Second cocoa-related uncovering for the day

Following on from the last post, here's another uncovering from today. This Nestle sign is just near the Brighton Beach train station. Thanks to the good folks at the Brighton Historical Society for alerting me to it:

Brilliant Lewis & Skinner cocoa sign uncovering in Caulfield

Big thanks to Rob Gray for alerting me to this uncovering on Glenhuntly Road in Caulfield. It's for Bensdorp's Cocoa, a brand that is still going. It looks like it's from the 1920s or 1930s, judging by the cobalt blue and type face - but it's hard to tell. There are a few containers around with a similar type, such as the one on this page, described as being "1900-1930": http://historydetectives.nyhistory.org/2014/02/the-history-of-chocolate-at-the-new-york-historical-society/

Still, the most exciting thing for me is that it was painted by the Lewis & Skinner, whose company records I found three years ago (see: www.lewisandskinner.com).

Here are some of the pics I took today, in the late winter light:

From the street

From the back

And here's an example of a tin with a vaguely similar typeface:

Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bensdorps_leight_loslicher_Reiner_Cacao_Amsterdam,_oranje_rond_blikje,_foto4.JPG

A little ghost sign controversy

Yours truly weighs in this week on the issue of repainting signs with the mayor of Port Adelaide in the local paper....

Bird spotting in North Fitzroy...as well as other creatures

Yesterday I was booked into an Indigenous walk along Merri Creek, which was cancelled at the last minute.

So instead I reacquainted myself with the uber-gentrified streets of one-was-working-class North Fitzroy...and found a few beauties.

On the way to the walk, I had seen a round mark on a wall - here's what it looked like close up. It looks like it's a sign for the Rosella brand of jams, whose factory can be found in Richmond:

A few streets down were two lovingly restored buildings on the same block, each with its own sign:

 Plus also spied a few other faint traces here and there, as well as rephotographed two old Robur favourites - one that seems to have revealed extra layers as it has aged, and another whose remaining traces have been further covered with posters:

This old laneway factory has a "partial demolition" sign on it.

Down another laneway

Nearly gone...

  

Nearly gone 2...

And here are the Robur signs:

Nicholas Building

On Saturday my daughter took me up to the first floor of the Nicholas Building in central Melbourne, built in 1926 in the Chicago School style by the Nicholas brothers (who had made their money manufacturing and marketing aspirin) and designed by architect Harry Norris.

Upstairs from its ornate Cathedral Arcade, the fashionably rundown building has some interesting and curious shops on the first and second floors - a button shop, a fortune teller, homewares, a talent school, designers, a place that makes voodoo dolls, a bookshop - and offices for creative types upstairs.

It also has some great details in its corners: polished wooden panelling, beautiful coloured tilework, a central lift surrounded by lace ironwork - and signs dotted throughout: