Dufex is a printing process developed by F.J. Warren Ltd in England. An image is
printed onto aluminium foil-lined board using transparent inks, so the mirror finish of the foil
stays visible underneath the picture. The printed sheet is then engraved with fine tools that cut
thousands of tiny reflective textures into the surface. Tilt a Dufex print and the light moves
across it — that shifting, near-three-dimensional shimmer is what collectors recognise instantly.
Prints, postcards, cards and toppers
F.J. Warren applied the same technique across a whole range of products. Large framed
foil pictures were sold for the home; Dufex postcards and
Dufex greeting cards carried the same metallic finish at a pocket-money price; and
die-cut toppers, stickers and craft sheets brought the effect into card-making and
decoupage. Because the range ran for decades, most collections contain a mixture of all four — often
boxed, often unsorted, and almost always undervalued by the person who inherited it.
Why collectors still look for them
The subjects are unusually wide: wildlife and birds, English coastal and cottage scenes, ships,
fantasy and fairy pictures, religious imagery, children's themes and Western scenes. Certain
artists — Jean and Ron Henry, Charles M. Russell and F.
Osborne among them — are actively collected, and their larger pieces change hands for real money.
Nostalgia does the rest: many people remember a Dufex picture on a grandparent's wall, and that
memory is what turns a car-boot box into a wanted collection.
We have written a fuller guide to
F.J. Warren Ltd, the Dufex process and how to identify a Dufex
print if you want to know exactly what you are holding before you sell.
