Here are a couple of mine, one is a milk glass sign, hand-painted, I had it framed.
The other is a waitress's tray, made of metal, probably been awash in beer before it ended up in my collection.
You may notice a theme.
Here is one outside the theme, but very-much in-keeping with 'garage journal' parameters and member interests. It's a cardboard sign. I got it in Rome when I was there 29 years-ago. I went down to a street-level magazine kiosk close-to the hotel we were staying-in. I was going to buy a motorcycle magazine, I didn't care if it was in Italian, Spanish, German, Greek, or French. I just wanted something with lots of glossy pictures of motorcycles to look-at. I have an interest in vintage machines, so if I could find something, featuring lots of pictures of old European machines, that would be great.
I was looking through the magazines, and I saw this sign hanging down from the top of the stand, in the background, well-sheltered from the weather. It looked as-if it hadn't been there long, it wasn't weathered, broken, or faded. I speak some French, so I asked the storekeeper about the sign, I asked him about buying it from him, that I was a tourist looking to take something back to the USA with me that would remind me of my trip to Italy whenever I looked-at it.
He immediately took it down and handed it to me. I had some
lire currency, so I attempted to give him the equivalent of about $30 for it, but he refused to take anything. So, I thanked him profusely, and left with my prize. Because it was only about halfway through our month-long trip in western Europe, I had to guard the poster as we travelled the rest of the trip, and I'm happy to say, it made the trip safely back to Florida. I actually keep it in the dark, and take it out every once in-awhile to admire the graphics. The green bike is what appears to me to be a generic picture of something like a Matchless G-80, a single-cylinder 500 cc bike that was a 'do-it-all' bike of its day, very popular in competition.
The other motorcycle is very easy to identify, it was a BMW K1 (
http://www.motorcyclespecs.co.za/model/bmw/bmw_k1 88.htm), the fastest production BMW motorcycle to-date, the first BMW that broke 100 HP, and which was supposed to be good for about 150 MPH on top-end. It had just been released the prior year. So, the old with the new, and both sporting motorcycles of their day.
Several years later, I looked at buying a K1 just-like the one in the picture, but with the alternative color scheme, medium blue with the graphics in yellow. I was getting ready to retire from fire-rescue, and I wanted to treat myself to a newer motorcycle. Other bikes I looked-at were a Ducati 851(
http://www.motorcyclespecs.co.za/model/ducati/ducati_851strada 90.htm), owned by the local Ferrari dealer in Ft. Lauderdale, just beautifully-maintained and with very low miles. I also came very-close to buying a Moto Guzzi Daytona 1000 (
http://www.motorcyclespecs.co.za/model/moto guzzi/moto_guzzi_daytona 1000 92.htm), which was a flagship for the company, they had great success racing a bike with the same specs in the
Battle of the Twins race series, and then they released a street version.
After looking at all these, and knowing because of the expense of them, they weren't likely to sell immediately, I went to the Ft. Lauderdale Yamaha dealer, where a friend was a salesman. They had just taken-in on-trade a barely-one-year-old Yamaha VMax that had 1600 miles on it, the bike was sold to a local businessman who wasn't an experienced motorcycle rider, and the thing scared him, he traded it in for some cruiser like a Honda Shadow or a Yamaha Virago. It was being sold at a healthy discount from a new bike, and while used, it wasn't abused. I checked inside the rear fender for tell-tale accumulations of rubber, it was clean, and the tire wasn't worn-flat from burnouts. So I bought it, and I still have it. And when I look at that Italian motorcycle magazine sign, it makes me think of that whole process of buying a nearly-new motorcycle, and what I almost bought instead.
