BLANDFORD FORUM, U.K. – Included in Onslows’ 40th Anniversary Auction of Vintage Posters on Thursday, November 30 is a collection of British railways posters recently discovered in the Lake District.

The cache numbers 20 perfectly preserved ‘royal quad’ sized sheets (each 4ft 2in by 3ft 4in) from the 1920s and 30s — some of them extremely rare.

The most sought-after is likely to be Tom Purvis’ 1928 London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) design promoting life on the Norfolk Broads titled The Broads 200 Miles of Safe Inland Waterways. One of only two known copies of this poster to be sold in 40 years, even the National Railway Museum in Britain does not have a copy. It is estimated at £6,000-£8,000 ($7,350-$9,800).

Another romantic image of the Broads by Robert Bartlett dating from 1932 is estimated at £5,000-£7,000 ($6,130-$8,580), while from the Southern Railway are several maritime subjects topped by Leslie Carr’s The World’s Greatest Liners depicting RMS Queen Mary and SS Normandie. This poster, printed in 1936, has not been seen at auction before and is estimated to sell for £5,000-£6,000 ($6,100-$7,350).

Among a selection of war recruitment posters is an image by James Walker Dublin that includes vignettes of some iconic British vehicles used in the conflict. In particular, the central scene shows the Mark I, the all-terrain vehicle that was developed in 1915 to break the stalemate of trench warfare. The world’s first so-called ‘tank’ (the name was initially used as a code name to maintain secrecy and disguise its true purpose), it was in service from 1916. In great condition and now mounted on linen, it is estimated at £1,000-£1,500 ($1,200-$1,800).

A good copy of the classic Savile Lumley (1876-1960) design Daddy, what did you do in the Great War? has the same estimate. Created in 1915, this was perhaps the least used of the 14 posters published by the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee and really became much more famous after the war. At the time, its guilt-inducing approach was not popular or particularly effective. Famously, the men fighting on the Western Front found dark humor in the poster’s message, often embellishing the posters with very matter-of-fact graffiti.

Well-known images from the Second World War are provided by two original lithographs by the official war artist Paul Nash (1889-1946). A print of The Battle of Britain, published by the National Gallery of Britain for the Ministry of Information in 1940 is estimated at £1,000-£1,500 ($1,200-$1,800) while The Raider on the Moors showing a German aircraft shot down in the British countryside, is estimated at £500-£700 ($600-$850).

American artist Edward McKnight Kauffer (1890-1954) produced most of his posters for various London transport firms, but he also worked with another company that embraced the full possibilities of graphic design — Shell Oil and Petrol. From the series See Britain First is an evocation of Stonehenge at night from 1931, estimated at £2,000-£3,000 ($2,450-$3,600). The original watercolor for this poster, with a presentation inscription to McKnight Kauffer’s wife, was sold by Swann Galleries in 2010 for $9,600.

Formerly at Christie’s, where he launched the first vintage posters sales, Patrick Bogue founded Onslows in 1983.