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These Amazing Vintage Posters, Stolen By The Nazis, Were Just Sold For $2.5 Million

Jim EdwardsJan 29, 2013, 21:27 IST

Guernsey's / Peter SachsOne of the Sachs posters.Born in 1881, Hans Sachs began collecting posters and ads as a teenage hobby and over the years became Germany's top acquirer, with 12,500 posters in his collection.

Some were painted by top artists of the day, like Toulouse-Lautrec and Kandinsky. They advertised cigarettes, cabaret, fashion and fast cars.

Then, in 1938, on Kristallnacht, the Gestapo confiscated them all. Sachs escaped the Nazis and died in 1974. He never saw the posters again.

Earlier this month, 4,344 of the posters surfaced at Guernsey's auction house in New York. They fetched $2.5 million.

This is how it happened, according to GalleristNY.