Baxter Print Auction Prices – J H Rylatt – 1932 to 1936

These are small booklets, each 14 cm x 10.8 cm, detailing auction prices for that year and having between 12 and 16 pages. They are all complied by J (Joseph) H Rylatt and published by The Bazaar, Exchange and Mart which in the later years of the 19th and early 20th centuries was the place to read, write and ask about Baxter prints.

In each volume I have the reader is reminded that “Baxter and Licensee prints can be identified and valued without charge through the columns of The Bazaar, Exchange and Mart”

The series started in 1932, the 1934 edition states “presented for the third year”. The latest copy I have is for 1936 but, if there were additional years I feel sure there wouldn’t have been published past 1938 due to the start of WW2.

Each year covers the ‘season’, so 1932 covers the season of October 1931 – July 1932 and, although not stated as such in all the editions, presumably followed a similar pattern.

Each volume gave a short review of the year followed by a list of prints and their prices that had gone through the auction house of Puttick and Simpson, the London auction that specialised in Baxter sales for many decades. The 1936 edition also included some sales that went through the July 1935 sale at Gorringes in Lewes, Baxter’s home town, as a 500 print collection of William Conlan was sold.

On the covers of the 1932 and 1934 edition Rylatt is noted as “Past president of the Baxter Society” but around this time some members of that society split to form the London based National Picture Print Society so in the 1935 and 1936 edition the inner leaf now also states he is also the Hon Sec of that society.

Although interesting to see prices of prints, or, as the values are so ‘out of cinque’ with the value of money today, more the difference in prices between certain prints. Quite noticeable is how often prints, that we know are incredibly rare today, seem to be listed, perhaps it is the same copy or perhaps copies have just been lost to the Baxter collecting world over the years. By at least 1934 condition is also noted making that comparison more worthwhile.

To me the most ‘important’ aspect is the small review in each volume as it mentions interesting and sometimes unique items that passed through the auction that year that could be missed if just reading through the listing. These include:

1934 - A set of progressive proofs of the Holy Family in original folder as issued by Baxter – Link 1 below
and also Memoirs of Wellington containing a frontispiece of Baxter’s Duke of Wellington – Link 2 below

1935 - A set of 12 sample ovals as sent out by Le Blond & Co with their original circular letter – Link 3 below