The American Sign Museum

It is fun, when we are traveling our mostly unplanned route, to find the odd museum.  While Cincinnati has many wonderful things to see, the American Sign Museum caught our attention.
These greeted us in the parking lot.

 The most important thing to do in this museum is to take a docent led tour.  Otherwise, it is just a display of lovely signs many of which we remember as kids.  The tour let us appreciate what an art sign making is and our guide, who worked in the industry, loves to share his knowledge.  Our docent's favorite sign was Connie the Pig from Pork City.  She also greeted us on our arrival.

Even the bathrooms have old signs.

Sign making goes back 5000 years to when merchants displayed pictures of their merchandise.

In the late 19th century when more people became literate, letters were added to the picture signs.  This is a British shoe repair shop.

Cincinnati has a hundred years of sign making history.  The Signs of the Times Magazine, a trade journal, has been published in Cincinnati since 1906.

Special lettering, both hand-carved and raised, were the characteristics of the first signs.  Then light bulbs were added, plastic used, neon tubing used, and now LED.

Many of us remember the Big Boy.  The Elias Brothers owned the franchise and have changed the “boy's” image with the times.  The burger is smaller, his pants are checkered, and the sling shot is gone.  This is an early version.

This is another memory shot from riding on the highway.

The oldest sign in the museum is this 1870 sales sample box.

This sign shows a Civil War soldier with two people leaning in mourning.

 These showcards were hand painted.  Some were permanently mounted and some for up for a short time.

In 1929 neon signs were presented at the World’s Fair in Chicago.  To get more colors, they went from using two gases to four to adding phosphorous.  Later argon was used for softer colors.  Argon contains mercury so if the sign is damaged it cannot be repaired but must be replaced.  Neon signs can last decades, what breaks is the transformer.

The PBS program Antique Roadshow visited the museum and valued some of their signs.  This Pure Gas sign is worth $10,000,

The Sky Vu Motel was estimated at $8000

and this H.C. Steiner sign worth $12,000.

Light bulbs increased in popularity as they could be easily replaced.

We would like you to join us in a trip through memory lane.  The signs below come from places many of you lived in.  Let us know if you remember...

This golfer was in a park in Rochester, NY.

Marshall Fields, Chicago

 This “Satellite” from Anaheim was hand built in 1962 from found items.

Go Gulf from North Bergen, NJ and Kona Lanes from Anaheim.

 Our docent took us on a private tour of their storage area.  The museum gets donated signs when buildings are being demolished and when someone finds one stored in their families garage.  Twenty thousand stored signs will go into an addition to the museum when it is fully funded.

This truck is from a San Bernardino sign company.  The crane is hand-cranked.

This sign made us smile.

This wall painting is trompe l’oiel.

They even said good-bye.

We do some travel writing for Family Motor Coach which is based in Cincinnati so we arranged to meet with editor Peggy Jordan. We enjoyed talking with her and taking a tour of FMCA’s offices.

FMCA has a lovely campground in suburban Cincinnati where members can stay two nights for free.  This gave us a good base from which to enjoy the town.