Posters turn heads with increasingly high prices

Could posters from last Friday's historic referendums be one day worth a fortune? And how much might that old poster you own fetch even if it has seen better days?

Last February at Christie's in London £214,981 passed hands during a sale of 19th and 20th century posters while last December an original 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic was sold at Mealy's auction house in Castlecomer, Co Kilkenny for £30,375. Mr Fonsie Mealy explains that that original proclamation was one of only 2,500 copies printed in Liberty Hall on Easter Sunday 1916. They were completed at 1 a.m. on Easter Monday, April 24th, under the armed protection of soldiers of the Irish Citizen Army. Most were subsequently pulled down by the British military and today only 25 are believed to remain in private ownership.

He says that because of its size (30in by 19in) and the shortage of type available, the original proclamation had to be printed in two halves. It contained many typographical peculiarities which distinguished it from later editions. The paper used was of the poorest quality.

Another Mealy's auction saw an 1881 No Rent Manifesto poster dating from the imprisonment of Charles Stewart Parnell fetch some £500. Another land league poster urging Irish people to Pay No Rent dating from 1880 1881 realised £430 in 1996.

Ms Nicolette White, poster specialist at Christie's which holds five poster sales a year says posters from the 1920s and 1930s are particularly popular with collectors.

Estimates for single posters at a recent Christie's sale ranged from £100 to £17,000. Themes like shipping, aviation, railways, automobiles, bicycles and sport were featured. Included also were tourist posters for Ireland, Britain, France and Germany. Ms White says that France was the cradle of the modern poster. In 1881 a law was passed which enabled the creation of official poster hoardings. This led to some of the famous Art Nouveau artists of the time being commissioned to design posters.

For instance Henri de Toulouse Lautrec (1864-1901) created 31 poster designs. Recent estimates for individual posters from his highly collectable work ranged as high as £20,000. One of these, Reine de Joie which shows a girl sitting on a gentleman's lap while kissing him on the cheek was discovered by the vendor in her attic after she bought a house. The person from whom she bought it had apologised for the rubbish in the attic.

French posters by Art Nouveau artist Alphonse Mucha (18601939) depicting beautiful maidens with tendril like hair fetch from several hundred to a few thousand pounds. For instance last February at Christie's posters by Mucha fetched £2,760, £632 and £598.

At the same sale, a 1983 Andy Warhol (1930-1987) advertisement poster for Perrier fetched £402 while a 1913 Michelin poster fetched £4,370 more than twice the highest estimated price.

Despite having "surface dirt, small losses and minor creasing" a 22in by 15in 1931 Miniwatt Phillips Radio poster fetched £1,495 last February.

Nor did "surface dirt, scuffing and small losses" prevent almost £500 being paid for a Dubonnet poster. Posters associated with railways are valued in the mid to high hundreds. For example a 1935 Ulster Transport colour poster showing a Northern Ireland landscape fetched £632 last February. A British Railways poster from as recently as 1950 went for £805. The buyer was clearly undeterred by "surface dirt, some losses and tears mainly at the edges".

Ms Nester FitzGerald, administrator at the poster department at Christie's, says that Irish travel posters featuring places like Antrim, Connemara, Kilkenny and Donegal from the 1930s can fetch in the region of £500.

She says posters painted by Paul Henry showing picturesque scenes of the Irish countryside are very popular. And even relatively recent items like Aer Lingus posters from the 1950s have a guide price of up to £500 at Christie's next poster sale on 1st October.