What is the Appeal of Antique Signs?
Collectors focus on antique signs because they are colorful, humorous, and offer a glimpse into the day-to-day life of our ancestral counterparts. Antique signs might advertise medicine, soda pop, tobacco, or an entire mercantile store. In the days before radio and television commercials, products had to rely on in-store displays, banners, cards, and packaging to attract customers. Many of these kinds of signs survive, minus the original products, to educate and entertain antique collectors. Other types of signs are generated by the government for informative purposes, such as traffic signs or names of streets, towns, and parks. Hobbyists could focus on collecting signs only from a certain city at a certain time, for instance Philadelphia during the Great Depression. Other hobbyists might try to recreate the effect of walking down a street in their own living room. They’d decorate with signs for the barber, tobacconist, pharmacist, the local newspaper office, and the gas station. A ret
