A Guide to British concert posters and British psychedelic posters by Nick Etheridge

OAS 5 Osiris Visions Ltd Poster

OAS 5 Osiris Visions promo poster

The OAS 5 is a little known promo poster that boldly displays the new address and phone number of Osiris Visions after its move to new premises around November or early December 67. Although not a graphic masterpiece, it provides a direct insight into the dazzling selection posters available at the end of 1967 All but three of the designs are from Hapshash and only two non silkscreen.

Very few of the 1967 OA posters were reprinted in 1968 with the notable exception of the popular OA 103 Hendrix at the Fillmore and OA 301 Luv Me.

OA 116 Save Earth Now poster

OA 116 Save Earth Now Poster

This is a stunning example of a very early 1960’s environmental poster showing the growing awareness and interest in ecology and protecting our world. The poster shows aspects of the earth from the sky, sea, jungles and mountains with various animals along the different races and religions of the world living in harmony.Note the subtle background colour split from bright yellow to green under the gold ink pass.

OA 123 I Can See for Miles Poster The Track record promo for The Who is a masterclass of rainbow printing. There are three individual split applications of ink to create this poster and must have been incredibly time consuming to print. There is a red to yellow gradient backgroung, metalic silver to gold gradiant and a final dark blue to light blue.The effect is beautiful, seamless and easy to miss.

OA 123 The Who I Can See For Miles Poster

Finding an absolute original of this poster can be very challenging due to the high quality bootleg that has been in circulation for some years and originates from a well known UK bootlegger.

The copy is very well printed and sometimes still passing for the original as it appears to have layered inks although it is not a true silk screen poster. These posters still come up for sale on Ebay and more recently sold on as modestly priced 1970’s reprints now they are generally recognised as reprints. So expert help is needed if offered one of these posters as this fake has fooled collectors and dealer alike.

Part 3 of this Guide on Hapsash concert posters and Osiris Visions posters will be published soon.