Historic Background

Posters were widely used through all the First World War (and later) by all nations with different purposes. As war required an immense effort in manpower and resources, they encouraged enlistment and bond subscriptions. At the same time, they were a mean to justify a costly and unpopular war. Their messages were simple and straightforward, easy to understand to everyone who read it. And as any other advertising, often bright colors and powerful images were used.

Description

The booklet is A4 size, with a spiral bound that makes easier the access to each page in order to cut the posters. There are 20 pages, including 2 blanks and one for the index and instructions. The paper is satin and not very thick, which is good to represent posters. The quality of the printing is very good, with all colours correctly aligned.
The rest of the volumes for this series are for WWII, Modern Warfare, Spanish Civil War and assorted boxes of rations and soft drinks

Content

Number 01 includes posters for 14 countries, with 2 pages for each of the following:

• France
• Australia
• Canada
• United Kingdom
• Russian Empire
• Italy
• USA
• Germany

And one page that comprises minor countries as Belgium, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Switzerland and the Ottoman Empire.
All posters are for propaganda purposes, mainly for enlistment encouragement and some for fund raising. The famous Uncle Sam "I want you" is of course there, both for the Army and Navy. There are no commercial advertising posters in this set.
Each page has 60 different posters in 3 sizes: 1,70x1,20 cm, 1,20x0,85 cm and 0,85x0,60 cm. Scaled at real size from 1/35 they are equivalent to DIN A2, A3 and A4 respectively. If you want to use them at 1/72 then they would be DIN A1, A2 and A3.
We get, for example for France, a total of 360 posters of 60 different types. Consequently, there are a total of 3.060 posters in the book. Should be enough for a lifetime even if you have a lot of friends to give them a few.

Use

Thanks to the spiral bound it is very easy to isolate the page you want and lay it on a hard surface, so you do not cut the underneath pages nor have to struggle to keep it flat
They can be easily cut using a sharp blade and a ruler. There are no cutting guides so you simply follow the edge. Although a less-than-new blade can look fine at sight, when using a magnifier or close up photo, the edge can be damaged. You can see this happened to me. Scissors can work as well, however I have always had troubles to make a perfectly straight cut.
I tried to soak the poster to help adapting it to rough surfaces and the print went away completely. A second try only with a wet brush produced the same result, but in a more controlled way so it may be used to simulate the damage. Anyway I would avoid it.
Odorless thinner does not affect it, at least using the quantity needed for a wash. A dark brown wash can make it look old and dirty.
Another way to make it look more realistic is sanding the back side. It will leave a very thin paper, easy to bend and keep the shape.
Finally, once sanded it can be rip very realistically, just remember to either paint or remove the edge that remains white.
There are examples of all these effects on the photos.

Conclusion

These booklets are very useful for detailing scenes, either using the posters or the boxes that although not reviewed here work the same way. Apart from cut and glue they are ready to use and accept weathering in different ways, as long as you do not use (too much) water. The huge number of items on each book and the inclusion of different nationalities makes it more attractive.