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Vintage posters a viable alternative

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The voluptuous red-headed siren reaches out of the water holding a pneumatic tyre above her head and graces the onlooker with a beautiful smile. Like a halo, it adds an altogether angelic air to this vintage poster advertising bicycle tyres in 1910.

Interestingly, while in this generation obesity levels are on the up but models are prized at a skinny size zero, in 1910 artists painted their ladies with a fuller figure.

'That's how the women were back then,' said Chris Bailey, vintage poster collector and the founder of Picture This Gallery.

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He saw a hole in the Asia market seven years ago for film posters, vintage posters advertising products and travel posters. 'Vintage posters date back to the late 1880s and early 1890s,' said Mr Bailey. 'The posters in France would be colour sheets promoting events and destinations. [Henri de] Toulouse-Lautrec specialised in cabarets, bars, restaurants and retail businesses. Posters of that era often show shops and bicycle retailers.'

Mr Bailey has a collection of 80 or so Hong Kong travel posters, including two or three items which have not been seen elsewhere. All of the posters are unique - not prints because he said there was not much money to be made in those.

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The most expensive poster ever sold was in November 2005. A poster of Fritz Lang's iconic movie Metropolis sold for US$690,000 in the United States to an anonymous buyer. There are only four known posters like this in existence and the other three are already in institutions, said Bailey.

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