Metal Signs

Wambago

Would anyone know where I would find the old metal signs(tobacco,soap,etc)that you sometimes see on pub walls,I've searched and cant seem to find them!

Help would be appreciated,thanks!

Judgement Day

Wambago wrote: »

Would anyone know where I would find the old metal signs(tobacco,soap,etc)that you sometimes see on pub walls,I've searched and cant seem to find them!

Help would be appreciated,thanks!

Several dealers in Dublin's Francis Street "Antiques Quarter" sell enamel signs but you can expect to pay top prices for them. All the best signs are already in pubs or exported and you have missed the boat in terms of bargains by about 20 years!

Judgement Day

From an unpublished article for Village Magazine some years back.

In Victorian times the use of sheet steel coated in vitreous enamel became popular for advertising signs. It retained its bright colours for far longer than either paint or print. The heyday of the enamel sign was not long (1880/1910) and some place the start of their decline from popularity at the about the time that the railways stopped expanding. It seems that a more general downturn in the use of enamel signs began in the 1920’s with The Depression. Then in the Second World War the use of steel for advertising purposes was prohibited and many existing signs were recycled in the scrap metal drive.

After the War fashions changed more rapidly than in the past, as did prices, so there was little point in such hard wearing signs whose message and price would inevitably be out of date long before the sign wore out. Indeed, such was the durability of the signs that many still turn up today in good condition after more than fifty years in use as a shed roof or some similar function.

The advertising is from an era before the product got lost in the message! Simple slogans such as ‘Guinness is good for you’ or ‘Brooke Bond Tea is good tea’ (illustrated here) with little else added were the norm.

Scarcity has driven up prices and the most ordinary of signs will cost €100-150 with rarer ones such as those for Guinness products hitting four figures. Car boot sales and Vintage rallies are the best places to track down an enamel bargain, as once they see the inside of an antique shop you can forget it.

Tom's Curios on Francis Street and the http://www.thecarbootshop.com/ on Dublin's Eden Quay are two shops that stock enamel signs but they won't be cheap!

Photo: Brooke Bond sign – Isle of Man, Aug.2000 £68/€100.00