Rubber is Scarce - Take Care of Your Tyres
A round red-and-white poster shows a black fist made of stacked tyres gripping an inner tube like a club. The slogan states one fact, that rubber is scarce, and offers no figures or context, which is the card-stacking tell; the fist image turns the request to preserve tyres into a forceful instruction.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1939
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- H.M. Stationery Office (government issue); printed by Sanders Phillips & Co., Ltd.
- Region
- Western and Central Europe
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- State
- Regime
- Churchill Government
- Leader
- Winston Churchill
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Mobilize or secure compliance
- Themes
- Home front, Economy and finance
- Event
- World War II
- Leader
- Winston Churchill
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Foreign Posters, retrieved October 3, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (UK Crown copyright, 50 years from publication, expired before 1996; no URAA restoration)
H.M. Stationery Office; printed by Sanders Phillips & Co. Ltd., c. 1939-1945. U.S. National Archives, RG 44.
Text on the object
RUBBER IS SCARCE TAKE CARE OF YOUR TYRES Printed for H.M. Stationery Office by Sanders Phillips & Co. Ltd. S1-3738
