By Lisa Hix — This time of year, when the sun goes down early, neon comes into focus. While neon lighting may be losing out to LED and lighted plastic in the commercial world, the classic neon signs of New York City seem to be glowing particularly bright at this point in time. Two neon connoisseurs have taken it upon themselves to make sure these signs get the admiration they deserve. "Finding all these vibrant, living neon signs helped me fall in love with the city again." This week, Thomas E....

The Disappearing Art of Porcelain Signs

By Dave Margulius — I liked to collect things even as a child. Things that didn’t cost anything, like different colors of stones. There was something about the advertising that I liked, so in the mid-1970s, I started to pick up porcelain signs. I got heavier and heavier into that, and by the 1980s, I had a fairly substantial collection. As a result of collecting telephone signs, I would run into other advertising specialists, and I started seeing the kind of stuff that other people were buying and looking...

Signs, Tins, and Other Advertising Antiques

By Maribeth Keane — How did I get started collecting advertising antiques? My dad was a lecturer and tutor in graphics and art from the 1960s onwards, and was into vintage automobiles and advertising, like vintage signs, pumps, and globes. So I spent the large portion of my childhood going to auto swap meets and antiques fairs, I think it all started from there. The first thing I collected was old bottles. In one of the books I read as a child, there was an aqua green bottle and I thought it was great and I...