Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums Showcase and Stories, Petroliana Sign Value?

Morning Gang.

Continuing with Minutemans string about sign values. What is your best guess as to the value of these letters?

Overall, they take up 20'+ of one of my walls. All porcelain, with some chipping where they were dropped on the ground and a fair amount of old paint still left on them.

The only one that I've cleaned is the last 'e'. That took about 3 hours to scrape off the baked on enamel paint so I've got a few hours to go to get them all cleaned up.

Took me two hours just to hang them up on the wall!





Later . . .

Jim

Hi Gang, I was going through some stuff in the station , moveing pumps around inorder to put the A-38 in plus the A-1 comeing from the pump King Mr. premo petrol. and I found this old pump plate or truck sign that was a gift from the old timer, (94) he took it off an old truck when he was a kid, I had it cleaned an never painted it , so I'll share it with you , sents there no way of telling what the value would be on it, it bolts on from the back, so its away from the area like three demensional, ??? but it must go back to the teens or 20ties,

T-WAY,, GREAT SIGN,, I THINK TO SOME ONE THAT HAD ROOM AND WANTED THAT,, YOU COULD GET A CHUNK.. BUT A SIGN THAT BIG WON'T APPEALL TO MOST COLLECTORS.. YOU ALREADY KNOW ALL THAT HYPE THOUGH.. HOW OLD DO YOU THINK IT IS?? FRANK..

[This message has been edited by Frankie (edited 06-23-2003).]

Before you try scraping off the letters, try first the air hose, then the car wash, chances are it will come off.
I have a 4x8 ft Coke sign, has yellowed clear on it, I worked about an hr with steel wool on a 2 ft square area. ..slow going. Then i had a wet rag on it and found out its water soluble..all i have to do is soak with wet towels and wash it off, I gues i should "get er done"!!...dodogas

Frankie:

You are correct about the size. But someone may only display the 'F' since that is a specific font that tells everyone that it is 'Firesotne. The size doesn't bother me though, when I need to - I'll just put pumps, lubesters, etc. in front of it leaving the 'F' visible. I think people will still know what it is.

As far as age? I believe that is is early. The new Firestone signage that I see on newer buildings doesn't have the little 'dot' above the 'i'. Apparently they dropped that at some time. To make the lettering easier to make? Maybe.

Dodogas:

Been there - done that. Some of the paint will come off with an air hose. But the rest is on there like glue. I tried paint stripper, laquer thinner, enamel reducer and steel wool. finally gave up and went after it with a straight edge razor blade in a holder. That's the only thing that will touch the paint on them. There are at least 2 coats on top of the acid-rain etched letters.

I did pick up a 'scotchbrite' cicular pad that attaches to a buffer/die grinder that I used for stripping paint on another project. I will try that first on the next letter I tackle. That may do the trick. If so, they will go much faster than with the razor blade!

Later . . .

Jim

Usually early Firestone has orange letters and later is red. I cat tell if yours are orange or not but that script usually is. I have a neon f'stone sign, no glass that is orange letters on cobalt blue background, and f'stone super pulonium radioactive sparkplugs that use blue and orange on the box.....................dodogas

I've used a sears hotgun on a porcelain sign before. Somebody painted over a porcelain sign with white paint and then painted in red Irvs Plumbing service. Paint stripper was taking to long. Got out the heat gun and got the paint just starting to bubble and immediatly scraped it off. One quarter of the sign with the stripper took about 30 minutes. 3/4 of the rest with the heat gun took about 15 minutes. Ended up being a Firestone sign also. Says Firestone/tire and rubber co./warehouse. Then buffed it with a 3M auto cut and polisher. I can see my reflection in the blue. Hope this helps! Have fun cleaning it up!!!
Nels