We are one of Britain's foremost public auctioneers of picture postcards. Our six sales each year contain collections, dealers' stocks, ranges of topographical British and foreign cards, offered on a county and country basis, as well as subject cards. Significant cards are offered individually or in small groups.

Public auctions of postcards, cigarette and trade cards, autographs and printed ephemera are held six times a year. The dates of our 2012 sales are as follows:

• 21st March 2012
• 23rd May 2012
• 18th July 2012
• 19th September 2012
• 14th November 2012

Our next general public auction of Postcards will be held at the Lord Leycester Hotel, Jury Street, Warwick CV34 4EJ, on Wednesday 21st March, starting at 12 noon. The online catalogue will be available approximately 3 weeks before the sale. To view the online catalogue, once it is uploaded, and place bids on items in the sale click here. To download a catalogue (without illustrations) click here.

The sales take place at the Lord Leycester Hotel, Jury Street, Warwick CV34 4EJ. The hotel has a small car park at the rear and the nearest public car park is in New Street. The nearest railway station is Warwick Town and the nearest major international airport is Birmingham. For directions please visit our How to Find Us page.

Public viewing for all of our auctions is held at our own premises, the sales being too large to transport to the auction venue. Account settlement and lot allocation takes place progressively at our premises whilst the auction continues, so as soon as the section which interests you has been knocked down, you can pay and collect your lots without waiting for the end of the sale.

Public viewing for this sale is available at our offices on the following dates:

• Friday 16th March from 09.00 - 17.00
• Monday 19th March from 09.00 - 17.00
• Tuesday 20th March from 09.00 - 17.00
• Wednesday 21st March from 08.00 onwards

There is no need to attend an auction in person, as commission bids can be placed in advance of the sale via our online facility, or by telephone, mail, fax or e-mail. For further details please visit our Online Catalogue.

If you would like to receive a free sample printed catalogue, or alternatively to apply for a catalogue subscription, please complete our catalogue enquiry form. However please remember that the printed catalogue contains far fewer illustrations of lots than the online catalogue.

Contemplating Selling?

Are you thinking of selling your entire collection or part of it? Would you like us to value it and give you advise on how best to market it? Visit our Marketing Your Collection page.

Samuel Cody’s Pioneer Aircraft

Two animated real photographic cards of Samuel Cody’s aeroplane being transported by road realised £310 in Warwick and Warwick’s January 18 2012 auction. The American aviator’s plane was being transported by an Armstrong Whitworth motor lorry through the village of Penistone, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, on November 4 1909, only 6 months after he became the first American aviator to fly in England. Cody was killed in an aeroplane accident at Aldershot in 1913.

Topographicals were in much demand and Devon was represented by excellent ranges of Tiverton. Lot 42 consisted of 2 magnificent 1907 RPs by J. Hutchings, showing the transportation of a very large boiler, one card showing it loaded onto a Great Western Railways trailer, being towed and pushed / restrained through the streets of Tiverton, by 2 traction engines. The other card depicted the boiler at its point of arrival or departure. The estimate was £60 and the realisation was £80. A further 1907 RP Tiverton card offered individually depicted a dramatic traction engine accident, with another traction engine in the distance recovering the trailer. Estimated at £60, it realised £98.

The sale was strong in topo art cards by the well-collected artist, A.R. Quinton. The Salmon-published cards sold for an average of £1.23 each.

Transport formed a large and valuable section amongst the subjects, with pioneer aviation cards in collections selling exceptionally well. A further large and comprehensive section was shipping, the largest collection on offer, estimated £900, realising £1,380. The best result for the individual shipping lines was the £345 realisation for 85 Union Castle cards.

A rare RP “Titanic” was on offer and the auctioneers had never seen the card previously. The ship was pictured with the bows pointing to the right, moored to a quayside, either at Belfast or Southampton. The publisher was Nautical Photo Agency and the card was estimated at £170. Bidding stopped at £241, possibly influenced by the approaching anniversary of the sinking.

Still in the nautical section, a collection yachting cards were on offer. The cards were of competitive sailing on the Mersey estuary, mainly RP, many published by Carbonara of Liverpool, with 9 R.M.Y.C. Regatta RPs, between 1907 and 1912, 4 Hoylake Regatta RPs, 4 1908 Liverpool – I.O.M. race RPs, 2 1908 Splicers’ Race RPs and a few others. Competitive yachting cards are rarely offered and the collection achieved £230, almost 3 times estimate.

Railway Poster Adverts Popular

Two Great Western Railway poster adverts were offered as individual lots in the Warwick and Warwick sale held on November 16 and were very popular. “The Direct Route to Ireland via Fishguard” depicted a ship and was estimated at £60. The realisation was £92. “North Wales Golfing and Boating” featured anglers in a rowing boat. Estimated at £50, it made £98.

Shipping was again very popular, a collection of 750 miscellaneous vessels, estimated at £200, realising £575.

A collection of 250 French political and satirical cards concerning World War I was estimated at £250 and took the auctioneer by surprise when the hammer finally dropped at £891.

In the Social History section a collection of 500 churches, with strength in the Birmingham suburbs, was popular. Estimated at £100, it made £230. Fire Service collections also fared well and 2 RPs of fire-fighting at Hampton, Middlesex, sold for £103.

Amongst the artists, 22 Bonzos by Studdy (15 in good condition) achieved £75.

The Great Britain topo section was strong and the best results were achieved by Yorkshire, where 3 collections of the southern Yorkshire Dales, estimated in total at £1,850, realised £2,277.A wonderful, comprehensive collection of 227 Wokingham in Berks, estimated at £950, realised £1,552. London suburbs were also much in demand with collections estimated at £440, £430 and £230 realising £632, £719 and £661 respectively. Perhaps the most surprising result amongst the topos was the £632 realised by a collection of Isle of Man cards. Although there were over 800 cards in the collection, a lot were modern and many common views were included. The auction estimate had been a modest £140.

Warwick and Warwick’s next sale, on January 18th 2012, will be held in a new venue, the Lord Leycester Hotel, in Jury Street, Warwick, only a few yards from the previous venue in the Court House.

Malta Collection Realises £4,715

What must surely be one of the best collections of Malta postcards ever formed went under the Warwick and Warwick hammer on September 21. It was contained in 34 albums and 3 boxes and included 20 albums of older cards. Estimated at £1,100, bidding eventually stopped at £4,100, making the final price £4,715 when the buyer’s premium is included.

In the G.B. topos, 1700 Winchester made £1,150 (estimate £1,100), 470 Lancs made £1,150 (estimate £450), 240 Burnley made £977 (estimate £260) and 800 Mddx. made £1,092 (estimate £460). South Wales was represented by a collection of 250, estimated at £600, which realised £1,667, a collection of 300, estimated at £450, which realised £920 and a collection of60 collieries, estimated at £340, which went for £949.

The best price for a single card was the remarkable figure of £402 paid for a horse-drawn platform hoist used for servicing the tramway standards at Warwick.

A large shipping section produced excellent results for the vendors, both in the civil and naval sections. The biggest collection of liners was a lot of 350 artist-drawn and real photographic cards, estimated at £650, which realised £1,207.

A Brighton and District B.P. Boy Scouts’ Appeal Fund RP, showing 2 scouts and their scoutmaster with collecting boxes and a poster, estimated at £80, eventually sold for £333. A collection of 49 shipwrecks estimated at £140 made £345. The British Navy section contained collections relating to individual cruises of specific ships; the best result was the £517 realised by the HMS “Kent” 1928-30 cruises to China and Japan.

A large collection of 220 railway cards, with a £420 estimate, made £776, and 4 different maps and rolling stock of the Central London (Tube) Railway made £63. Military was as popular as ever, with a collection of WWI medical cards, estimated at £300, finding a new home at £690.

In the aviation section an unused card, produced by the magazine “The Empire Illustrated”, carried in the first aerial mail, by Grahame White, at the 2nd Blackpool Aviation Meeting in 1910, realised £161. The card was produced as an advertisement for the magazine and was subsequently overprinted in red “Although boisterous weather conditions prevented the experiment being carried out in its entirety, this card was carried by Aeroplane for over seven miles in a very high wind.”

The artist-drawn section produced variable results, Harry Payne and Louis Wain being a little “off the boil”. A lot of 550 Quintons failed to attract a bid despite a modest estimate of £550. A card designed and signed by the artist Salvador Dali, commemorating the final stage of the 1959 Tour de France realised £63.

Attractive Great Western Railway Poster Advert makes £126.

A G.W.R. official series 3 poster advert, “Direct Route to Weymouth”, postally used in 1907 and in fine condition, estimated at £60, realised £126 in our July 20th 2011 auction. Another railway official poster, the Midland and Glasgow and South-Western Railways’ “Land o’ Burns”, unused, made £55.

Topographical collections formed a large and important section of the auction. The best results were secured for collections of Hants (£1,035 for 350 cards estimated £600), London and suburbs (£632 for 250 cards estimated £300), Northumberland and Co. Durham (£1,064 for 400 cards estimated £430), Somerset (£977 for 400 cards estimated £460), Surrey (£1,380 for 800 cards estimated £600) and Sussex (£1,437 for 500 cards estimated £600).

The foreign section included a collection of 98 printed portraits of Paraguayan Indians by the ethnologist Guidi Boggiani. Together with 23 other cards, estimated in total at £200, they realised £425.

An early balloon flight card was on offer. It was flown on the 1907 Daily Graphic balloon flight, which took off from Crystal Palace and crash landed in southern Sweden, the reverse bearing a Tosse c.d.s. of October 14th 1907 and Wakefield arrival c.d.s. of October 17th. The estimate was £200 and the realisation was £241.

In the artist-drawn section, 33 Attwells realised £161, 30 elves and fairies by Outhwaite realised £391, 27 military art by Payne realised £184 and 92 comics by Thackeray realised £299.

The social history section produced some amazing realisations compared with estimates: 74 markets £276 (estimated £80); 55 post offices £368 (estimated £140); 147 pubs £448 (estimated £150); 320 watermills £264 (estimated £140); 62 windmills £195 (estimated £150).

Strong Result for Artist-drawn Cards

The Warwick and Warwick sale of March 2nd was strong in artist-drawn cards, with extensive ranges of cats by Louis Wain and Arthur Thiele and dogs by G.E. Studdy. The following results were obtained:

• Thiele, Arthur, published Theo Stroefer, series 851, Life at Home set of 6, in good condition, apart from one with manuscript to front and tiny corner stub, £207;

• Thiele, Arthur, published Theo Stroefer, series 896, Cats with Hats, 4 of the 6, in good condition, apart from surface fault on one, £322;
• Thiele, Arthur, published Theo Stroefer, series 995, Winged Cats, 4 of the 6, in good condition, £172;
• Thiele, Arthur, published Theo Stroefer, series 1214, A Tennis Tournament, 2 of the 6 and published Tuck Oilette 9983, a further 2 of the 6, all in good condition, £109;
• Wain, Louis, published A.M. Davis, 536 Prizewinners set of 6, all unused and in good condition, £253;
• Wain, Louis, published Faulkner, 453 series set, all unused and in good condition, £207;
• Wain, Louis, published Faulkner, 484 series set, all unused and in good condition, £218;
• Wain, Louis, published Tuck, English Theatrical Cats, no. 3887, The Last of the Dandies and no. 3890, Edmund Payne in the Toreador, both unused and in good condition, £115;
• Wain, Louis, published Tuck, 6444 Oilette series, Japanese Mikado theme, 5 of the 6, missing We won’t go Home till Morning, all in good condition, £195;
• Wain, Louis, published Tuck Oilette 8819, The Shell Mascot, in good condition, £80;
• Wain, Louis, published Tuck, 9563 Oilette, Diabolo set of 6, all unused and in good condition, £207;
• Wain, Louis, published Valentine, Sporting Themes set of 6, all unused and in good condition, unsold, enquiries invited;
• Wain, Louis, published Wrench, Motoring Cats numbered series, 30008, 30010, 30011 and 30012, all unused and in good condition, £172.
• A collection of 60 anthropomorphic cats by Violet Roberts realised £604 and 43 Bonzos by Studdy made £207.

Still in the artists section, 400 Quintons made £333 and 7 “Golliwoggs” by Florence Upton made £138, despite slight faults. A large section of McGills (approximately 4,500) were on offer and the larger collections averaged £1.30 per card. A range of 1,000 “New McGill” cards, published by Constance, realised £495.

Britsh topographicals were as strong as ever, the biggest realisations of £1,035 and £977 being for 2 collections of Manchester and suburbs. An interior RP view of the Salford Fire Engineering Works showroom, showing two horse-drawn appliances, one inscribed Rugby Fire Brigade, was offered as a separate lot with an estimate of £40. It realised an impressive £98.

Suffragettes Win the Vote at Warwick Auction

The Warwick and Warwick auction held on December 1st contained a section of more than 30 lots of Suffragette cards, which proved popular with bidders. Several cards had relevant messages and this considerably enhanced the attraction. The following results were typical.

Artists’ Suffrage League, 2 political cartoons, 1 unused and in good condition and the other used (corner crease), with suffrage comment Bravo! You are a brick! It was awfully plucky of you to ask your question. I was so glad to hear of it. So sorry the meeting was against suffrage. E. Boothby. This card is addressed to Miss Bentall of Chelmsford. Realisation £138.

Rotary London Life no. 71 “Arrest of a Militant Suffragette” RP. Realisation £115.

RP card by A. Young of Lowestoft depicting a close-up of an open-topped car displaying a poster advertising Mrs Pankhurst’s appearance at the Hippodrome, with ladies behind displaying The Suffragette posters. Realisation £195.

Weston super Mare branch shop of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, RP, with posters in window and ladies with banners and sachets in front. Not postally used, but the original owner writes in pencil Weston Suffrage Shop opened in West Street for the sale of literature. Had some from there March 17 to 31 1913. Realisation £218.

Reading RP shop front of the Women’s Social & Political Union, with 2 Suffragettes in doorway. Window shows a display of posters, newspaper clippings and postcards of Suffragette leaders. Realisation £172.

Three cards, being portraits of Teresa Billington Greig, Mary E. Gawthorpe and Christabel Pankhurst, all part of the same 1907 Chelmsford correspondence (2 with part manuscript to front). The correspondence includes: I would go to Holloway Gaol tomorrow if by so doing I could aid the cause of justice. Meeting last evening magnificent....My friend Miss Aves is in prison. You will see by today’s papers. It is an honour to know her. She is a charming lady. The sender is Miss E.Bentall. and the addressee is Phillip Brown. Realisation £207.

A few of the comic Suffragette cards were unsold, as the vendor chose to set the reserves at rather high levels. However 6 different comics by Donald McGill (1 creased) realised £253.

The sale was strong in collections offered intact; the first two lots alone realised a total of £3,277. However there were plenty of topos and subject cards for the more modest bidder. In the artists section a collection of 223 Kirchners, in variable condition, made £1,897, against an estimate of £800, 124 Dudley Hardy made £241, 2 sets of 7 by glamour artist A. Penot made £150, 270 Quintons made £209, 48 glamour by Xavier Sager made £149 and 12 glamour by Vallet made £138.

Transport is always popular and a railway collection, 400 strong, estimated at £300, went for £834. A lage collection of trams filled 14 large boxes, but most of the cards were plain backs. The modest estimate of £230 was based mainly on the value of the postcard backed cards. This was quickly exceeded by the realisation of £1,064. The Manchster section of this collection contained a larger percentage of postcard backs and the 400 cards were estimated at £440. They realised £661. 400 general shipping sailed away at £1,006 and 44 Red Star Line achieved £310.

Scottish Topos in Demand

The Warwick and Warwick auction held on September 1st contained a large section of Scottish topographicals offered in a series of collections. The total pre-sale estimate of this section was £6,170 and the final realisation, including the buyer’s premium was a massive £15,582! In the English section, a collection of 800 + Manchester and suburbs, in 2 modern albums, estimated at £650, fared even better, achieving £2,875.

There was a large advertising section in the sale and all the 8 collections on offer were sold. The total estimate was £1,460 and the total realisation was £3,628. Of the cards offered individually. the best result was the £50 paid for a Wills Gold Flake chromo-litho vignette.

Raphael Kirchner was represented by the Girls with Flowers at their Feet set of 10, which made £632 and the La Guerre Amusante set of 6 which made £115. The balance of the Kirchner collection was offered intact because of mixed condition. Estimated at £3,000, it realised £3,105.

A large collection of approximately 2,050 merchant shipping had been broken down into 10 collections with estimates totalling £2,000. They were estimated conservatively because a large number of the photographic cards had been “improved” with the use of hand tinting in discreet areas, such as funnels and flags. However these “improvements” did not deter the buyers who paid £5,543 it total for the 2050 cards.

Excellent prices were obtained for regimental embroidered silks. The following results were obtained:

• Dragoon Guards £184
• 1st R. Dragoons £161
• 2nd Dragoons £161
• Third Dragoon Guards £115

• Inniskilling Dragoons £195
• Queen’s Bays Dragoon Guards £115
• Princess Royal’s Dragoon Guards £161.

Balloon Post Postcards make £920 each

The Warwick and Warwick auction held on June 9th contained 2 postcards carried on the famous 1903 Lifeboat Saturday balloon flight. Estimated at £1000, they realised £920 each. It is interesting to note that the next Warwick and Warwick auction also contains a rare balloon post card, namely the Daily Graphic Balloon Post flight, which crash landed in Sweden.

The sale contained several dealers’ stocks of topographicals, offered on a county by county basis. The highest realisation was £2875 paid for 450 Lancashire cards. The next highest result was the £2405 paid for 500 Kent. Other county ranges where the estimates were almost doubled by the realisations included Anglesey, Bucks, Caerns, Cheshire, Cumbria, Norfolk and Warks. Two collections of North Wales each estimated at £600, one containing 500 cards and the other containing 400 cards, made £1495 and £1553 respectively.

The foreign topographicals included a general collection of 348, with strength in South America, estimated at a conservation £160, which realised a surprising £1380. A dealer’s stock of 500 Ireland, estimated at £480, realised £1610.

The sale contained over 50 general collections and miscellaneous stocks, all of which sold at figures in excess of estimate.

In the publishers section, a substantial collection of 4800 Bamforths with a presale estimate of £500, realised £2243 and 2700 Salmon, mainly unused and mainly modern, estimated at £55 realised £425.

The shipping section produced excellent results as usual, with 450 liners estimated at £300 realising £863. 26 different Nippon Yussen Kaisha Line steamer vignettes made £287.

In the artists section, the best realisation for a single card was the £126 paid for ‘Who will get the Kiss?’ by Louis Wain, published by Wrench. 27 ‘Old Bill’ by Bairnsfather made £48 and 9 ‘Bonzo’ by Studdy made £80.

The Cheshire Lines Railway was a very small company and their official cards are rare; two of them in the sale were estimated at £60 and realised £80.

The next Warwick and Warwick auction will be held on Wednesday September 1st.

Northumberland Rural Collection sells for £2,645

The best topographical collection in the Warwick and Warwick March 3rd auction was a 1100 strong collection of Northumberland cards, rich in villages. Estimated at £1,000, it realised £2,645. British county collections were well represented in the sale and more than 95% realised figures in excess of estimate. Foreign topographicals also performed well, the best result being £690 realised by a collection of 220 African cards, which had a pre-sale estimate of £180.

The subject cards section saw 63 naval cards, with strength in Portsmouth sell for £230 and 65 liners, including 9 continental size sell for the same figure. A small range of embroidered silks included the rare H.M.S Victory. The 8 cards made £126.

A rare recruitment card for the Belgian Walloon Waffen SS storm troopers realised £30.

In the social history section, a set of 12 “Penny Post Series” black and white, mainly vignette cards, with divided backs were on offer. These were issued in 1903, by E.Blackwell, at the Post Office, Northampton and depicted postal related designs. They were sold on behalf of the Rowland Hill Benevolent Fund and had never been used. The auctioneers stated that they had never seen them previously and estimated them at £48. The final realisation was a massive £138.

However the biggest realisation of the day was the £2,875 paid for a collection of approximately 3,200 English stately homes, rectories and large houses, which had been estimated at £700.