Feed the Guns!

It’s not always the most expensive lots that capture the attention of our valuation team here at Toovey’s. Such was the case when specialist Nicholas Toovey discovered a fascinating view in amongst a group of London postcards.

“At first I thought it had been put in the wrong collection” said Nicholas, who continued “the uncaptioned view would look more at home with similar unidentified views of Continental Europe, perhaps Belgium or France, that was until I turned it over!” Fortunately at some time in its history a helpful owner had identified the scene in pencil on the reverse – surprisingly this postcard actually depicts Trafalgar Square in London!

A curious scene unfamiliar to most, the ruined church tower covers the statue of General Gordon and the fountain has become part of a destroyed farm house, there is even a windmill. On closer inspection the people milling around are not soldiers but people walking around soaking in the atmosphere of this highly imaginative fund raising event. As they walked around the artificial trenches, visitors were invited to place money inside howitzers and a military truck, or purchase certificates from the modified breech of a captured German gun, thus giving the campaign the name ‘Feed the Guns Week’. Held in October 1918, this transformation in London was the main focus of a nationwide campaign to sell war bonds during the First World War. These efforts raised over £31 million nationwide with captured guns making appearances all round the country.

The postcard, Lot 3128, will be offered individually on the 11th August 2015 with an estimate of £25-35 in Toovey’s Auction of Paper Collectables. Despite its modest estimate, this postcard provides a fascinating glimpse into the past and is sure to delight a collector in the near future.

The Art Nouveau Postcards of Alphonse Mucha

‘Juin’ from the set of twelve postcards ‘Le Mois’ depicting the months of the year
‘Juin’ from the set of twelve postcards ‘Le Mois’ depicting the months

The artist Alphonse Mucha has been described as ‘monumental figure’ in the Art Nouveau Movement. His postcards are rare and highly sought after.

Art Nouveau was a reaction to academic art of the 19th century schools of Realism and Impressionism. It often combined forms and structures inspired by nature with curved lines.

Toovey’s postcard and paper collectables specialist, Nicholas Toovey, comments “Throughout my career the postcards which have delivered the highest sums of money at auction have been postcards of Titanic interest, those relating to the Suffragettes and the Art Nouveau movement.”

Toovey’s postcard and paper collectables specialist, Nicholas Toovey
Toovey’s postcard and paper collectables specialist, Nicholas Toovey
Alphonse Mucha, postcard, after a design for the Societe de Bienfaisance Austro-Hongroise
Alphonse Mucha, postcard, after a design for the Societe de Bienfaisance Austro-Hongroise

I ask Nicholas about the collection of Mucha postcards already entered by a Sussex collector into his next specialist sale to be held on 11th August 2015. He replies “Alponse Mucha has always been prized by collectors for his artistic expression of the Art Nouveau. In my opinion he is the very best of the Art Nouveau artists.” Influenced by his relationship with Sarah Bernhardt, the leading actress of the Belle Epoch in 1870s France, Mucha produced posters, advertisements and menus in Paris. With the exception of ‘Le Mois’ and some other seasonal designs, his postcards are generally small images of large posters or cover designs. Rich in the symbolism of nature they idealize the female form. The fluidity of the arabesques of their hair and the foliage still engage the senses of the viewer today.

My eye is taken by a postcard of a lady in a white dress, her arms are outstretched and she is seated in a throne-like chair beneath a crescent design. Nicholas explains that this postcard is a copy of a design for the Societe de Bienfaisance Austro-Hongroise which Mucha produced in 1898. He says “This card is very rare. It’s estimated that there are only between thirty-one and seventy-five examples in the world.” The palette is subdued, almost faded, which is typical of Mucha’s work. These particular postcards are chromolithographically printed, a form of colour printing developed in the 19th century.

The series ‘Le Mois’ is the most famous of the sets from the Paris publisher, F. Champenois, who issued most of Mucha’s graphic works. The twelve ‘Le Mois’ postcards have titles reflecting the months of the year, seen here is the card for June. Each provides a romantic Art Nouveau depiction of a young woman emblematic of the season.

‘The Lady in a Pink Dress’, a menu card distributed by Moet & Chandon
‘The Lady in a Pink Dress’, a menu card distributed by Moet & Chandon

Strict postal regulations at this date meant that you could only write the address and fix the stamp on the back of the card. Therefore, space was left for your message on the front. Nicholas explains that, although not detrimental to the value, a premium is always paid for them in such wonderful unused condition as seen in this example. Postcards by Mucha in this condition can achieve over £100 for a single card. But they still represent exceptional value to the collector seeking a period example of Mucha’s work.

In 1900 F. Champenois published a set of ten menu cards after watercolour designs by Mucha. These were distributed by, and bear the name of, the famous champagne house Moet & Chandon. The design allows space to write your menu framed by ‘The Lady in a Pink Dress’ who holds a vine.

Toovey’s next specialist sale of Postcards and Paper Collectables will be held on Tuesday 11th August 2015 and entries are still being accepted. Toovey’s postcard and paper collectables specialist, Nicholas Toovey, is always pleased to offer advice whether you are interested in selling or acquiring postcards in this buoyant market. He is a member of the Postcard Traders Association and can be contacted on 01903 891955 or via auctions@tooveys.com.

Revd. Rupert Toovey. Originally published on 10th June 2015 in the West Sussex Gazette.

Maiden Voyage for Titanic Letter at Toovey’s Auction

RMS Titanic off Cowes ©Toovey's
Postcard of RMS Titanic passing SY Alberta off Cowes
Original Titanic Letter at Toovey's Auction ©Toovey's
Titanic letter to be offered at Toovey's

The ill-fated maiden voyage of RMS Titanic is one of the most famous marine disasters of all time and needs little introduction. The sinking of the White Star Line ship on 15th April 1912, after colliding with an iceberg, was made ever-more memorable with the 1997 award-winning movie by James Cameron.

Titanic in Dock at Southampton ©Toovey's
Postcard of RMS Titanic in Dock at Southampton

A previously unrecorded and unpublished letter, to be offered in Toovey’s forthcoming auction of Paper Collectables, was written on board Titanic by the wealthy American heiress Georgette Alexandra Madill, later Mattei. It details that the 1st class passenger had arrived at Southampton at 11.30am and, after exploring the ship, had set sail at noon. It also states: ‘The “Oceanic” & “New York” were moored beyond us and just after we had left the dock the “New York” broke her cables & drifted into our stern – it was most exciting!’ This lesser-known incident was very nearly a serious accident, caused by the huge displacement of water that Titanic generated. The two smaller ships were lifted by the huge bulge of water, which dropped into a trough; SS City of New York’s cables could not take this sudden strain and snapped. New York drifted towards Titanic and it is reported that a collision was only a few feet away, but a nearby tugboat helped take New York out of the path of Titanic. Madill shared a cabin with her cousin, Miss Elisabeth Walton Allen, and was travelling with her mother, Mrs Elisabeth Walton Robin, and her maid, Miss Emilie Kreuchen. All four survived the disaster, being rescued in Lifeboat 2.

The 3-side letter, dated April 10 1912, is on RMS Titanic headed paper and was presumably sent to the recipient, Doris, from either of the stops at Cherbourg or Queenstown. It carries a £2000-4000 pre-sale estimate and will go under the gavel at Toovey’s on 24th February 2015. The letter was discovered by Toovey’s during a valuation for probate at a local property. The deceased’s family were completely unaware of the letter’s existence and have no knowledge of how the recipient, the deceased’s mother, had come to know Miss Madill.

Also included in the auction are a group of postcards featuring RMS Titanic, consigned by other vendors. They include a detailed photographic view of the ship moored at Southampton, a view of Titanic passing the sailing yacht Alberta off Cowes, written on the reverse by the yacht’s owner, and scenes relating to the unveiling of the Titanic Memorial in Portsmouth.

Postcard of the Unveiling of the Titanic Memorial ©Toovey's
Postcard of the Unveiling of the Titanic Memorial

Identifying the unidentified

For many collectors, research can be a source of great joy or, when unfruitful, great frustration. Today, in this age of the internet, a powerful resource of knowledge is literally at our fingertips. Most of us will now ‘Google’ the answer to something, rather than refer to a book. This was not the case in the late 1980s, however, when Mr Savory, a postcard collector from Northants, purchased a group of five postcards from a local fair. Filed under ‘Sussex’ in the dealer’s stock, with a hearsay attribution of being Littlehampton, the collector secured them for their military interest but obviously wanted to find out more. His quest to discover the incident pictured lead him to write a plea for help to the editor of the West Sussex Gazette. On May 21st 1987 nearly half of a page was dedicated to four of the five postcards. Readers of the newspaper wrote in, some with their snippets of facts and some with their reminiscences of these events or similar events. It was discovered that, although they all related to the Battle of Britain, they did in fact illustrate two different events.

Junkers 88A down at Pagham postcard auction ©2015 Toovey's
A series of four Battle of Britain postcards

Four of the postcards record the fate of a German bomber which took off on a sortie to attack the London Docks on 9th September 1940. It was a Junkers 88A, works no .0333, coded 4D+AD, of Stab 111/KG30. For those not familiar with such terms, it was an aircraft of the Staff Flight of the 3rd Wing of Kampfgeschwader (Bomber Group) 30. It was piloted by Gruppe Kommandeur Major Hackbarth and his crew comprised Oberfeldwebel Manger, Unteroffizier Sawallisch and Gefreiter Petermann. The first two survived but the other two died in an attack almost certainly launched from Kenley, probably by 253 Squadron Hurricanes but possibly by Spitfires of 66 Squadron. It was subsequently force-landed off Pagham at 5.50pm and soon after that is the moment the postcards start to capture the event. Two of the postcards depict British soldiers guarding the aircraft; another shows an injured member of the crew on a stretcher and the final view is of soldiers removing a spoil of war, the swastika from the tail, as a memento. One of the letters from a reader of the newspaper claimed that the removed tail panel resembled one in the Tangmere Military Aviation Museum, which had been used during the war as a scoreboard by a Hampshire Territorial searchlight troop. Another reader stated that, as a curious local schoolboy in Pagham, he was inside the plane and removed the factory serial plate from the cockpit (long since lost), which gave the release date from the factory as the previous day!

Postcard of Sgt. Cyril F. Babbage returning to shore at Bognor Auction ©2015 Toovey's
Postcard of Sgt. Cyril F. Babbage returning to shore

The fifth postcard was originally believed to be part of the same series but, in fact, illustrates a separate event from the Battle of Britain. It shows Sgt. Cyril F. Babbage returning to shore at Bognor on 26th August 1940. He had been piloting a Spitfire X4188 of 602 Squadron Westhampnett (Goodwood airfield). A contemporary account was published in an unidentified newspaper, the clipping of which was offered by someone responding to Mr Savory’s plea. It stated:

A thrilling air battle was witnessed over a South-East Coast town on Monday afternoon during an air raid alarm, when machine gun fire rattled overhead, and the thuds of bombs were heard exploding in the distance, punctuated by sharp cracks of anti-aircraft guns… As soon as our ground defences held their fire nothing could be heard except the sharp rat-tat of machine guns… One of our fighter pilots during the engagement baled out of his plane, and could be seen descending towards the sea. He pitched in the sea about half a mile off shore, where he was picked up by some fisherman. He was brought ashore with cheers ringing in his ears from several hundred persons who flocked to the sea-shore, although the all-clear had not sounded, thus incidentally, exposing themselves to extreme danger.

The pilot was rowed to shore by two fisherman from Littlehampton and the ‘L.I.’ registration code on the boat was perhaps the clue for the original dealer’s attribution. The fishermen, Messrs N. & A. Ide and a member of the Ragless family, recalled that Babbage was smiling cheerfully as he had shot a Messerschmitt prior to two others setting upon him over Selsey Bill. It was Hauptman Mayer of 1/JG 53 that finally put him out of action at 4.43pm; he was taken to Bognor hospital ‘slightly hurt’. One West Sussex Gazette reader said that he subsequently went back to his squadron and ‘had a very chequered career, being shot down, or damaged in action at least three more times, during the Battle of Britain.’

Perhaps today Mr Savory would have typed in ‘crashed German plane on the Sussex coast’ or similar into a search engine and, after visiting swathes of results, found out all the information he needed. He would not, though, have found all the fascinating reminiscences that were relayed by readers of the West Sussex Gazette, among them an anecdote of a lady who dived into a stinging nettle patch fearful of a chasing plane, only to see the R.A.F. roundels pass overhead! It was this research that brought the postcards to life for Mr Savory and why these postcards gave him so much pleasure.

Having enjoyed the postcards ever since, Mr Savory has decided to sell the postcards at Toovey’s forthcoming auction of Paper Collectables on 24th February 2015, encouraged by the fantastic results achieved for Sussex postcards in these specialist auctions. The group of four photographic postcards of the German bomber at Pagham carry a pre-sale estimate of £70-100 and the single photographic postcard of Babbage’s return at Bognor will be offered separately at £30-50. In addition to Postcards, Toovey’s sales of Paper Collectables also include Stamps, Cigarette Cards, Autographs, Photographs and Ephemera.

August 2014 Postcard Auction Sale Report

Henfield Station at Toovey's Auction
'Henfield Station' postcard, sold for £120

Toovey’s auction of Paper Collectables on 12th August included 146 lots of postcards. With only three lots failing to sell, there is no shortage of talking points:

Partridge Green Station at Toovey's
'Partridge Green Station', sold for £110

Private collectors went loco for a small group of individual postcards of Sussex railway platforms. No less than four successful collectors express-ed an interest, each chuffed with their purchases, once again proving the Sussex postcard market is far from station-ary! Bad puns aside, £120 was paid for an RP of ‘Henfield Station’ with a steam engine entering the now-vanished station. The exact same view with small loss to one corner only made £30, reinforcing the difference condition makes to the private collector. RP views of ‘Partridge Green Station’, ‘The Station, Southwater’ and a different view of ‘Henfield Railway Station’ each sold for £110.

Embroidered silk postcard, from an album that sold for £1500
Embroidered silk postcard, from an album that sold for £1500

Topographical postcards were popular throughout the auction but Sussex views continued to steal the headlines. An RP titled ‘Sussex Pruning Camp’, offered with a similar RP, sold for £95. A group of 4 postcards of Partridge Green, including a scarce RP of ‘Jolesfield Windmill’, achieved £140. A similar group of 13 postcards of nearby Cowfold and Shermanbury realised £240 and 31 postcards of Henfield sold for £420. All of these lots went to private collectors.

Outside of the Sussex scene, notable prices included 8 postcards of Barnes and Isleworth, which topped £120. An album of 52 postcards of the Channel Islands, predominantly Jersey, went at £320. A group of 160 of Middlesex reached £340 and £20 was paid for a slightly faded RP of ‘Finchley Rd Station’. A private collection of postcards published by LL performed well too, including a 286-postcard collection of London, which sold for £480.

Little Nap the Chimpanzee postcard, sold for £60
Little Nap, sold for £60

Topography was not the only area of interest. Leading the fray at £1500 was an album of 74 postcards, including a brilliant selection of regimental embroidered silks, which went to an internet bidder despite the busy room. One of the surprising results of the sale came in the form of a single RP of ‘Little Nap’, a chimpanzee dressed-up as Napoleon, which, after a battle between a private collector and the internet, sold for £60 in the room.

1 of 6 by Brunelleschi postcards, sold for £380
Brunelleschi postcards, sold for £380

A good selection of Art Nouveau, Art Deco and glamour postcards also attracted serious interest and stiff competition among bidders. A group of 6 Art Nouveau colour postcards by Umberto Brunelleschi was hotly contested, largely due to their great condition, selling at £380, just over £60 per postcard and nearly double their mid pre-sale estimate. 4 Italian Art Deco postcards by M. Montedoro achieved £130 and 9 postcards by Raphael Kirchner realised £160.

Arguably among the scarcest of postcards included in the auction was a large group of composite puzzle postcards, divided into 11 lots. Highlights included a set of 4 colour printed postcards titled ‘Fridtjof Nansen Nord Polar-Expedition’, which sold to a collector at £130, and a set of 6 French hand-coloured postcards of Barnum Circus, which went for £140. To view all the previous sale results click here.

Toovey’s next auction of Paper Collectables, including postcards, stamps, cigarette cards, photographs, autographs and ephemera, will be held on 4th November 2014. Whilst this auction has now deadlined,  four have been scheduled for 2015 due to the popularity of the Paper Collectable auctions at Toovey’s. Contact us to discuss your postcard collection for one of our future specialist sales.

By Nicholas Toovey, a member of the Postcard Traders Association. Originally published as a Sale Report in Picture Postcard Monthly October 2014 issue.