1948 London Games - XIV Olympiad

1948 poster advertising the British made film of the London Olympic games featuring the famous Rank 'Gong Man' striking the Olympic flag - a truly iconic image. The XIV Olympiad was the first Olympics for 12 years due to the second world war - the previous games having been held in Berlin in 1936 and was dubbed the austerity Olympics because of the extensive rationing. Prior to the widespread use of TV, this would have been the only way that the majority of the country saw the Olympic Games. N.B. This is very rare indeed compared to the much smaller official 1948 Olympic posters (the largest of which was just 20" x 30" compared to the 27" x 40" for this poster) of which 100,000 were printed as souvenirs and now sell for up to £5,000. Less than 3,000 of this poster were printed, none were sold to the public and almost all would have been routinely recycled for pulp immediately so there are probably less than 10 surviving examples in the world today. A fascinating piece of social as well as Olympic history. There are no records of any coming to a public auction in the last 20 years. I have seen two in 25 years of collecting. First release poster from 1948, linen backed with retouching to borders.