How to Buy Original Vintage Food & Drink Posters — Without Buying a Reproduction

Food and drink advertising produced some of the best poster design of the twentieth century: oversized bottles, impossible colours, mischievous characters and typography built to stop somebody walking past a café, station or shop window.

It also produced an enormous number of later decorative reproductions. If you want an original advertising poster rather than a modern print of an old image, the most important thing is knowing exactly what edition you are buying.

“Vintage style” is not the same as vintage

Online listings often use phrases such as “vintage poster”, “retro print” and “vintage style” interchangeably. Read the description carefully. A newly printed poster using a 1930s Campari image can be perfectly good decoration, but it is not an original 1930s advertising poster.

Look for an actual year of printing, dimensions, artist or designer where known, printing information and a clear statement that the physical sheet is original to that period.

Start with the campaign, not just the brand

Major brands commissioned posters for decades. “Original Campari poster” is therefore nowhere near specific enough. Which campaign? Which designer? Which year? Which country and size?

The same artwork may also have been reissued later. A genuine later edition should be described with its later printing date rather than being made to sound like the earliest version.

Printing and paper should fit the claimed date

Historic advertising posters were produced using different processes across different periods, including lithography, offset lithography and screen printing. There is no single print texture shared by every authentic food poster.

Instead, ask whether the printing and paper make sense for that particular edition. Our authenticity guide explains why we combine several pieces of evidence rather than relying on one test.

Check the small details

Printer names, artist signatures, campaign text, tax or legal wording, reference numbers and dimensions can all help. Compare these with documented originals where possible.

A printed signature is part of the design and should not be confused with a hand signature.

Condition should look believable — not necessarily rough

An original poster does not need stains and torn corners to prove its age. Some survive beautifully. Others show folds, edge wear, small tears or old repairs because they were working advertising material.

Judge condition separately from authenticity. Our condition guide explains the approach we use.

Linen backing is common on large advertising posters

Many large-format advertising posters have been linen backed to stabilise the paper and make them easier to handle. That can be entirely appropriate, especially for posters originally intended for short-term display.

Backing is not proof of authenticity and it can accompany restoration, so the amount of work should still be disclosed. See our conservation and restoration guide.

A real Campari example

This 1992 Campari poster by Milton Glaser is a good example of why precise cataloguing matters. Campari advertising stretches back generations, but this physical poster belongs to a specific 1992 campaign and designer. Its authenticity does not depend on pretending it is older than it is.

Where should you buy?

Specialist dealers and established auction houses should be able to tell you what the poster is, provide useful condition information and answer questions about edition and restoration. Marketplaces can also contain excellent material, but you need to do more of that work yourself.

Be wary when the description is mostly about how “rare” or “investment-worthy” something is and very light on the physical facts.

Our buying checklist

Confirm the date of the physical poster. Identify the campaign and designer where possible. Check dimensions and printing against documented examples. Ask about backing and restoration. Look closely at the actual item photographs. And make sure the return terms are clear before buying an expensive piece.

Above all, buy a design you want to live with. The joy of original advertising posters is that commercial artists were given a few seconds to make somebody look — and the best examples are still doing exactly that decades later.

Read our guide to collecting original posters or explore the wider Printed Originals collection for more original advertising design.

Explore: Perrier Crazy With Thirst · 7-Up Fresh Up · Campari Milton Glaser · Collecting original posters · How we check authenticity

Explore the posters featured above: Perrier · 7-Up · Campari. Continue with our collecting guide, authenticity guide and framing guide.