Collection Grows Despite Budget Cuts

Throughout the years the museum has been acquiring signs, many acquisitions result from our trips to the many sign and advertising-related shows we normally visit. There’s the Coin-Op show in St. Charles, IL in April; the petroliana (gas station) shows in Columbus and Dayton, OH, and Des Moines in May, June and August, respectively; and the March and September Antique Advertising show in Indianapolis, to name a few – all of which have yielded some great finds over the years.
But this is a tough year for the museum, just as it is for all of you, and we made the decision early in the year to severely limit our purchased acquisitions to a fraction of the money we usually budget for adding to the collection. That’s the kind of reality we’re all facing.
The good news is, however, that we’ve added many donated items to the collection. We recently cited two locally acquired additions destined for the “Signs of Cincinnati” wall in the new building. Here,  we highlight two new acquisitions from beyond Cincinnati, made possible through the efforts of local sign companies.
The first came in May, but we picked up the sign four months later. The pre-World War II “Maryland Odd Fellows Home” painted tin, neon sign was offered to the museum, thanks to the efforts of Tim Ward, Sign Solutions LLC (Frederick, MD). The new owners of the property, The Banner School, had contracted Sign Solutions to design, build and install a new sign, but were unsure what to do with the existing Odd Fellows sign.
The fraternal group had been contacted, but had no interest in keeping the sign, so Ward suggested that his customer might want to donate it to the museum and contacted us. The Banner School wholeheartedly thought that an excellent option.
Sign Solutions then removed the sign in late May to much fanfare: The students stood in the parking lot in front of the identified building and did a countdown as the crane lowered the sign. The neon was removed before the takedown. Sign Solutions then kept in touch with the museum, and arrangements were made to pick up the sign in early August. It was one of the easiest acquisitions ever, especially considering the 12-ft. length of the sign.
The second acquisition involved a double-faced, porcelain-enamel neon that had once identified the Arthur Murray Dance Studio in Springfield, OH. Michael Cox, head of produc¬tion engineering at Columbus, OH-based DaNite Sign, contacted the museum about the sign’s availability. Cox said the sign company could store the sign until the museum could drive up to Columbus to pick it up. Actually, I don’t know which acquisition was easier, the Arthur Murray or the Odd Fellows.
The museum made arrangements with Cox for a July afternoon, and just as we pulled into DaNite’s lot, a crew had the sign on a forklift. We backed our trailer underneath and, thanks to the ready crew, lowered and pushed the sign onto the museum’s trailer. All of this was made possible by the owners of DaNite Sign Co., Tim and Shelley McCord, who donated the sign.