Vintage Posters

Posters – they’re just an inexpensive advertising medium, right? That may be true for today’s mass-produced versions fly-posted over every unadorned wall, but vintage posters can prove to be a profitable item for a collector.

In 1963, workmen renovating the offices of a Parisian literary journal found hundreds of Toulouse-Lautrec posters rolled up under the floorboards. Those in good condition sold for a couple of hundred pounds. Today these posters sell for £20,000 and more.

French artists dominated the field when the market for vintage advertising posters emerged in the late 1970s, but now the market has broadened and developed category niches such as travel posters, Olympics, and war and propaganda. Today, virtually every poster style and period can be found.

Determining the value of a poster is not easy. The highest value is normally placed on fine art posters from the 1880s through the 1930s that were printed using the difficult process of stone lithography. Later ones printed by mechanical processes such as photo offset and silkscreen can still command high prices though if they are rare, were created by a highly recognised artist or advertise a famous movie.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with buying a poster just because you're a fan of the artist, musician, film star or location featured and it brings back happy memories every time you look at it on the wall!