The Colonel's WWI Poster Collection

On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, Guernsey's will auction the World War I poster collection of Colonel Edward H. McCrahon, a Brooklyn-born soldier so passionate about the Allied cause that he joined the French Army as an ambulance driver before his enlistment once America entered the war. McCrahon became enamored of the patriotic posters produced during wartime by the likes of James Montgomery Flagg, Theophile Steinlen, Ludwig Hohlwein, and Howard Christy and spent the next sixteen years collecting what is, according to the auction house, "the most extensive collection of war posters known to exist." Roughly half of the 2,000-piece collection was produced in the U.S. Here is a sampling:

USA Bonds by Joseph Christian Leyendecker, estimated at $2,000-3,000.

Division for Foreign Born Women by Howard Walker, estimated at $2,000-3,000.

How Much Will You Lend to the Boys Who Are Giving All by Franklin Booth, estimated at $2,000-3,000.