At the beginning of May 2015 Dan Walsh turned our attention to an auction at Swann Galleries in New York. Uri Shamir examined 13 posters on offer that were designed by Shamir Brothers and discovered a poster we were no aware of.

 

A sailor with a rifle standing in the doorway in the wall overlooking the sea. This was an enigmatic poster - because it had no title, text, or even the name of the advertiser. Swann's catalog said it was a British Navy recruiting poster from 1944. The poster was sold for 1350 US dollars.

 

Two weeks later I received from Guy Jimoh of the Central Zionist Archive a CD with their full collection of Shamir posters (two-thirds came from the estate of Gabriel Shamir and one-third from other sources). The first review of the disc I made with Aviv Moses, revealed this poster, but this time it had text on the left side of the image: The Israely Naval Units calls for contributions towards the establishment of Israel's marine training center. (Date, May 1948, during the War of Independence, which explains the gun in the hand of the sailor).

 

Of the customer who bought it it can be said that he got only "half a bargain". 

 

Yoram Shamir  2015