been the bargain of the century at its £60-80 estimate.

But it too went for £1,100.

I swear I will never ever fully understand the poster market. Prices like that make me think that the internet is doing its job in flattening out the market, as anyone with an interest and a tiny bit of understanding of searches on websites can find almost any lot up for sale and bid on it. But why doesn’t that work with eBay then? Why can we buy a McKnight Kauffer on there for a tenth of its Christies price? I think we might need to write a specialist piece of poster market theory, so if there is an economist in the house, can they get in touch? And for anyone else, please do keep sending the auction links and anything else that takes your fancy, they’re very much appreciated.

Without linen on backside

eBay, Uncategorized

At last. I’ve been banging on about PosterConnection’s shop on eBay for quite a while now – its selection is enough to persuade me to be interested in foreign posters every so often. Now, finally, they are also selling some British designs. And good ones too. Pick of the pops has to be this Daphne Padden.

They are asking about £250 for it, and I can’t work out whether that’s a reasonable price or not. This is mainly because the last time I saw one of these going past an auction was at the final Morphets sale, where the prices were definitely depressed by the sheer quantity of what was on offer. What is this worth? Do any of you lot know?

A few other British posters are on offer, of which my favourite is this poster by Harry Stevens from 1960.

Once again, there is also the chance to see Britain from the foreign point of view. Which can be quite different, because I definitely don’t remember Manchester ever looking like this. With the possible exception of the air colour, that is.

But I do rather like this cricketing lion.

He could almost be by Royston Cooper, but in fact he’s the work of one Host Buzas in 1960. Good show.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering about the title, that’s how all of these posters are described.

There’s good stuff elsewhere on eBay too at the moment. Perhaps most urgently, I need to point you at this Abram Games poster, which is a lovely joyful one without bullets or dead people or blood in it. I know that’s not his fault, he was working for the Army so it was part of the job description, but I do find the results quite hard work sometimes.

The bloke who is selling this had the experience which I can only dream of; they bought a new house and found a whole roll of these posters up in the attic. They’re in very good condition too. I know this for certain because we’ve already bought one, and very lovely it is too.

While we’re on the subject of attic finds, you might want to watch the Antiques Roadshow on Sunday, because a Scottish woman brought in fifteen Keep Calm and Carry On posters – story here, and indeed everywhere else. This brings the total known to exist to somewhere round about twenty and they are apparently worth £1,000 each; although how they’ve worked that out when no one has ever auctioned one before and the rip-offs are plastering the internet like bad grafitti I don’t know. And if they say on the show – as I am pretty sure they will judging by the news story – that they were produced for use in the event of invasion when this is not true I will shout at the television. So there.

Rant over, back to eBay. A couple of posters we are probably not going to buy are these two Festival of Britain designs. They are wonderful, but their prices are already soaring into the stratosphere with a couple of days to go.

Festival of Britain is such a lovely searchable term, isn’t it.

For those of us without a bottomless wallet there is both this Amstutz, from 1967 (the sellers has a number of other GPO posters but I can’t quite get excited about them).

And then this psychedelic oddity.

They’re both being sold abroad, so might not go for that much.

Finally, this is not a poster, but might be of interest to one or two of you.

I’d like to be able to draw just like that. Now off you go, I’ve got a television to shout at.

Be prepared

auctions

Hurrah, an auction. It’s about time we had a nice chunky set of British posters for sale, and it’s Bloomsbury Auctions who are obliging this time, on the 16th February.

Once again, there are incalculable quantities of airline posters. Where do they all come from? I don’t remember them being in auctions a few years ago, and suddenly they are omnipresent.

Lewitt Him, 1948, est £300-500

Lewitt Him, 1950, est. £400-600

Well, there are at least six. Some of them are indeed the usual Lewitt-Him AOA designs, but there are also other designers working for other airlines for a change. This one is by Willy de Majo, who deserves a post all of his own one day.

Willy de Majo, 1948, est. £600-800

My favourite of them all is probably this Schleger design for BEA, which I don’t remember ever having seen before now.

Hans Schleger, est. £700-900

It’s also reminded me that when I wrote about these wide blue skies in the airline posters the other day, I left something out, something I only realised last week when I was thinking about the afterlife of surrealism in graphic design.

Anon, 1948, est. £350-450

Because as well as being a remaking of wartime skies and vapour trails, these clear skies with their spotting of clouds are also the heavens across which surrealist visions drift.

Beverley Pick, est £500-700

Certainly Schleger’s airline skies aren’t much different to his pre-war dreams; it’s just different kinds of flying I suppose. Maybe it did seem unreal to get to places so quickly, I don’t know.

Laurence Fish, est. £200-400

Apart from the airlines, I can also offer you the undervalued dose of kitsch above, along with a neat Lander and a John Burningham that every household should own.

R M Lander, est, £ 150-250

John Burningham, 1964, est £100-150

Beyond that the posters that most appeal to me are, strangely enough, mostly pre-war. Mind you, who could resist this.

Anon, est. £200-400

While the idea of ‘J B Priestley’s England’ is one which hasn’t really lasted, making this poster an interesting curio.

Austin Cooper, est. £150-250

These two, meanwhile, are just quaintly likeable.

D M Earnshaw, 1938, est. £100-150

Freda Lingstrom, 1930, est. £200-300

None of which, though, really adds up to much other than some posters which I enjoy but probably won’t buy, along with a couple of interestingly low valuations on one or two lots. I shall be particularly interested to see what happens to the Burningham and Whitley Bay posters when they come up.

There are also a very few posters on offer at Dominic Winter’s auction tomorrow, but they do include one or two interesting wartime and pre-war ones. This Abram Games falls, like so many of his wartime posters, into the category of admirable but I wouldn’t want to have it on my wall.

Abram Games, 1943, est. £300-500

Then there is this McKnight Kauffer ARP poster.

McKNight Kauffer vintage propaganda poster ARP 1938
Edward McKnight Kauffer, 1938, est. £200-300

We have a smaller version of this and I was considering it the other day, because it is an odd one.

Although I quite like it as a piece of graphic design (enough to have the air pellet holes removed and get it framed, so a fair bit of like), I’m not sure it’s successful as a poster. But then it does have an almost impossible task to fulfill. The design dates from 1938, so just before the war; it needs to make people aware that there is a need for them to do something, but at the same time it can’t spell out the detail of what might happen and frighten people (“you will all be bombed in your beds and die without ARP, so there”). So it ends up being a bit vague and ineffectual; perhaps they thought that people would have read the papers and would be able to fill in the details themselves, or maybe they just wanted to be woolly at this stage, I don’t know.

Dominic Winter are also selling an ARP poster by Pat Keely in the same sale, and I’m not sure his design is much more convincing.

Pat Keely, 1938, est. £200-300

What do you reckon?

A life of surprises

eBay

Odd times indeed on eBay. When I pointed out this poster last week, it was more for entertainment than investment value.

But it went for £104. Not so funny indeed.

I should have been less surprised that these two pieces of prime psychedelia went for £143 each. They’re by the wonderful Dan Fern and printer-fresh.

Although Mr Crownfolio and I had harboured hopes of picking one up cheap, mainly because these are the kind of things which can fall through eBay searches un-noticed. But not this time. (There were another two, which went for under £40 each, but still not cheap).

This Daphne Padden also sold very quickly for a Buy It Now price of £50.

I think I’d file that under interesting rather than desirable (much like the concept it’s advertising), mostly because it’s the first time I’ve ever seen that design and I had no idea that she had done much work for BR at all. So there you go.

As for what’s on sale at the moment, it is, as ever, a mixed old bag. Probably the most interesting are those being sold by medieval modernist, a name not unknown round these parts. This Henrion is, how shall I put this, unlike anything else I’ve ever seen of his by quite a long way and then some.

If you find that a bit frightening, this Salter is slightly more conventional.

And there’s plenty more in between, so go and take a look.

This poster wouldn’t be worth mentioning for itself, were it not for the person selling it.

I’ve mentioned this story before, but a seller on eBay, Kingchristopher, has been selling an incredible collection of leaflets, tickets, stamps, memorabilia and other ephemera for a very long time, all collected by his uncle George King. A long time before this blog existed, we bought a number of 1950s and 60s GPO posters from him: apparently his uncle used to go into the Post Office and ask to have the posters they’d taken down each week. Ones like this.

George King was clearly an interesting, if slightly obsessive man. Mr Crownfolio recently found out a bit more about him from a philately forum:

George King who was one of the great Philatelic hoarders of our time, and a man truly ahead of his own time.
From about 1908 to the 1950’s (?) he posted envelopes to himself to obtain examples of virtually every new special event or special purpose postmark issued by the GPO in the UK. (TPO’s Machine Cancels Exhibitions, Skeleton marks etc etc). If you ever see his name on a cover do some more research.
Often the postmark will be the first day of use or the last day of use. He would often send half a doz or more covers and now these are often the only examples known. He also kept copies of virtually every Post Office leaflet and label issued and quantities of associated Shipping and aviation leaflets etc.
His accumulation must have filled rooms not just boxes and when it first came on the market, I believe in the early 1980’s, it was a real eye opener and helped establish the dates of issue of many TPO’s and provided examples of otherwise unknown marks.
Its a shame that the entire accumulation does not appear to have been recorded before sale. I know that the family had some problems, being let down financially by some of those involved.
Today I believe a family member still sells some of the original covers and leaflets on eBay etc. If you see a 1930’s Brit GPO leaflet in “looks like it was printed yesterday” condition chances are its ex. George King.
I heard a rumour that in WWI he was interviewed by the Secret Service to find out why he was writing to the postie in charge of every British and many Australian NZ and Indian Army Post Offices to obtain examples of their FPO postmarks!

None of my relatives were so forward thinking sadly, although I’m not entirely sure I would like to have inherited the job for life that disposing of it all seems to have become for his nephew.

Other than that, the theme seems to be 1950s kitsch. This poster might be quite a nice buy were it not a) framed and b) in the States, so postage will be rather prohibitive.

This side of the Atlantic, you can have your kitsch in the form of tourism posters.

Or commercial advertising.

Or simply way bigger than you really need.

That’s nine foot by six foot of big, so don’t say you weren’t warned.