A rare 100 year old London Underground poster advertising Watford is now set to fetch between £1,500 and £2,000 at an auction.

The 30in by 20in poster, simply featuring the words “In Watford”,was produced in 1915, by the acclaimed American-born graphic designer, Edward McKnight Kauffer.

The Watford poster, which appears to depict a scene from Cassiobury Park with a bridge spanning part of the river Gade, was his first for the London Underground.

The late poet laureate,Sir John Betjeman, once remarked : “There was never so good a poster designer as that tall, red-haired American, Ted Kauffer.”

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography confirms : “…in 1915 he (Kauffer) was commissioned to design posters for the Underground Electric Railways Company of London.

“Here his patron was Frank Pick. Over the next 25 years, Kauffer became Pick’s most prolific and innovative designer.Kauffer began in 1915 with a poster titled ‘In Watford’ which displayed his interest in the Japanese woodblock print and the work of Van Gogh.”

Kauffer’s Watford poster is among around 330 London Underground posters put up for sale by the London Transport Museum and which are now expected to sell for between £500,000 and £600,000 at Christie’s South Kensington in London on October 4.

Another Kauffer poster – featuring the words “St Albans,route 84 from Golders Green” – sold at Christie’s in London in September last year, for £1,175.