How grateful am I to Tony Mead from the Industrial Art Co for telling me about this? (rhetorical question there...)
Today I went to High Street Armadale - upmarket epicentre of Melbourne's antique trade and equally old money - to take a look at a large Lewis and Skinner wall sign for Bourneville Cocoa that has just been revealed. The sign's sudden appearance is due to the demolition of a building that last housed an outlet for the expensive (natch) hi-fi brand Bang & Olufsen. The demolished building looks like it was from the 1930s, as seen in this Google Street View pic:
Below are the photos. I managed to sneak into the building site earlier today for a closer look. Luckily the site was fenced off with boards (there's a busy café across the road) so I could look around at my leisure without anyone in this very respectable area calling the police.
The two films advertised I could make out were The Battle of the Somme (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_the_Somme_%28film%29) and Greed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greed_%28film%29) - from 1916 and 1924 respectively.
There's another one too I haven't found anything on. The title is 'Billie Bu...' and it describes itself thus: 'When this dainty creature whirls into a little Highland village in a big red motor on the Sabbath, the...villagers are horrified...'
Anyway, all this points to a sign that is pretty damn old, much like the Indian Root Pills sign uncovered earlier this year (http://findingtheradiobook.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/spectacular-ghost-sign-uncovering-in.html). The building's owners probably had a space rental contract with Lewis & Skinner not unlike this one (for a premises also down the road in High Street Armadale) which was renewed for at least 20 years:
http://www.lewisandskinner.com/items/show/1954
Lastly, I also like the way that some people in the 1910s and 1920s didn't follow instructions either :)
The rest of the pics follow.
Amazing. Do you have any painting guides in the collection that might correspond to this job?
ReplyDeleteHaven't found any thus far. Was hoping that one of the earlier 1915-1930s contract sheets might match, but nothing yet.
DeleteNice coverage Stefan, I'm glad you don't respect fences or other boundaries or else we wouldn't have all that additional poster info.
ReplyDeleteHad a flimsy gate lock - a bit of wire...so easy to get in :)
DeleteI assume your "today" doesn't actually refer to yesterday because I was there on the 7th and the bottom half of the sign has sadly been destroyed. The bills posted underneath made it even more special. *sigh*
ReplyDeletehttp://simpleglee.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/sign-excitement-toy-store-fun-crunchy.html
Hmm..I was there on Sunday. Is it possible (judging by your pic) that the exposed brickwork at the bottom of the sign was actually from the building next door, and that it hadn't yet been fully uncovered? Might be worth another look perhaps?
DeleteActually. yes, you're right. It is the wall of the building next door, not fully demolished. I clearly didn't get as close up as you! That's such a relief. I was really sad when I thought they'd wrecked it. I'll have to go back for a photo of the whole thing and hope they haven't actually wrecked it since Sunday.
ReplyDelete