War posters trade trash bin for UK auction block

An unlikely auction of Long Island aerospace workplace propaganda posters from World War II is taking place in Newcastle, England, this week.

The posters advised Long Island wartime workers not to chat about the aircraft they built. They also urged workers to buy war bonds and portrayed the ominous consequences of losing to the Nazis.

The U.S. government in the 1940s sent the posters to an aerospace company on Long Island, where they went unused until a worker saved them from the trash bin many years later, the Newcastle Journal newspaper reports.

The worker who saved the posters, an Englishman named Steve Summers, has placed them with a British auction house.

The Newcastle newspaper says Summers gave details on how he ended up with the propaganda posters.

"A chance encounter 15 years ago saw Tynesider Steve Summers rescue more than 30 American wartime propaganda posters from a rubbish skip," the paper says.

"These posters are very emotive and more hard hitting than the British equivalents, and were aimed at getting the message across to Americans about the war and encouraging their commitment."

Summers, an operations manager, doesn't say which company he worked for. He told the paper, "The company premises were being redecorated and as I walked through one office they were throwing the posters out. I asked them if I could have them for my walls," and got the OK.

He stored them in his father's attic until recently.