Description
The Your Maxim poster
Your Maxim “Buy War Bonds” was drawn by the British cartoonist Bert Thomas and issued in August 1918 by the National War Savings Committee as poster no. 113, printed by the Grosvenor Press. Three infantrymen work a Maxim-type machine gun on a black hillside, and the belt feeding the gun is made of war bond certificates snaking down the page. The pun is in the title: a maxim is a motto, and the Maxim was the machine gun.
Thomas was famous for “’Arf a mo’, Kaiser!”, his 1914 cartoon of a grinning Tommy lighting his pipe, which helped raise about £250,000 for soldiers’ tobacco. He drew for Punch for more than forty years and in 1918 painted a giant war bonds poster across the front of the National Gallery in London.
This is a British poster, part of our Allied collection.
Read the full history of the poster.
Restored edition
Restored from a photograph of an original print. The colour was cleaned and brought back, with folds, stains, tears and wear removed. The lettering and printed marks are kept from the original.
Sizes and options
- Paper print: 11.7 × 16.5 in, 20 × 28 in or 23.4 × 33.1 in
- Framed print: 12 × 17 in, 20 × 28 in or 23 × 33 in, in a black, white or natural wood frame, ready to hang
Printed to order in the USA on 200gsm Enhanced Matte Art paper. Free Standard shipping to the US. Compare the print sizes.
More posters
See The Tank Tour: Buy National War Bonds, or browse the Allied posters collection.













