General Advertising

General advertising — enamel signs, tins, show cards and point-of-sale pieces from the golden age of the high street — is where AP Saleroom began, and it remains a cornerstone of our auction calendar.

Our inaugural advertising auction — October 2025

Our October advertising auction was an interesting baptism by fire. Storm Amy was in full flow and hit our venue — a summer pavilion — hard, causing a few technical and home-comfort challenges along the way.

The internet dropped intermittently and lag affected the auction throughout, which meant some bidders were unable to participate. Despite these inconveniences, the vast majority of lots found new homes on the day, including a flurry of activity at the close over the unsold lots.

Most of the unsold lots then moved into a timed auction shortly afterwards, with excellent take-up: by the time it closed, over 220 of the 280 lots had sold, including almost 100% of the tins initially listed — a strong endorsement of the quality on offer.

A new home at Thruxton

To make sure we avoided similar issues for the petroliana auction that followed, a number of changes were put in place. The most significant was a move from the pavilion to BARC’s main hospitality suite — a stunning location that proved perfect for the event, and which is now our home for all future auctions.

Thank you

Thank you to everyone who consigned, bid and supported us at our inaugural auction, and who stuck with us through a challenging but important learning experience. Your encouraging feedback has been genuinely helpful. We are glad the decision to produce a high-quality catalogue — and the effort that went into its creation — was so well received, and we look forward to moving the bar still further at future events.

Onwards and upwards!