Travel Nostalgia: The World in Vintage Posters

Travel Blog  •  Eva Holland  •  03.02.09 | 5:23 PM ET

I’ve confessed to my abiding love of postcards before, and now I have another confession: I am a total sucker for the vintage travel poster and all its varied (fridge magnet, notebook, calendar, tote bag) incarnations. There’s something so refreshing about those old Cunard posters, or the early advertisements for transcontinental passenger rail. They have a guileless wonder to them, and a total lack of cynicism or irony—because they come from an era when nobody thought they had already seen it all. So I was thrilled to read on the Shoretrips blog about a major vintage poster auction being held in New York.

The auction’s already come and gone, but the entire collection is still viewable online. There are more than 400 posters in the sale, though, and only some of them are travel-related—so for all my fellow vintage-travel-poster-lovers (and I know you’re out there) I’ve put together a list of my favorites, and a cheat sheet for the rest.

Here are my Top 5:

1) Afrique du Nord—Air France, 1946 (pictured).

2) New York—Antwerp, Red Star Line, 1899.

3) New York—Air India, unknown date.

(This one wins for sheer oddity. Very “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”)

4) Montana—Northern Pacific, unknown date.

5) Chicago—United Airlines, unknown date.

Want more? The collection is divided into 403 lots, numbered chronologically.

You’ll find some of Toulouse Lautrec’s Paris in the 40s, and a few advertisements for the great 19th-century expositions in the 50s. The airline classics begin at lot 68, and Victorian-era cruises and steamer crossings run from lot 110 to 117. Early automobiles are represented in lots 118 to 127, and the golden age of rail from 128 to 141. There’s a mixed bag of tourism posters from lot 204 to 243 and from lot 300 to 381. Finally, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and a few other classic shows and circuses round out the travel content, at lots 386 to 392. Enjoy!


Eva Holland is co-editor of World Hum. She is a former associate editor at Up Here and Up Here Business magazines, and a contributor to Vela. She's based in Canada's Yukon territory.


3 Comments for Travel Nostalgia: The World in Vintage Posters

Julia Ross 03.02.09 | 8:21 PM ET

awesome. The Afrique du Nord would be my pick too.

Travel Blog 03.03.09 | 1:49 PM ET

Wow, these are some pretty old school postcards. My pick would be the Montana.

Ben Brazil 03.03.09 | 6:27 PM ET

There is a cool 2009 calendar with some of these on it.  It’s in my kitchen.

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