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

Paul Jr. sits down with auctioneer and Co-Founder of The Authentication Company, Dan Matthews. They discuss the state of the vintage sign industry, antique advertising, comparing collectibles to the stock market and the most important rule when it comes to collecting.

For more info on the The Authentication Company: https://www.matthewstac.com

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Episode Transcript

(00:01):
That's my name of Joe. HeyJoe, Hey John, Joe's about to
make a big mistake. Hey Joe, I think it might be a good
idea to call eat one one tohave the utilities mark before you start digging.
I'm not digging very deep. It'sno big deal. No big deal.
Yeah out internet, remember safe digck. He always starts with a free

(00:25):
call to eat one one. Ohwhat a neck on it. Hey guys.
So I just had one of thebest 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 theforemost expert out there in authentication, and

(00:49):
man, it was just it wasjust great hearing from him. You know,
Dan's out there kind of holding astandard in the industry of authenticity.
He has a pretty rigorous process thathe goes through. He'll tax certify your
signs. And I hope it waseducational. It was educational for me and

(01:10):
I'm in the I'm kind of inthis collectible market or hobby. But I
hope you really, I hope you'rereally 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, andI got a good friend of mine in

(01:34):
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 bitabout that, but he also authenticates signs
among some other things. And I'vebeen friends with Dan for quite some time
now and I really feel like,you know, he's helped me out through

(01:57):
the years. I have a decentsign collection. Matter of fact, one
of the reasons he's here today isbecause he's authenticating some of my signs that
I've collected through the years, andI think that it's important to have it
done. I think what we're gonnahear from Dan today is you know how
important it is to know what itis that you're buying out there. There's
a lot of not so great stuff. The sign business has really gone through

(02:23):
the roof. It's the collectibles inthe sign world have gone way up in
value. They seem to be holdingreally 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 itso that you know what it is that
you have. Values are constantly changing. And he's really got his finger on

(02:44):
the pulse. So I'll stop talkingnow. 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 advertisesanything. And the second thing is that
we started this business because a lotof people have spent a lot of money

(03:07):
on signs and advertising that over theyears, and as the prices that went
up since I've been doing this sincetwo thousand, selling antique advertising. Wow.
In two thousand we sold a signwhich most people won't know what it's
called. It is called a Muscowsigns forty eight inch, brilliant Indian chief,
you know, full head dress,all this kind of stuff out of

(03:27):
Miskeigan, Michigan called Michigan milemaker,and it's so old for twenty thousand dollars.
And I'll never forget this that whenwe got out of the auction,
nobody. I walked outside after theauction and these guys are all standing outside
the market. He said, thisis the top of the market. It's
downhill from there. I was,honest to god, I never never forget
that. These guys, what's thatsign? Now that's signed. The last
time I sold was at quarter millionsand that was plus well the plus the

(03:49):
buyer's premium. Yet it was maybelike two seventy five. And if I
had one today, I could probablyget 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 andyou got to think about this too,
as a collector, buy something becauseyou like it. Anytime you collect anything,
anytime you collect anything at all.I don't care if you collect beanie

(04:12):
babies or you collect race cars orwherever you collect. Collect it because you
like it. Not going to makemoney. 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 likethe stock market. You got to watch
it every day and no one toget rid of it. Then when you're
buying it just but but the thingwhat I'm doing with this and my partner
Joey Whites at a try on NorthCarolina, we all we're trying to do

(04:34):
is we're not trying to We pricestuff and we're trying to show a price
trend over the years. We putprices 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'tmatter if you pay or you pay twenty

(04:55):
times less than it's worth. It'sthat 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 agreewith buy what you like. But man,
I love to make money on signs. I mean, you know,
And I got to tell you it'sas 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,

(05:17):
especially once I start to do myyou know, studies and look into it
and then I love the graphics andearly advertising it's what I do now,
right, I mean early advertise,I mean marketing is what I do.
I build motorcycles, but for corporationsto sell their brand. So I'm very
passionate about the signs is just aboutas much as I am about doing the
creative process. But as much asI love them for what they are,

(05:41):
I love when they appreciate. Imean, I love that aspect almost as
much. It's interesting for me collectiblewise, 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 youknow that's well, I mean, come
on, that's great because you knowwhat I do. I come in here,
I look around. I love everythingI'm looking at, and it's not

(06:03):
Look, it's good to have abalanced portfolio. We all know that,
right. I'm not saying put allyour 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 forme, I love looking at my money
on the wall. I know thatsounds weird, but it's like, I
know that's worth more than It'll nevergo back down to what I paid for.
I don't think, no, Idon't think so from good stuff I

(06:25):
will there's an. There's a comparisonI'll make is I still don't think this
is a mature hobby. What Imean by that is is that why I'm
in it? Is that what you'resaying, Yeah, you're immature. There
you go, what we all are, Well, what's going on here?
But you know what I'm saying isis, uh, people have been collecting
antique since since for a thousand years. I mean, you know, the

(06:47):
people in the Mid Ages did Egyptianstuff, 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 causeI started selling them. And my house
is mostly art, glass and pottery, but I've got forty fifty signs in
the house. Uh. But whatI mean by the immature market is it's

(07:10):
not that we've only been collecting thisstuff 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 allthe Antiques Roads show. Then the Internet
came along, and EBA come along. Well, there were such a bickers
pickers. This is this is thenext step. But back then with the

(07:30):
antiques, like all the a lotof a lot of common stuff that used
to be worth money is not worthas 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 anda lot of pieces I have not worth
my form. But I'm buying piecesnow that I couldn't afford before because I
still like them right now. Thatdidn't change that. They're just worthless,

(07:51):
worthless, and I think they're notgoing 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, theblue chip stuff is always good top twenty
percent and condition, top twenty percentin condition, it's always gonna be worth
something. You know, it's funnywhat you're saying, too, because when

(08:13):
you think about these signs that areworth 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 outor the rain out, or you know,
or make a floor. Right,that's all they were good for.
The things about using them, Imean to direct you, but that's that's
the thing about it is this stuffis still getting found in the wild.

(08:35):
Yeah, right, your antiques aren't. They're already in collections, you know.
I mean, it's just amazing becauseme being an authenticator that you know,
some guy finds twenty of them ina stack sack the dirt well,
the porcelain especially, Yeah, portionlainis that. But I'm saying, like,
you know, ten signs in thecrates in an attic someplace. You
know, some guy just found fivewhistle soda signs with the ELFs on them
up in Connecticut or someplace, andI authenticated him. I had no with

(09:00):
them being real, but I askedthem what their value. I thought the
valuation I didn't know because I hadn'tnever 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 tensoda 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 thereto value everything, right idea. You
can give a ru and it couldgo it could go half or twice as

(09:20):
much, but your but your job. And this is what I like about
it, because they're there, aren'tbecause with the industry booming the way it
is, and you have to admitit's signs are hot, right, it's
you know, there's a lot offakes out there now. I mean people
are making great fakes. I thinkthey're even starting to look at what's going
on in these chat rooms because that'sthere's a lot of stuff going on online
through COVID. I feel like,in my opinion, from from when I

(09:43):
got into collecting signs about five yearsago 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 bythe bug, and you know, the
collecting bug. It's a strong oneif you can't shake it once you got
it, and accessibilities there for thosewho don't travel. I know, personally,

(10:03):
I've never been a social media personother than through my business. I
have an account just to just toaccess sites so I can see what's going
on in the sign world. Andnow there's auctions online and it's just grown
exponentially, and I think there's newblood 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'sno one coming up behind it, right,

(10:24):
Like forties cars are soft, right, But in this situation, I
feel like it's pretty visceral. There'slike a young crowd coming up. The
older guys got the money, they'rebuying the one hundred and fifty thousand dollars
signs. The young guys are buyingthis stuff for two fifty five hundred whatever,
and they're getting into it. Andso it's growing with like it has
a strength, I think, likea uniformity to it. It's not there.

(10:48):
I don't feel a bubble, eventhough 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 theabout the science. The one thing I
worry about with the sign market rightnow. The one thing the problem I
see is I have no problem whateveryou pay for a sign in a seven

(11:09):
and a half rate, I ratethings one to ten or nine and three
quarters. Nine and three quarters isthe best I get anyway, And so
what I do is I'm worried aboutthe 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 knewthat. 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 oneto ten? Is this norm?

(11:31):
Right? Ten being the best?Why don't you award tens? I don't
think anything's in ten. And that'swhy I started your perfection perfect. Just
like like I, nothing can perfect. No sign can be a nine graded
a nine with a chip, apaint chip, or a chip in the
porch. I don't care if it'sa flee byte. And that's just something
I started a long time ago,so you can't vary for it. And

(11:52):
it's what I tried to do whenI grade something. When I for auctions,
and I grade for besides my ownauction company, I grade for shoveral
other auction companies. I do theircataloging, and I just try to be
consistent. Yeah, and that's whypeople 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 islike it's everything in your business. I
mean, it's everything in life.I'll make that statement. But for what

(12:13):
you're doing, you have to havea 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 talkedabout you coming out and it worked out,
and so you're doing some authentication herefor me and you know, for
me, and I'll just say thisfor the industry, I just feel like
you're kind of like you're the guyright now. Really. I mean if

(12:35):
I look around, if if ifyou know, if Dan Matthews has has
his tax sticker on it, it'sgood enough for anybody. And I like
that that I have a lot ofsigns that might be unusual and if I
ever go to sell them, itmight scare some people because there's maybe not
any results out there for him orthey've never seen it before. And so
I like that you're saying, yes, this is this is real. Maybe

(12:56):
whatever your price is, it mayvary, but at the end of the
day, I know that I'm gonnahave a bigger audience when I put it
in an auction or just go tosell 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'tmatter what I rate it because I can't
guarantee the rating because I can't slabthem if people are I can't put it

(13:18):
in a holder like they do forcoins or ball cards. So my thing
is is what my main thing isis 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 companyto compete with me. Sure there has
to Should I start one? Weshould start one. Yes. And what
I'm saying what I'm saying this though, is is because I could you know,

(13:41):
everything's gonna have to be certified atsome point. Sure I wouldn't buy
anything. The first thing, letme 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 isask them if this piece is authentic or
real and if they guarantee it tobe, and they'll take it back if

(14:03):
they find out it's not. Wouldn'told be in there too? No?
No, no, because nineteen eightiesnot old, right? And they you
know, there's signs from the seventiesand eighties that bring, you know,
not big money, but they're stillauthentic. 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 yesto it. Or people will even market

(14:26):
their signs with funny wording like vintageauthentic r Yeah, like authentic vintage And
you're like, well, is itold and is it real? Well,
I mean it's from the eighties,so yeah, I mean that's old.
Now, I guess, which iskind of scary. I take her to
sign the other day from nineteen itwas, it was dated nineteen eighty six.
It's spent the Kenndy Parking sign inthe original box. I mean that
sounds funny, but well, I'lltell you that stuff. I mean,

(14:48):
think about it. That's forty yearsfast 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 becausethat's really coming around. I mean that
stuff. I see it across theboard. 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. Theyused Budweiser light and nobody would buy it,

(15:11):
and then they went to bud Lightand it went took off. So
it's with stuff stuff that says Budweiserlight on. It is more. They
only do it rare. Sure that'sgoing to be worth money. Sure for
the collectors, for the for thefor the Bihanna. How do you say?
Wow, So Nick, I heardyou got some work to do around
the house this weekend. Yeah,I gotta get some uh. I gotta

(15:33):
put in some French drains and Ineed to put in a flag bowl in
the front yard. Okay. Andand it's it's my understanding you're not very
handy with that kind of thing.You understand correctly, Okay, Well listen
before you hurt yourself. Okay,what I really need you to do is
call eight one to one. Whyis that? Well, eight one to
one is a call service where ifyou call uh, they'll come out free

(15:56):
of charge, so there's really noexcuse not to do it. I like
free, free is good. Yeah, they'll spray out the ground and it
will help you not hurt yourself inmany different ways. Whether you hit a
water main, you can hit apower line in the ground, electricity is
bad, a gas line for thatmatter, or any such thing. So
it could really save you from hurtingyourself or someone else for that matter.

(16:18):
And again it's free. So calleight one to one Nick for all of
us. One Call Concepts is anofficial sponsor of the Paul Junior Podcast.
So let me do this because maybeI didn't set this up quite right for
you. I call you guys up. I set it up for you to

(16:41):
come and look at my collection.What's the process? So walk me through
what that looks like when you walkaround? 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 forit? Okay? Well, first
of all, depending on how manypieces, if you have a collection to
do, because you know, costyou have to have at least much stuff
for us to come to go toa site and do it. And we

(17:02):
do have people may up to usand we do it shows or like like
what I'm doing with you. We'renot doing that many things, but I'm
doing it on a trip where I'mcoming 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 signthe 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, andthat's why I'm not doing appraisals. When

(17:26):
you do appraisals, you can't doit 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 Itell 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 fivedollars up to twenty five hundred dollars value
fifty dollars up to five thousand andtwo percent of the value over that,
and it just it can be alot of money that you know, if

(17:48):
you're doing two hundred and four hundredsigns gets there. Yeah, we get
there quickly. We give you adiscount, but you know you're getting then
on this thing. Okay. Thenext step is though, what you can
get for this is you're just payingthe total feet. But then you can
my website, there's three levels orsilver, gold, and platinum. On
silver, you have to sign up. To be silver, it doesn't cost
you anything, but you can goon there and search search the tack numbers

(18:11):
or search for items and see andsee pictures and stuff. To be Gold,
you get more pictures and you getprices and sizes of the items.
And for platinum, but also Iskate that back. With gold, you
also can you can have consultation likethree 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,

(18:33):
stuff like that. But the bigthing is after I attack your collection or
authenticate your collection, and that meanswhat 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 mydatabase 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. Butfor the platinum person, you can have
your whole collection on your phone oryour thing. It's up online. It's

(18:56):
under your name. So you justput your user name in your passwords and
you go list to my view andyou can see all your signs on your
phone. And that's what people likeabout that is is that if you got
a number, you know, likesign 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 yourphone and look at it and compare
it with the sign you want tobuy one updated or something right, or
that's all you know, if yougot one. Some people got so many

(19:17):
signs they forget what they have.Sometimes I like people they'll buy a sign
that they get home they forgot theyhad it. Yeah, I don't have
that problem. Now I'll work towardsthat round problem. I'm forty six,
Okay, well you got I gottime. Yeah, I'm just I've only
been collecting five years now, fortyone. About I started when I moved
into the showroom. Now we're inuh that's when I kind of got bit
by the bug around that time.You know, for me, I started

(19:40):
by collecting cars right after the showended, the first run of American Chopper
end of twenty twelve, and soI 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 andit just spiraled and I had all these
cars, and then you know,the cars take up tons of room,

(20:03):
and so every time they don't evenget 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 biggerspace. Then my whole shop was full
of cars. Well eventually I soldall them. And then when I moved
into here, it's obviously a smallerspace. And I said, you know,
I started getting into this signage andscratch the same itch. Without having

(20:25):
to buy cars, I could buysigns and make the same kind of investment
in history in a sense, andthen you see what, you know,
what you're looking at here. I'mbig on displaying signs. I like the
I like the way they look.I like putting them up there. Some
people. I mean I seen peoplecollect signs in their closet. I mean
they just stack them. They don'thave no idea what all that. So

(20:47):
you're going to see the edges andthat's fine too. Whatever float your boat.
But I like it because people comein my shop, they see my
bikes and then they get a differentexperience. And there's a lot of authenticity
with these original signs and the foran 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 yourbikes or you're advertising too. Yep.

(21:10):
Yeah, I like that old andnew. I like old originality. You
see my bikes, their original paintbikes, and then what I do mostly
you know, with my bikes thatpeople 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,

(21:30):
I mean it's been ramping up andlike 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 togo. And Okay, I've been talking
about this a lot lately because we'vebeen selling on my Matthew's auctions. We've
been selling ballcards and I don't knowanything about ball cards where my partner does

(21:51):
and this other thing. So Isee people buying buy in nineteen eighties,
nineteen nineties, two thousand brand newballcards and paying. You know, we
sold Michael Jordan rookie card for fiftythousand dollars. It was greater than nine
and they sold as highest seven hundredand fifty or more. Well, that's
fine, but I don't to meit's a beanie baby right because it's new.
I mean it was. You know. It does seem like any collectible

(22:15):
market or area that's that volatile isa 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 ornineteen eighty before there's some oils and signs.
Nineteen eighty. I think it's aboutthe cut off date. Okay,
the seventy is really the cutoff date, I think. But you know,
as long as the condition, youknow, I just think it's you know,
it may level off. It's didthat several times, Okay, like

(22:36):
through this whole hit. Yeah,I started in two thousand. We had
a pretty good run in the midtwo thousands, and then two thousand and
eight hit okay, two thousand andnine, And what happened was the good
science didn't go down and value Isaid, they stagnated. They just kind
of stayed the same price or bouncedalong that price. But I call the
lower end or junk signs, theywent really downright, And that's what's going

(22:59):
to happen again. If we havea 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 tokeep bouncing along right where it's that going
up. I mean in two thousandwhen 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 largestcar, largest signed collection in the world

(23:21):
at the time. And you knowI got it because of who I was,
But I would never got the thingbecause I wasn't a big enough company
at the time. So it workedout 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 wantto cars before anymore, so he started
buying signs and got rid of allhis cars and filled the signed up basically

(23:41):
the same thing you're talking about.But at that time, that was like
a peak of the market at thetime, and that was fourteen fifteen sixteen,
you know. And then the stuffkind of kind of like stopped,
Sure, it stopped, and itwas 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 goingup a little bit. But then when
COVID hit, everybody stuck at home. Yeah, and then and the build

(24:02):
up stuff, it drove this marketfrom the market because everybody there was more
and more collectors on there and thanthey 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, youpick 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 thisstuff. I'm gone and found it.

(24:25):
And I've had to be real resourceful, especially when I was doing when I
was super busy. Right, SoI think it's really interesting, you know,
to go back a little bit totalk about American pickers, right.
You know, I look at Americanpickers and I see what they've done for
this industry, which is a lotfor sure, especially more recently in the
past few years. And I'm goodfriends with Mike and you know these guys.

(24:48):
But it's funny because we did thesame exact thing for the motorcycle industry.
We changed the whole face of theindustry. When American Chopper first came
out. It was a phenomenon thatchanged the market global, which is wild
when you really look back. AndI even remember back in the early two
thousands, there was an article outthere giving credit to the show for Harley's
like, I don't know, tenor fifteen percent increase in sales, and

(25:11):
you know, of course they said, no, it has nothing to do
with American Chopper. It's all ofour marketing, you know. I could
see that a lot. Oh,it's it was huge, and everybody was
buying bikes who never got into themand building them. It was just it
was a craze. And I feellike Pickers has done that for this uh
hobby or I guess it's an industryand and or hobby or both slash both,

(25:33):
yeah, slash both because it justput it in everybody's living rooms.
And the kind of way we didwith the bikes and Rusty gold Man.
I mean, that's a big thingthat I tell them is that I would
tell me. People ask me whatI do, and I say, you
ever watch American Pickers. Oh yeah, that's what I do for real.
There you're done? Really what doyou really don't need to explain much more?

(25:55):
Right because or they say, Iwant to hear they're do that thing?
Yeah, yeah, yeah do thenumbers thing. Are you an auctioneer
like that? Yeah? I justan auctioneer. Yeah. Oh yeah,
I'm not no big time a bigcollege. Yeah I can't. Yeah,
yeah, do that thing. Ido that all the time. Yeah,
that's fun. So so so Iguess, Uh, there's a revitalization of
Root sixty six and that whole youknow, and I know of some of

(26:19):
this stuff where they're taking some ofthese old service stations and you know,
restoring them, and it seems likethat type of American and nostalgia is coming
back. And I guess the questionis 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. Ithink what we're talking about here is driving

(26:41):
that thought right, So it's workingto get this wrong. I've been I
mean, Route sixty six has beencollectible for a long time, right,
I mean just because of the frompeople 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'tremember that, but I've always known
people. But I would say ofany thing besides Maril Monroe and Elvis Presley
in the United States, that Routesix out has reproduced more than anything else,

(27:06):
right, And there's like one ofthe 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, Idon't know, I don't know what it
was. They made cash iron roadsigns and they're produced them and gave them
out. They used them for theshow for some shows and stuff, and
they had them. They weren't eventhe right size or anything like this,

(27:27):
but the original ones were marked withthe tag that said MGM Studios with the
guys that are knock them off andsell them as real. Yeah. Yeah,
And the biggest thing right now foranybody that's just starting out all the
signs that say Rowsey's historic row sixtysix, the big brown rectangle signs.
There's original ones of those, butmost of them are faking right, Yeah,
you know so, and it's justyou just that that's a Rowsy six

(27:51):
signs is a slippery slope. Andone last thing on Rawsie six signs,
there any Rowsitty six shield and bossshield that's made It says Kansas on it.
Okay, there was only thirteen milesof routers to Sikes that went through
Kansas, so there there was oneevery mile and there was probably an extra
extra one for every mile over theyears, and it was only there for

(28:11):
now. I'm not a history onthis, but it's like eight years,
right or five years, so therecan't be very many of them, so
they're pretty collectable. Yeah, they'repretty collective. That's wild. Those little
nuances are important to know, youknow, I'll tell you something for me
getting into it. I've had thefortunate experience to have kind of a network
of guys that know a lot morethan I do, like yourself, because

(28:33):
I've called you on certain signs becauseI don't want to make you know,
if I'm spending the money, Idon't want to make the mistake. You
know, I might take a littlebit of a risk, but I want
to do an educated, you knowrisk. 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 expertsor at least understand what's what when I

(28:55):
don't, and I ask even ifI 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 ofgo with a gut. I may
still made some mistakes. You know, that happens. But you know there's
only one way to really get tobeing educated, and that's take the chance.
I told you most of the timewhen you've asked me about a price

(29:17):
on something, too much, Yeah, too much? But it's too much
for me much. And and againprobably nine out of ten times I didn't
buy the sign and maybe for whateverreason. But you know that helps me
because, like I told you before, buy what you like. Yes,
that's what I do. But Ilike when there's room in there. I

(29:37):
like to know that at least myone hundred dollars bill is going to be
one hundred dollars bill two years fromnow or better. See what I mean,
I do and uh, and thataspect of it is enjoyable for me
as well. And you know,it's funny I started buying. When I
bought, I bought everything. NowI'm really getting picky. I don't.
Yeah, I buy almost mature anyhobby mature in yep. Well that's that's
the hope, right. So,but the the things that I used to

(30:00):
collect there's a big audience for,and then the things I want now,
which is, yeah, I knowwhat I like. I like. I
mean when I first started collecting signs, I only collected really early, kind
of like ten signs. I didn'teven like porcelain. I had to grow
into porcelain. I bought that horsethat Pegasus I got here, that neon
Pegasus that got me into porcelain alittle bit more, and you could look

(30:22):
around. It's not a heavy porcelainplace. This is mostly painted ten that
I have. That's the look andfeel I like. It's that turn of
the century, pre thirties, youknow, pre war if possible, but
pre thirties even more. Let metalk 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 paintedmetal signs, you have to keep them

(30:44):
in a climate controlled building, right, don't keep them don't put them in
your garage where the temperature fluctuates fromnegative twenty to one hundred degrees. They'll
just start to deterior start to deterioratein two different ways sometimes that you know,
a lot of these signs weren't madethey weren't made to last, so
they didn't do very good up onthe middle. They didn't assets the medal
or the paint before they paint themand stuff. So just on that point,
because his Paul's got them here ina really nice facility and stuff like

(31:06):
that where they're not going to change. But I've seen a lot of them
where they're you know, that's whypeople, that's why people collect porcelain.
Unless you run over it with abulldozer. She's a metal. You're not
going to hurt as much once it'syou 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 theindustry kind of lingo, and like we
understand a little bit, but whatis porcelain like, you know, explain

(31:30):
what porcelain is, what makes itdifferent from paint, and why it's so
valuable. Okay, porcelain is porcelainis 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 printtwo thousand painted signs and it wouldn't cost
you anything with us. With aporcelain sign, every color there is on

(31:52):
the sign is a different another runthrough the kiln where they fire it on.
So if there's seven layers that wentthrough the kiln seven times, right,
and that's why the more colors thereis, the more Usually more of
a lot of people just they don'tcollect gendres. They collect the more the
more colors in a porcelain sign,well, you know. And and with
the difference with the sign too iswith porcelain, is is every layers it

(32:15):
is a different stin sling. Sothe other's either sprayed on like the older
ones have shelving you called shelving whereyou can feel the layers like worsboard.
And the reason of that is becauseit's stincled on and sprayed on like with
a spray gun. And later onafter World War Two, they started almost
like self screen This is not thisis a bad very thing to say,
but it's like still scring a Tshirt. Is they put it on there

(32:35):
and put the different layers on andsilk screened it on thinner and it was
thinner and then fired it and theyhad better ovens, right, and they
probably have better graphics detail, right, more details stuff like that. So
that's just the different things. Butenameling 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 becauseyou can get you can get ten portal
I mean ten tires signs with greatgraphics that are worth crazy. You know.

(33:00):
That's there's everything in different you know, it just doesn't matter just people's
perception. How important is graphics onsigns. I think signs or globes,
you know, globes or gas plunkglobes. But I think that makes a
big difference what things is. It'sgot to say on a global sign,
it has to say gasoline, motoroil or the soda sign or something like
that just can't be graphics. Andthen the next thing is graphics whether it's

(33:22):
a uh, you know, there'snot too many pretty women on signs.
There is on banners. But let'ssay cars, Indians or you know,
arrows or something that show some kindof graphic or some kind of motion Lions,
bears, eagles, early Indian havingyou know, Texico has running Indian
on it, you know, andstuff like that, or the Indian motorcycles
got the laughing Indian or whatever,or Harley Davis at the bar and shield.

(33:44):
That's the that's the that's the logothat's everybody looks for, you know,
that's that means a lot. Andthen 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 aplastic sign one time because I knew the
sign looks right. It was anoriginal box bob bl all this kind of
stuff. Well, somebody found abunch of the original Neon Science plastic signs

(34:07):
from the early late fifties sixties withoutany printing on him. They printed the
logo on him, and I talkedto a friend of mine and it was
a wrong age. It was likefrom 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 justknow. 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 reproductionof science. It's not the right logo

(34:28):
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 likea twenties logo. Yeah. The big
thing, like on Texico signs ora 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 TMtrademark trademark, right, So if the
science got trademark and has dated this, it can't be right. Right.

(34:50):
Those are the nuances, right,that's what that's what those are the kind
of things. You got to kindof 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 likeone of the big things. People can
send me photos and I'll give theman idea, but I just put that.
Every time I do that, Ijust go, I don't gotcha.
So you got to do it.You got it. So basically, when

(35:12):
you do authentications, Dan, you'vegot to put that thing in your hands.
Yeah, I have to have itmy 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'tknow and I right, and we just
yeah, and it works out greatwhen we both do it together. And
it seems like the only time wemake mistakes. Now, we've did fourteen
or fifteen thousand signs so far,and we made five mistakes, and luckily
that's pretty good. Yeah. Imean, yeah, I'm just you know,

(35:35):
I don't know everything. I'm justtrying to do the best. I'm
trying to do the best for thewhole hobby. I'm trying to have a
business, but also I'm trying tomake 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 thisthing's going? You think it's going to
keep getting You think it slowed downa little bit, But I think it's
going to keep going because I thinkI still think it's a mature hobby,

(35:57):
right, because I always told peoplethat I was a blue color auction.
You're trying to bring it into awhite curled, white collar world, right,
And that's where it's going, rightbecause people I started out selling for
twenty years ago were the people thatstarted convenience stores or buying all the you
know they were buying. They werejobbers or distributors and they bought you know,
that's when there was one in everytown or five in every town.
They started buying everybody out and theystarted buying the warehouses, and that's they

(36:17):
had these stockpiles of science. I'vehad a lot of a lot of the
auctions I did over the year withpeople that kind of people that just were
distributors that started collecting and just keptall the science. Right, And now
we're going to the point where whereI'm starting to sell it for now is
you're you're you're you're not a whitecollar 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'repretty close to it, so that you're

(36:38):
an investor, which is a whitecollar person. And that's where it's coming
from. Now, that's where mystuff is going to, you know,
people coming from from white collar goingback to white collar. Sure, interesting,
Yeah, well good. Any anyso you saw my collection today,
I mean you're actually you have youyou authenticated pretty much half of it.
Yeah, you're gonna do the otherhalf when we're done here. Yes,
any uh, any suggestion for meanything, you know, no, any

(37:02):
advice or anything like that. Itell 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, Imean, 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 fromthe inside. But the paint's not the

(37:23):
greatest all, but it's got agreat right because it's so so old.
Some people call it a tina andthat's not really just the right word for
it to wear to it, butit's just it's a fabulous signs got the
look, got the look? Thelook is the look. Once you know
the look, you always want tolook. I'll tell you a perfect example.
Back ten twelve years ago, afriend of mine showed up in an
auction. He's not a signed guy, he's kind of a an ebayer and

(37:45):
stuff like that, and he boughtthis sign. This the worst coke sign
I had on the sale. Ithink I grated about a six six and
a half and I think it's wellScott by that Scott Miller from Springfield,
Illinois. Anyway, Anyway, Iwondering why you bought that. Bought that,
and I went to this house onetime. It fits so perfect,
perfect in the stress or whatever happenedto it, it worked, And I

(38:06):
gotta tell you that that was oneof the reasons I didn't like porcelain when
I first started, because I likethis sense of honesty. That's the way
I would describe it. I likeI said, now, porcelain could be
a little dishonest. A perfect porcelainsign is not. I know they're the
most valuable, but it doesn't doanything for me when I look at it
because I see fake even though it'snot. That's the best thing for my

(38:29):
business. My business though, isI have several dealers that they have any
kind they have like a nine plussign 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 knowthey'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 herefor. You know, if your name's
on it, you say, yep, it's real. It's it takes the

(38:49):
question out because I've questioned that always, especially on some of the rare stuff,
you know, And this is whatI say, if if Dan Matthews
doesn't authenticate this, will you giveme 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, butyeah, I knew it was real,
but I say we and he said, no, if it's good.
So but hey, it's good tohave a standard in a in a collectible

(39:15):
market like this, uh, ina hobby like this. And I appreciate
you creating that because really, that'swhat 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 mylawyer, my business lawyer just set up
this starts setting this company up,and he goes, Dan, why do
you want to do this? SoI said, I said, pull it,
give me your computer. We pulledup Bebay. We put up two

(39:37):
hundred items in a search on thepage, which is the most you can
do, and I picked the topyin porcelain sign the first six pages,
so that's twelve hundred items. Therewas 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 anykind of who No, I know,
but yeah, no, I Iagree. So you're you're creating a standard.

(39:57):
It's what I appreciate about it.It's what everyone in the industry out
there. And the only reason Iknow so many people in the industry is
because of social media, because ofwhat's happened through COVID, and it's created
this dynamic where you know people thatyou really don't know, and you you
know who the players are. I'veknown 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, andI see how the bids go. So

(40:22):
I just want to give you alot 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 Ithought, man, this is something
I need to get done to mycollection. 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.

(40:42):
And then my new website's coming out, okay, perfect, And what is
that? Give me that? It'smatthewstac dot com. That's m A T
T h TWS t AC dot com. Okay, Matthews tach dot com.
All right, Dan, I appreciateit, buddy, all right, thank
you, thank you, thank youfor listening to the Paul Junior Podcast.
You can find Paul online as PaulTuttle Junior on Instagram, Paul Junior Designs

(41:07):
on Facebook, Where is Paul Junioron Twitter, and Paul Junior Designs on
YouTube. Get more info on Paul'sdealership or merchandise at Paul Juniordesigns dot com.
Have any questions you want to answeron the show, email us at
podcast at Paul Juniordesigns dot com