Sunday, June 21, 2015

tale of a Firestone Sign

 most of you know that i dabble in a little wheelin' and dealin' of bicycles, motorcycles, skateboards, antiques, etc. so last month when my friend Charles was getting ready to put his house on the market and mentioned there was an old Firestone sign in his basement, it peaked my interest. unseen, i told him we could probably get a few hundred dollars for it.  the sign was tacked to the studs and was being used as paneling. only about a 1/3 of it was visible. i don't know much about old advertising signs, but i knew the black Firestone signs were older. we carefully pulled the nails out. when we flipped the sign around we were surprised to fine it said Firestone "aircraft tires and accessories".  i knew it was something unique. i instantly started doing research, texting my buddy who owns an antique store, checking ebay, and other auction sites. i discovered that it was made it 1946 and that they don't come around often. we sat on it for a few weeks and i cleaned it up. i joined a facebook group for old signs and posted it up. i was instantly flooded with messages of offers to buy it. after a couple days, we decided to just list it on ebay and let everyone duke it out. we ended up doing really well for something that was tacked up in a basement.