Carved Acorn Trade Signs

19th century Chinese restaurant hand carved trade sign of fish.

Monumental Cobblers Boot Trade Sign. Provenance: By Repute Crosby Cobblers - Liverpool Est 1841 Originally hung outside the cobblers in Crosby, Liverpool. Hand forged metal strap work and solid brass laces...

A carved cobbler's boot-form trade sign, in old gold paint. Carved in two pieces of pine, capped with lead, circa 1870 Very good condition, measures: 14" x 9 ½”.

Early 20th century double sided French zinc clock Smiths Trade sign We are proud to offer a rare example of an early 20th century French double sided clock smiths trade sign. With i...

English Victorian red & blue painted and decorated wood carved shoemaker's boot sign.     

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...