LOL, have to laugh, none of the decrying people have proven anything other than the number on eBay matches a number from a post on Oldgas. The sign got sold to someone, the original thread has nothing to indicate who bought it!
Having seen,bought,sold many many signs, I have no issue with restorations on signs when it is identified up front by the seller.
Besides signs I deal in vintage toys and I sell to people who want mint orignal, original played with, and even restored and custom toys. These buyers look past modifications to personal preference. The same holds true for pretty much any collected item. It's BUYERS preference.
10 years, 20 years, 40 years down the road the same is going to be true. In any market Buyers drive what prices are paid. If no one buys a modified sign for $25K the price will come down, if someone want's to pay $40K for the sign in 10 years then today's buyer makes money. If they want to pay $5k then today's buyer overpaid.
Guys with deep pockets will spend money where they want, regardless of what you as a collector think is right, reasonable, or responsible. If you are a buyer collector only and not a seller then you can buy what you want for as much as you are willing to pay. For those who are simply pickers, we buy then sell for a living. We hope to make as much as we can, most more honestly than a few who don't care about anything but the money.
For me, I'd rather see a sign being hung than be scrapped out for a couple of bucks. I handle plenty of barn hangers, and if the buyer wants to restore it, it's his money spent not mine. I'm sure the guy who buys a sign and puts neon on it is hoping he'll find a buyer who will return his expenses plus profit. If it happens to be 5x what he's got invested I have no problem with it.
When a mint common sign is modified to a neon I have no issue with that. When a much less than mint sign is modified to a neon I still have no issue with that. Someone who buys it is going to enjoy it, people will see it and enjoy it, and sometime down the line it will be back on the market for someone else to enjoy. It won't get scrapped for pennies. So really I have no issue. We aren't talking the Mona Lisa, a Picasso, a Monet, a marble statue, all one of a kind pieces.
You want to preserve the history of Petrol, the best way to do it is to expose more people to it. Some will become collectors, some will simply enjoy the signs. Museums have been built to display the past history of man to the public. Old advertising signs are bought by Restaurants and other stores for display, for atmosphere. Many more people get to see those signs than the thousands of signs held in private collections which may only be seen by a handful of people.
There are always going to be the Jack Sims, Dick Bennetts and others who are the caretakers of the history of petrol advertising.
I know plenty of collectors who know far less about their own signs than I do. And when someone asks me about signs or toys I have for sale, I do my best to educate them not simply on value but history. I do this every week talking with common people not collectors, do you?
