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September 6

Lobby Marquee Changeable Letter Signs

I saw a picture from 1920 that has one of those indoor signs, black with changeable white letters.

http://www.shorpy.com/node/13617?size=_original#caption

I was wondering about the construction of this type of sign in that period and general history or trivia concerning them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.239.145.186 (talk) 01:11, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It would be easy enough to make it out of painted wooden letters with push pins on the back, and a cork board to insert them into. The wooden slats would ensure straight lines of text. From the pic it looks like the pins insert at the bottom and 2/3rds up the letters, but not at the top. It doesn't appear to have any mechanism to regulate the spacing of letters on each line, as "FEW" is more widely spaced than "BARGAINS". StuRat (talk) 01:25, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder if we have a History of office supplies article. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:41, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I googled that subject and there's a museum of office supplies.[1] You might try contacting them and see if they have a clue about those little signboards. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:44, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Seems more like a "history of signage" than "office supplies" thing, to me. StuRat (talk) 01:46, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Totally unrelated tangent, but when trying to help research an answer to this question (which I haven't found much yet) I did find the article titled List of shop signs in Boston in the 18th century. We can stop looking now. That article is literally at the bottom of the barrel. --Jayron32 05:03, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Extraordinary. The article's creator is still active. Maybe someone could ask him a question or two. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:48, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Or you could ask these people, who I'm sure are not unique. Personal research, but I have used one of these boards many years ago, it was wooden and covered in a coarse velvety material with horizontal slots running across the board. The letters had short pegs at the back which held them in the 'velvet' lined slots. The letters could be spaced to one's liking horizontally but the slots were fixed. When a good idea arrives it's likely to last a long time. Richard Avery (talk) 13:43, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The barber I visit has a small one on the wall which displays the price list. It has plastic letters with little knobs on the back. These press into slots in the backboard, which is also plastic. This enables you to get the letters in a line and allows for manual kerning, which a series of equally spaced holes wouldn't. --TrogWoolley (talk) 15:12, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I found this, where they are called Grooved insert notice boards. I particularly associate with with hotel lobbies, saying which room the Consolidated Widget Sales Conference is being held in, and the like, as well as bar and room prices, as in the illustrations. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 15:19, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

TrogWolley: The question of course being what would they be made of in 1920, where plastic would not have been readily available, and certainly not for this kind of use. --Saddhiyama (talk) 09:30, 7 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, they did have bakelite and things like that. One could imagine a lot of feasible ways to do it pre-plastic. The easiest of course would be something you could produce in molds, like metal or resin/shellac or some very early plastics. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:44, 8 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]