Inside the Vintage Sign World with the Industry's Leading Antique Advertising Authenticator

That's my name of Joe. Hey Joe, Hey John, Joe's about to

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idea to call eat one one to have the utilities mark before you start digging.

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Yeah out internet, remember safe digck. He always starts with a free

call to eat one one. Oh what a neck on it. Hey guys.

So I just had one of the best podcasts talking about the stuff that I really like to talk about, signs and antique advertising. I just interviewed

Dan Matthews, who's pretty much the foremost expert out there in authentication, and man, it was just it was just great hearing from him. You know,

Dan's out there kind of holding a standard in the industry of authenticity.

He has a pretty rigorous process that he goes through. He'll tax certify your

signs. And I hope it was educational. It was educational for me and

I'm in the I'm kind of in this collectible market or hobby. But I

hope you really, I hope you're really going to enjoy this because it was it was It was pretty awesome, all right, So we're here today again on the Paul Junior Podcast, and I got a good friend of mine in the studio. His name's Dan Matthews. And Dan does a pretty special thing

that maybe some people wouldn't quite understand. Not only does he do auctions,

and he could tell you a bit about that, but he also authenticates signs among some other things. And I've been friends with Dan for quite some time

now and I really feel like, you know, he's helped me out through the years. I have a decent sign collection. Matter of fact, one

of the reasons he's here today is because he's authenticating some of my signs that I've collected through the years, and I think that it's important to have it done. I think what we're gonna hear from Dan today is you know how

important it is to know what it is that you're buying out there. There's

a lot of not so great stuff. The sign business has really gone through

the roof. It's the collectibles in the sign world have gone way up in

value. They seem to be holding really strong, and I really think it's

important that you know what you're buying. And then to have a guy like

Dan to come in and authenticate it so that you know what it is that you have. Values are constantly changing. And he's really got his finger on

the pulse. So I'll stop talking now. And what's going on? Dan?

Not much good to be here. What you said was I authenticate antique

advertising basically that means anything that advertises anything. And the second thing is that

we started this business because a lot of people have spent a lot of money on signs and advertising that over the years, and as the prices that went up since I've been doing this since two thousand, selling antique advertising. Wow.

In two thousand we sold a sign which most people won't know what it's called. It is called a Muscow signs forty eight inch, brilliant Indian chief,

you know, full head dress, all this kind of stuff out of Miskeigan, Michigan called Michigan milemaker, and it's so old for twenty thousand dollars.

And I'll never forget this that when we got out of the auction, nobody. I walked outside after the auction and these guys are all standing outside

the market. He said, this is the top of the market. It's

downhill from there. I was, honest to god, I never never forget

that. These guys, what's that sign? Now that's signed. The last

time I sold was at quarter millions and that was plus well the plus the buyer's premium. Yet it was maybe like two seventy five. And if I

had one today, I could probably get three to three hundred and fifty thousand out of it. I mean, that's who needs the stock market? You

know what I mean? Well, it's the other thing is but I always

tell people all the time is and you got to think about this too, as a collector, buy something because you like it. Anytime you collect anything,

anytime you collect anything at all. I don't care if you collect beanie

babies or you collect race cars or wherever you collect. Collect it because you

like it. Not going to make money. I agree with that, And

because you got to you know, if you're just as strictly an investor, then you got to play it like the stock market. You got to watch

it every day and no one to get rid of it. Then when you're

buying it just but but the thing what I'm doing with this and my partner Joey Whites at a try on North Carolina, we all we're trying to do is we're not trying to We price stuff and we're trying to show a price trend over the years. We put prices every time we authenticate something, but

we're trying to give people that. When Paul goes ready to buy something,

he sees a tax ticker on it, he looks a number up on my website that is an original sign. So I don't care if you pay twenty

times what it's worth. It doesn't matter if you pay or you pay twenty

times less than it's worth. It's that you're buying an original sign, and

you know you're buying original SIGNA Okay, Well, I can appreciate that for certain I do. I do agree with buy what you like. But man,

I love to make money on signs. I mean, you know,

And I got to tell you it's as look, you know what I do for a living. I build motorcycles. I'm a designer by trade, right,

But I'm in love with this history. I'm a fool for history,

especially once I start to do my you know, studies and look into it and then I love the graphics and early advertising it's what I do now, right, I mean early advertise, I mean marketing is what I do.

I build motorcycles, but for corporations to sell their brand. So I'm very

passionate about the signs is just about as much as I am about doing the creative process. But as much as I love them for what they are,

I love when they appreciate. I mean, I love that aspect almost as

much. It's interesting for me collectible wise, it's like, I don't know,

it's that two fold. I mean, you know, you come in,

I buy a sign for a grand, and you say, well, that's worth five now, and you know that's well, I mean, come on, that's great because you know what I do. I come in here,

I look around. I love everything I'm looking at, and it's not

Look, it's good to have a balanced portfolio. We all know that,

right. I'm not saying put all your money in signs, because tomorrow it

could be the other way exactly there. You know, that's just that in

the industries that way. But for me, I love looking at my money

on the wall. I know that sounds weird, but it's like, I

know that's worth more than It'll never go back down to what I paid for.

I don't think, no, I don't think so from good stuff I will there's an. There's a comparison I'll make is I still don't think this

is a mature hobby. What I mean by that is is that why I'm

in it? Is that what you're saying, Yeah, you're immature. There

you go, what we all are, Well, what's going on here?

But you know what I'm saying is is, uh, people have been collecting antique since since for a thousand years. I mean, you know, the

people in the Mid Ages did Egyptian stuff, sure, and and then what it was seen with with like antiques. That's where I started. I'm a

decorty of art collector by heart. Dart, pottery and glass, posters and

stuff, and science came into cause I started selling them. And my house

is mostly art, glass and pottery, but I've got forty fifty signs in the house. Uh. But what I mean by the immature market is it's

not that we've only been collecting this stuff since the eighties, seventies or eighties.

People might did it before that, but it's only been an organized thing since sometime in the late eighties, right, And they've been collecting, you know, like with with the all the Antiques Roads show. Then the Internet

came along, and EBA come along. Well, there were such a bickers

pickers. This is this is the next step. But back then with the

antiques, like all the a lot of a lot of common stuff that used to be worth money is not worth as much. I had a thousand pieces

of art pottery at one time, like Roseville well Er. Now that stuff

is gone. It all went down. But luckily I got rid of,

you know what I wanted to and a lot of pieces I have not worth my form. But I'm buying pieces now that I couldn't afford before because I

still like them right now. That didn't change that. They're just worthless,

worthless, and I think they're not going to go down any rest. Now

there's some stuff that'll never come back, you know, early American pattern glass, some patterns stuff had seen its day, furniture glass, some furniture.

But on the other hand, the blue chip stuff is always good top twenty percent and condition, top twenty percent in condition, it's always gonna be worth something. You know, it's funny what you're saying, too, because when

you think about these signs that are worth all this money, five ten, twenty thousand, even five hundred bucks, right, most of them are getting pulled off of roofs, of barns. That's how they valued them. They

valued them to keep the snow out or the rain out, or you know, or make a floor. Right, that's all they were good for.

The things about using them, I mean to direct you, but that's that's the thing about it is this stuff is still getting found in the wild.

Yeah, right, your antiques aren't. They're already in collections, you know.

I mean, it's just amazing because me being an authenticator that you know, some guy finds twenty of them in a stack sack the dirt well, the porcelain especially, Yeah, portionlain is that. But I'm saying, like,

you know, ten signs in the crates in an attic someplace. You

know, some guy just found five whistle soda signs with the ELFs on them up in Connecticut or someplace, and I authenticated him. I had no with

them being real, but I asked them what their value. I thought the

valuation I didn't know because I hadn't never seen before, you know, And that was just to get an idea. They were thinking they were gonna get

ten thousand dollars piece for a ten soda pop sign. Yeah, I think

I put seventy five hundred on them. But yeah, but I don't.

I don't. I'm not out there to value everything, right idea. You

can give a ru and it could go it could go half or twice as much, but your but your job. And this is what I like about

it, because they're there, aren't because with the industry booming the way it is, and you have to admit it's signs are hot, right, it's you know, there's a lot of fakes out there now. I mean people

are making great fakes. I think they're even starting to look at what's going

on in these chat rooms because that's there's a lot of stuff going on online through COVID. I feel like, in my opinion, from from when I

got into collecting signs about five years ago till now, I think the big boom has been this COVID thing, and the reason being is everybody was at home. People are getting bit by the bug, and you know, the

collecting bug. It's a strong one if you can't shake it once you got

it, and accessibilities there for those who don't travel. I know, personally,

I've never been a social media person other than through my business. I

have an account just to just to access sites so I can see what's going on in the sign world. And now there's auctions online and it's just grown

exponentially, and I think there's new blood in it, which you know when you look in the car world, a lot of times car certain years of cars start to fall back because there's no one coming up behind it, right, Like forties cars are soft, right, But in this situation, I feel like it's pretty visceral. There's like a young crowd coming up. The

older guys got the money, they're buying the one hundred and fifty thousand dollars signs. The young guys are buying this stuff for two fifty five hundred whatever,

and they're getting into it. And so it's growing with like it has

a strength, I think, like a uniformity to it. It's not there.

I don't feel a bubble, even though I'm pretty surprised at what some of these things are worth right now. Uh, it does feel strong,

would you say that about it? I think it's very strong. Going.

Uh. Two things the about the about the science. The one thing I

worry about with the sign market right now. The one thing the problem I

see is I have no problem whatever you pay for a sign in a seven and a half rate, I rate things one to ten or nine and three quarters. Nine and three quarters is the best I get anyway, And so

what I do is I'm worried about the people that are paying too much for a grade five, six or seven. Let's talk about this real quick,

nine and three quarters. I knew that. I know you said ten,

but I knew this about you. So what what's the nine and three quarter?

What you scale? Scale of one to ten? Is this norm?

Right? Ten being the best? Why don't you award tens? I don't

think anything's in ten. And that's why I started your perfection perfect. Just

like like I, nothing can perfect. No sign can be a nine graded

a nine with a chip, a paint chip, or a chip in the porch. I don't care if it's a flee byte. And that's just something

I started a long time ago, so you can't vary for it. And

it's what I tried to do when I grade something. When I for auctions,

and I grade for besides my own auction company, I grade for shoveral other auction companies. I do their cataloging, and I just try to be

consistent. Yeah, and that's why people that's why they have me do it.

Sure when I say something this, people know what it is. Right

well, I could see integrity is like it's everything in your business. I

mean, it's everything in life. I'll make that statement. But for what

you're doing, you have to have a lot of integrity. So here's my

me having you come out here. We've known each other for a few years

now, right, and we've talked about you coming out and it worked out, and so you're doing some authentication here for me and you know, for me, and I'll just say this for the industry, I just feel like you're kind of like you're the guy right now. Really. I mean if

I look around, if if if you know, if Dan Matthews has has his tax sticker on it, it's good enough for anybody. And I like

that that I have a lot of signs that might be unusual and if I ever go to sell them, it might scare some people because there's maybe not any results out there for him or they've never seen it before. And so

I like that you're saying, yes, this is this is real. Maybe

whatever your price is, it may vary, but at the end of the day, I know that I'm gonna have a bigger audience when I put it in an auction or just go to sell to an individual and I say, look tax certified by Dan Matthews. That really means something. Well, that's

that's what we want because it doesn't matter what I rate it because I can't guarantee the rating because I can't slab them if people are I can't put it in a holder like they do for coins or ball cards. So my thing

is is what my main thing is is that we're guaranteed to be authentic.

Now, on the other hand, is at some point there has to be somebody else to do having a company to compete with me. Sure there has

to Should I start one? We should start one. Yes. And what

I'm saying what I'm saying this though, is is because I could you know, everything's gonna have to be certified at some point. Sure I wouldn't buy

anything. The first thing, let me say this, I didn't mention this

at the beginning. When you're buying, whether you're a new person or you've

been doing it for thirty years, when whoever you buy from buy from RepU people. But the other thing is ask them if this piece is authentic or

real and if they guarantee it to be, and they'll take it back if they find out it's not. Wouldn't old be in there too? No?

No, no, because nineteen eighties not old, right? And they you

know, there's signs from the seventies and eighties that bring, you know, not big money, but they're still authentic. Is the key authentic? Real?

Well, I'll stick, you know, I stick the other day original, because I've had these conversations with people. It's interesting because if you don't

word it correctly, they'll say yes to it. Or people will even market

their signs with funny wording like vintage authentic r Yeah, like authentic vintage And you're like, well, is it old and is it real? Well,

I mean it's from the eighties, so yeah, I mean that's old.

Now, I guess, which is kind of scary. I take her to

sign the other day from nineteen it was, it was dated nineteen eighty six.

It's spent the Kenndy Parking sign in the original box. I mean that

sounds funny, but well, I'll tell you that stuff. I mean,

think about it. That's forty years fast year they came out with spuds and

that's that was hot back then. Remember, I mean all the commercials.

I mean that it's it's funny because that's really coming around. I mean that

stuff. I see it across the board. I mean even seventies little chep

on bud On bud light stuff. Yeah, okay, originally it came out.

I thought it was six months, but they had talked to him.

It was like fourteen months. They used Budweiser light and nobody would buy it,

and then they went to bud Light and it went took off. So

it's with stuff stuff that says Budweiser light on. It is more. They

only do it rare. Sure that's going to be worth money. Sure for

the collectors, for the for the for the Bihanna. How do you say?

Wow, So Nick, I heard you got some work to do around the house this weekend. Yeah, I gotta get some uh. I gotta

put in some French drains and I need to put in a flag bowl in the front yard. Okay. And and it's it's my understanding you're not very

handy with that kind of thing. You understand correctly, Okay, Well listen

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So let me do this because maybe I didn't set this up quite right for you. I call you guys up. I set it up for you to

come and look at my collection. What's the process? So walk me through

what that looks like when you walk around? What am I getting? What

is your process? You go through? And when it's all said and done,

what do I have to show for it? Okay? Well, first

of all, depending on how many pieces, if you have a collection to do, because you know, cost you have to have at least much stuff for us to come to go to a site and do it. And we

do have people may up to us and we do it shows or like like what I'm doing with you. We're not doing that many things, but I'm

doing it on a trip where I'm coming through here and doing other people's collections, right, and at a discount. At a discount. Yes, yeah,

he doesn't know what he doesn't sign the price. Yeah, you don't

know what are to start with. And we it's all based on the value

of the sign and uh, and that's why I'm not doing appraisals. When

you do appraisals, you can't do it off with your value stuff at But anyway, that's another legal thing. And that's how we break it down.

And basically I walk through and I tell you what it's going to cost you, you know, because I mean, you know how much it's going to cost me. We charge thirty five dollars up to twenty five hundred dollars value

fifty dollars up to five thousand and two percent of the value over that, and it just it can be a lot of money that you know, if you're doing two hundred and four hundred signs gets there. Yeah, we get

there quickly. We give you a discount, but you know you're getting then

on this thing. Okay. The next step is though, what you can

get for this is you're just paying the total feet. But then you can

my website, there's three levels or silver, gold, and platinum. On

silver, you have to sign up. To be silver, it doesn't cost

you anything, but you can go on there and search search the tack numbers or search for items and see and see pictures and stuff. To be Gold,

you get more pictures and you get prices and sizes of the items.

And for platinum, but also I skate that back. With gold, you

also can you can have consultation like three or four times a month, okay, calls or send pictures and stuff. Now on platinum it costs you eight

hundred dollars a month right now, and you can have unlimited you know, stuff like that. But the big thing is after I attack your collection or

authenticate your collection, and that means what you put a tag on the back back on it with a number, and then I take a picture of it and I and log it into my database and that's on my website and then when you when somebody goes into bite, you know, look at one of your signs that comes up. But for the platinum person, you can have

your whole collection on your phone or your thing. It's up online. It's

under your name. So you just put your user name in your passwords and

you go list to my view and you can see all your signs on your phone. And that's what people like about that is is that if you got

a number, you know, like sign that you don't think it is good, like a seven grade or eight grade, if you're the show or something, you can pull that up on your phone and look at it and compare it with the sign you want to buy one updated or something right, or that's all you know, if you got one. Some people got so many

signs they forget what they have. Sometimes I like people they'll buy a sign

that they get home they forgot they had it. Yeah, I don't have

that problem. Now I'll work towards that round problem. I'm forty six,

Okay, well you got I got time. Yeah, I'm just I've only

been collecting five years now, forty one. About I started when I moved

into the showroom. Now we're in uh that's when I kind of got bit

by the bug around that time. You know, for me, I started

by collecting cars right after the show ended, the first run of American Chopper end of twenty twelve, and so I started thinking, hmm, maybe you know, went to a car show, saw a Buick and I liked it.

So I went and bought a Buick. And the next thing, you

know, I got into Hudson's and it just spiraled and I had all these cars, and then you know, the cars take up tons of room, and so every time they don't even get me started. You change air every

every every season. It's crazy. And I probably had ten cars at one

time, and I had a bigger space. Then my whole shop was full

of cars. Well eventually I sold all them. And then when I moved

into here, it's obviously a smaller space. And I said, you know,

I started getting into this signage and scratch the same itch. Without having

to buy cars, I could buy signs and make the same kind of investment in history in a sense, and then you see what, you know, what you're looking at here. I'm big on displaying signs. I like the

I like the way they look. I like putting them up there. Some

people. I mean I seen people collect signs in their closet. I mean

they just stack them. They don't have no idea what all that. So

you're going to see the edges and that's fine too. Whatever float your boat.

But I like it because people come in my shop, they see my bikes and then they get a different experience. And there's a lot of authenticity

with these original signs and the for an aesthetics and you know, you know, the imagery is you've got everything here. You get anything from really old

to modern just in signs with your bikes or you're advertising too. Yep.

Yeah, I like that old and new. I like old originality. You

see my bikes, their original paint bikes, and then what I do mostly you know, with my bikes that people have seen me build on the show through the years. But yeah, it's good. So where do you think

this thing's going? I mean, I know there's no crystal ball, But

what's what is your thoughts about? Well, what you said about COVID,

I mean it's been ramping up and like you said something about American pickers.

You know it it it it, it helped, it's helped fuel it because people have you know, surehere to go. And Okay, I've been talking

about this a lot lately because we've been selling on my Matthew's auctions. We've

been selling ballcards and I don't know anything about ball cards where my partner does and this other thing. So I see people buying buy in nineteen eighties,

nineteen nineties, two thousand brand new ballcards and paying. You know, we

sold Michael Jordan rookie card for fifty thousand dollars. It was greater than nine

and they sold as highest seven hundred and fifty or more. Well, that's

fine, but I don't to me it's a beanie baby right because it's new.

I mean it was. You know. It does seem like any collectible

market or area that's that volatile is a little scary to me. I don't

feel that this ain't that area though. No, this is more stable.

You tell, like nineteen seventy or nineteen eighty before there's some oils and signs.

Nineteen eighty. I think it's about the cut off date. Okay,

the seventy is really the cutoff date, I think. But you know,

as long as the condition, you know, I just think it's you know, it may level off. It's did that several times, Okay, like

through this whole hit. Yeah, I started in two thousand. We had

a pretty good run in the mid two thousands, and then two thousand and eight hit okay, two thousand and nine, And what happened was the good science didn't go down and value I said, they stagnated. They just kind

of stayed the same price or bounced along that price. But I call the

lower end or junk signs, they went really downright, And that's what's going to happen again. If we have a downturn in the economy in six months

or two years or ten years, that that's the same thing that's going to happen. Your good stuff's going to keep bouncing along right where it's that going

up. I mean in two thousand when I worked at Morphy's or Murphy Auctions

in twenty fourteen fifteen, anyway, we got the d I got the Kyle war collection, which is the largest car, largest signed collection in the world at the time. And you know I got it because of who I was,

But I would never got the thing because I wasn't a big enough company at the time. So it worked out was a perfect storm. But the

thing you were talking about car collector. See, Kyle was a car collector

originally, and he decided hen't want to cars before anymore, so he started buying signs and got rid of all his cars and filled the signed up basically the same thing you're talking about. But at that time, that was like

a peak of the market at the time, and that was fourteen fifteen sixteen, you know. And then the stuff kind of kind of like stopped,

Sure, it stopped, and it was kind of going downhill. I didn't

think we hit a peak or not. And we bounced along, we bounced

along, and things condors kept going up a little bit. But then when

COVID hit, everybody stuck at home. Yeah, and then and the build

up stuff, it drove this market from the market because everybody there was more and more collectors on there and than they could get it on Facebook and everybody can see the stuff on Facebook. Yeah, and then everybody remember used to

have to pick right now, you pick online. That works good for me

because I've almost always done that. I've never been excuse me, I've never

I'm never knocked on the door. Everything you see in here, and not

only that people haven't brought me this stuff. I'm gone and found it.

And I've had to be real resourceful, especially when I was doing when I was super busy. Right, So I think it's really interesting, you know,

to go back a little bit to talk about American pickers, right.

You know, I look at American pickers and I see what they've done for this industry, which is a lot for sure, especially more recently in the past few years. And I'm good friends with Mike and you know these guys.

But it's funny because we did the same exact thing for the motorcycle industry.

We changed the whole face of the industry. When American Chopper first came

out. It was a phenomenon that changed the market global, which is wild

when you really look back. And I even remember back in the early two

thousands, there was an article out there giving credit to the show for Harley's like, I don't know, ten or fifteen percent increase in sales, and you know, of course they said, no, it has nothing to do with American Chopper. It's all of our marketing, you know. I could

see that a lot. Oh, it's it was huge, and everybody was

buying bikes who never got into them and building them. It was just it

was a craze. And I feel like Pickers has done that for this uh

hobby or I guess it's an industry and and or hobby or both slash both, yeah, slash both because it just put it in everybody's living rooms.

And the kind of way we did with the bikes and Rusty gold Man.

I mean, that's a big thing that I tell them is that I would tell me. People ask me what I do, and I say, you

ever watch American Pickers. Oh yeah, that's what I do for real.

There you're done? Really what do you really don't need to explain much more?

Right because or they say, I want to hear they're do that thing?

Yeah, yeah, yeah do the numbers thing. Are you an auctioneer

like that? Yeah? I just an auctioneer. Yeah. Oh yeah,

I'm not no big time a big college. Yeah I can't. Yeah,

yeah, do that thing. I do that all the time. Yeah,

that's fun. So so so I guess, Uh, there's a revitalization of

Root sixty six and that whole you know, and I know of some of this stuff where they're taking some of these old service stations and you know, restoring them, and it seems like that type of American and nostalgia is coming back. And I guess the question is what is it? Is it driving

what what we're talking about here, or is what we're talking about here driving that type of thought process. I think what we're talking about here is driving

that thought right, So it's working to get this wrong. I've been I

mean, Route sixty six has been collectible for a long time, right, I mean just because of the from people you know show that I don't remember Get your Kicks on Routes, right, the song that's like in early sixties.

Sure, you know, I don't remember that, but I've always known people. But I would say of any thing besides Maril Monroe and Elvis Presley

in the United States, that Route six out has reproduced more than anything else, right, And there's like one of the things is reproduced, like knockoff Rout sixty everything because it's so iconic. And there's even one MGM studios Back

in the thirty forties fifties, I don't know, I don't know what it was. They made cash iron road signs and they're produced them and gave them

out. They used them for the show for some shows and stuff, and

they had them. They weren't even the right size or anything like this,

but the original ones were marked with the tag that said MGM Studios with the guys that are knock them off and sell them as real. Yeah. Yeah,

And the biggest thing right now for anybody that's just starting out all the signs that say Rowsey's historic row sixty six, the big brown rectangle signs.

There's original ones of those, but most of them are faking right, Yeah, you know so, and it's just you just that that's a Rowsy six signs is a slippery slope. And one last thing on Rawsie six signs,

there any Rowsitty six shield and boss shield that's made It says Kansas on it.

Okay, there was only thirteen miles of routers to Sikes that went through Kansas, so there there was one every mile and there was probably an extra extra one for every mile over the years, and it was only there for now. I'm not a history on this, but it's like eight years,

right or five years, so there can't be very many of them, so they're pretty collectable. Yeah, they're pretty collective. That's wild. Those little

nuances are important to know, you know, I'll tell you something for me getting into it. I've had the fortunate experience to have kind of a network

of guys that know a lot more than I do, like yourself, because I've called you on certain signs because I don't want to make you know, if I'm spending the money, I don't want to make the mistake. You

know, I might take a little bit of a risk, but I want to do an educated, you know risk. But I've had like a group

of guys if it's coke, stuff, if it's toys, if it's porcelain, or you know what. You know, I got guys that a handful

of guys that are pretty much experts or at least understand what's what when I don't, and I ask even if I think I know, just to reinforce my And now I've gotten better. You know, over the past five years,

I could, I could kind of go with a gut. I may

still made some mistakes. You know, that happens. But you know there's

only one way to really get to being educated, and that's take the chance.

I told you most of the time when you've asked me about a price on something, too much, Yeah, too much? But it's too much

for me much. And and again probably nine out of ten times I didn't

buy the sign and maybe for whatever reason. But you know that helps me

because, like I told you before, buy what you like. Yes,

that's what I do. But I like when there's room in there. I

like to know that at least my one hundred dollars bill is going to be one hundred dollars bill two years from now or better. See what I mean,

I do and uh, and that aspect of it is enjoyable for me as well. And you know, it's funny I started buying. When I

bought, I bought everything. Now I'm really getting picky. I don't.

Yeah, I buy almost mature any hobby mature in yep. Well that's that's

the hope, right. So, but the the things that I used to

collect there's a big audience for, and then the things I want now, which is, yeah, I know what I like. I like. I

mean when I first started collecting signs, I only collected really early, kind of like ten signs. I didn't even like porcelain. I had to grow

into porcelain. I bought that horse that Pegasus I got here, that neon

Pegasus that got me into porcelain a little bit more, and you could look around. It's not a heavy porcelain place. This is mostly painted ten that

I have. That's the look and feel I like. It's that turn of

the century, pre thirties, you know, pre war if possible, but pre thirties even more. Let me talk about a note on the painted metal

and stuff. Yeah, okay, you if anybody's going to go out there

and collect a lot of early painted metal signs, you have to keep them in a climate controlled building, right, don't keep them don't put them in your garage where the temperature fluctuates from negative twenty to one hundred degrees. They'll

just start to deterior start to deteriorate in two different ways sometimes that you know, a lot of these signs weren't made they weren't made to last, so they didn't do very good up on the middle. They didn't assets the medal

or the paint before they paint them and stuff. So just on that point,

because his Paul's got them here in a really nice facility and stuff like that where they're not going to change. But I've seen a lot of them

where they're you know, that's why people, that's why people collect porcelain.

Unless you run over it with a bulldozer. She's a metal. You're not

going to hurt as much once it's you know. So that's just I was

wanting to give that tip to people, for the people that don't know, because you know, we're talking the industry kind of lingo, and like we understand a little bit, but what is porcelain like, you know, explain what porcelain is, what makes it different from paint, and why it's so valuable. Okay, porcelain is porcelain is there's a couple of different ways.

They call it cloison a or enameling. What you're doing is you're firing or

fusing glass onto metal. Okay. And with a porcelain sign, the reason

they're more valuable is you could print two thousand painted signs and it wouldn't cost you anything with us. With a porcelain sign, every color there is on

the sign is a different another run through the kiln where they fire it on.

So if there's seven layers that went through the kiln seven times, right, and that's why the more colors there is, the more Usually more of a lot of people just they don't collect gendres. They collect the more the

more colors in a porcelain sign, well, you know. And and with

the difference with the sign too is with porcelain, is is every layers it is a different stin sling. So the other's either sprayed on like the older

ones have shelving you called shelving where you can feel the layers like worsboard.

And the reason of that is because it's stincled on and sprayed on like with a spray gun. And later on after World War Two, they started almost

like self screen This is not this is a bad very thing to say, but it's like still scring a T shirt. Is they put it on there

and put the different layers on and silk screened it on thinner and it was thinner and then fired it and they had better ovens, right, and they probably have better graphics detail, right, more details stuff like that. So

that's just the different things. But enameling are enameled or porcelain signs have always

been or the highest you know, I shouldn't say the highest, that's not right either. It's whatever genre because you can get you can get ten portal

I mean ten tires signs with great graphics that are worth crazy. You know.

That's there's everything in different you know, it just doesn't matter just people's perception. How important is graphics on signs. I think signs or globes,

you know, globes or gas plunk globes. But I think that makes a

big difference what things is. It's got to say on a global sign,

it has to say gasoline, motor oil or the soda sign or something like that just can't be graphics. And then the next thing is graphics whether it's

a uh, you know, there's not too many pretty women on signs.

There is on banners. But let's say cars, Indians or you know,

arrows or something that show some kind of graphic or some kind of motion Lions, bears, eagles, early Indian having you know, Texico has running Indian on it, you know, and stuff like that, or the Indian motorcycles got the laughing Indian or whatever, or Harley Davis at the bar and shield.

That's the that's the that's the logo that's everybody looks for, you know, that's that means a lot. And then and also the way is people

need to think about that too, is is what error of the signs from is what look. You know, I learned a lot from people, like

I almost got to burn on a plastic sign one time because I knew the sign looks right. It was an original box bob bl all this kind of

stuff. Well, somebody found a bunch of the original Neon Science plastic signs

from the early late fifties sixties without any printing on him. They printed the

logo on him, and I talked to a friend of mine and it was a wrong age. It was like from the twenties or thirties, hardy logo.

And after he'd seen it, right, it didn't match the time period.

It was a tiffy. I just know. Yeah, he's right,

it's the wrong logo for the era. Yeah, it's great. That's a

lot of stuff with with with reproduction of science. It's not the right logo

or the right image for that period, right, it just doesn't fit the time periods. Like on Texicano. Yeah, it's like the tag on the

back says forties, but it's like a twenties logo. Yeah. The big

thing, like on Texico signs or a lot of signs is are in a circle rested? Right? Okay? They got away from that in nineteen sixty

early sixties and they went to TM trademark trademark, right, So if the science got trademark and has dated this, it can't be right. Right.

Those are the nuances, right, that's what that's what those are the kind of things. You got to kind of be privy to the decisions, right,

right, Oh, we don't. We don't authenticate all photos. We

don't authenticate all photos. That's like one of the big things. People can

send me photos and I'll give them an idea, but I just put that.

Every time I do that, I just go, I don't gotcha.

So you got to do it. You got it. So basically, when

you do authentications, Dan, you've got to put that thing in your hands.

Yeah, I have to have it my hands, me and my partner's hands. Are both of us together. It's like it's like we work really

well together because the things he doesn't know and I right, and we just yeah, and it works out great when we both do it together. And

it seems like the only time we make mistakes. Now, we've did fourteen

or fifteen thousand signs so far, and we made five mistakes, and luckily that's pretty good. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I'm just you know,

I don't know everything. I'm just trying to do the best. I'm

trying to do the best for the whole hobby. I'm trying to have a

business, but also I'm trying to make everybody's investment be worth at least what it is, absolutely and educate people. So real quick, getting back to

it, where do you think this thing's going? You think it's going to

keep getting You think it slowed down a little bit, But I think it's going to keep going because I think I still think it's a mature hobby, right, because I always told people that I was a blue color auction.

You're trying to bring it into a white curled, white collar world, right, And that's where it's going, right because people I started out selling for twenty years ago were the people that started convenience stores or buying all the you know they were buying. They were jobbers or distributors and they bought you know,

that's when there was one in every town or five in every town.

They started buying everybody out and they started buying the warehouses, and that's they had these stockpiles of science. I've had a lot of a lot of the

auctions I did over the year with people that kind of people that just were distributors that started collecting and just kept all the science. Right, And now

we're going to the point where where I'm starting to sell it for now is you're you're you're you're not a white collar person, but you're not a you're not in the oil industry, right, so you're actually, you know, you're not white collar, but you're pretty close to it, so that you're an investor, which is a white collar person. And that's where it's coming

from. Now, that's where my stuff is going to, you know,

people coming from from white collar going back to white collar. Sure, interesting,

Yeah, well good. Any any so you saw my collection today,

I mean you're actually you have you you authenticated pretty much half of it.

Yeah, you're gonna do the other half when we're done here. Yes,

any uh, any suggestion for me anything, you know, no, any advice or anything like that. I tell people all the time is by what

you like and by condition. Yeah, whether in the condition. Now,

don't get me wrong on condition. I don't mean, you know, like

your lunch sign right here, I mean, to me, that's a spectacular sign. Because an early punch sign, it's internally lit. Punch sign means

it's metal with holes in it from the inside. But the paint's not the

greatest all, but it's got a great right because it's so so old.

Some people call it a tina and that's not really just the right word for it to wear to it, but it's just it's a fabulous signs got the look, got the look? The look is the look. Once you know

the look, you always want to look. I'll tell you a perfect example.

Back ten twelve years ago, a friend of mine showed up in an auction. He's not a signed guy, he's kind of a an ebayer and

stuff like that, and he bought this sign. This the worst coke sign

I had on the sale. I think I grated about a six six and

a half and I think it's well Scott by that Scott Miller from Springfield, Illinois. Anyway, Anyway, I wondering why you bought that. Bought that,

and I went to this house one time. It fits so perfect,

perfect in the stress or whatever happened to it, it worked, And I gotta tell you that that was one of the reasons I didn't like porcelain when I first started, because I like this sense of honesty. That's the way

I would describe it. I like I said, now, porcelain could be

a little dishonest. A perfect porcelain sign is not. I know they're the

most valuable, but it doesn't do anything for me when I look at it because I see fake even though it's not. That's the best thing for my

business. My business though, is I have several dealers that they have any

kind they have like a nine plus sign rendition, they have me tack them all right. People don't know, they don't know if they think they're fake

there, they don't. They know they're real, but they want to make

sure that people know their you know, yeah, of course, and that's part of what I have you here for. You know, if your name's

on it, you say, yep, it's real. It's it takes the

question out because I've questioned that always, especially on some of the rare stuff, you know, And this is what I say, if if Dan Matthews doesn't authenticate this, will you give me my money back? And they'll say

yes. Most of the time, I haven't. I have that favorite sign,

I bought that and that, but yeah, I knew it was real, but I say we and he said, no, if it's good.

So but hey, it's good to have a standard in a in a collectible market like this, uh, in a hobby like this. And I appreciate

you creating that because really, that's what you're doing. Otherwise it's a little

chaotic, to be honest with you, if I'm trying to stop some of that. So maybe I need Yeah. My last thing is the reason I

started this. I went to my lawyer, my business lawyer just set up

this starts setting this company up, and he goes, Dan, why do you want to do this? So I said, I said, pull it,

give me your computer. We pulled up Bebay. We put up two

hundred items in a search on the page, which is the most you can do, and I picked the topy in porcelain sign the first six pages, so that's twelve hundred items. There was like twenty items that were real.

Everything else was refavor. Yeah, that we want to get into that.

We don't want to get in any kind of who No, I know, but yeah, no, I I agree. So you're you're creating a standard.

It's what I appreciate about it. It's what everyone in the industry out

there. And the only reason I know so many people in the industry is

because of social media, because of what's happened through COVID, and it's created this dynamic where you know people that you really don't know, and you you know who the players are. I've known you, but I see your name

coming up, and I'll tell you. I watched these auctions and this one's

tax certified by Dan Matthews, and I see how the bids go. So

I just want to give you a lot of credit for that. I mean,

look, I know it's a business. It's not a five to one

c three, but still in all, it's a good thing what you're doing, and I appreciate it. And I thought, man, this is something

I need to get done to my collection. So I just want to let

you know I appreciate you coming out. I appreciate your friendship and all your

free advice for all these years. Well you'll pay for it sometimes anyway.

And then my new website's coming out, okay, perfect, And what is that? Give me that? It's matthewstac dot com. That's m A T

T h TWS t AC dot com. Okay, Matthews tach dot com.

All right, Dan, I appreciate it, buddy, all right, thank you, thank you, thank you for listening to the Paul Junior Podcast.

You can find Paul online as Paul Tuttle Junior on Instagram, Paul Junior Designs on Facebook, Where is Paul Junior on Twitter, and Paul Junior Designs on YouTube. Get more info on Paul's dealership or merchandise at Paul Juniordesigns dot com.

Have any questions you want to answer on the show, email us at podcast at Paul Juniordesigns dot com

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