A stunning advertising poster for Philip Pierce and Co, Wexford town of a horse-drawn mowing machine pictured in the Vale of Avoca is expected to make between €1,500 and €2,500 at Sheppard’s of Durrow online auction.

It is part of a Wexford based dealer’s entire Vintage Advertising and Printed Ephemera collection and with over 600 lots, is believed to be the largest sale of its kind in Ireland.

Printed by Ormond Printing Co. Ltd, Dublin, the poster measures 71 x 100 cm. Pierce’s Foundry was founded in 1839 by James Pierce. At the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, Pierce’s had become the largest agricultural machinery manufacturer in Ireland with a workforce of 1,000. 

They had offices at Rue de Flandre in Paris (which is included on the poster) and in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Pierce’s products were shipped worldwide and they continued to export horse-drawn farm machinery to Africa and North and South America up to the 1920s. 

As might be expected alcohol and tobacco have a strong presence in the collection,  including: Players (58), Wills (43), Guinness (30), Jameson (25). Many other Irish household names like Jacobs (17) have a notable presence.