Early 20th Century Reverse Painted Verre églomisé Gilt Trade Shop Sign "My Shop"

Hanging double sided trade sign, sheet metal with a black ground and gilt lettering. Two pretty cast iron riveted hanging brackets. A small Star of Solomon is located in the corner ...

A large carved and polychrome painted tobacconist's figure almost certainly 17th or early 18th century For a related example see Edward H. Pinto, Treen and other Wooden Bygones, Bell and Hyman, London 1969. Page 412, plate 436. Originally this may well have been a tobacconist's shop window figure. For a similar, but slightly earlier unpainted example, see Sotheby's, The W. J. Shepherd collection of treen, 30th November 1983, Lot 393, illustrated in Pinto "Wooden Bygones of Smoking and Snuff Taking", plate 1. Carved wooden figures, often painted, were placed outside tobacconist's shops as signs from the 17th century onwards. The earliest of these figures is the 'black boy' or 'blackamoor'. 'At the sign of the black boy' or 'at the sign of the blackamoor' was a popular address for tobacconists since the early 17th century. The 17th century figures...

Early 20th Century oversized English Trebor sweet shop trade sign. A wonderful example of massive scale, Trebor Barley Sugar & Fruit Centres sweet jars. Bea...

Unusual set of German mid-20th century shop trade sign tools Every now and again we are lucky enough to acquire items that firstly we have never seen and secondly, we will never see...