c1930 Spalding BB Flange Sign - Sports Antique of the Week March 19th

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Sports Antique of the Week

March 26th - April 2nd 2016

THIS WEEKS FEATURE

SIDE 1

SIDE 2

19 1/2" tall x 19 1/2" wide

C1915 DOUBLE SIDED PORCELAIN

FLANGE ADVERTISING SIGN FOR

SPALDING ATHLETIC GOODS

Sold on eBay March 14th 2016 for

$2,185.00

Flange Side Up View

Flange Side Down View

...It's quite common for porcelain signs to have bullet holes, and as you can see this Spalding has it's badge of honor. In the red border, about center near the flange elbow...One thing to remember about porcelain signs is they've been outside all their life...so you have to be more forgiving of condition...

am featuring this Spalding Athletic Goods sign because 1. It's really great...and...2. It's really rare...So rare it may be the only one you ever see. Therefore you should know about it! As antique sports signs go it would be near the top of the totem pole. This sign sold on eBay March 14th 2016 for $2,185.00. Which was a bargain and a half. Had it been in one of the high profile sports auction houses like Hunt's, Leland's, Heritage, or R.E.A. I would speculate it may have sold for 10 times that. Which gets into a whole other subject...of when to auction in one of the big houses and when to stick it on eBay...The big houses have the all important list...List as in...list of advanced serious collectors they call and send their catalogs to...that have the appetite and ability to pay big for something they want...and should they get into a bidding war with another collector...or collectors plural...Well...you know what happens then...Bottom line...when it comes to auctioning something...it's all about exposure...Getting your piece seen by the right people...

ANOTHER EXAMPLE

- $24,000.00 ASKING PRICE AT INDY SHOW -

MAINE ANTIQUE DIGEST 2013 COVERAGE

EXCERPT OF THE INDIANAPOLIS ADVERTISING SHOW

Attributes that make this sign great are several. First off it's porcelain...Because of their durability porcelain signs have their own exclusive category within the genera of antique signs. They're made of heavy gauge metal...and the porcelain coated finish is literally baked on...therefore they are exceptionally resilient to harsh weather and aging. It's quite common for porcelain signs to have bullet holes, and as you can see this Spalding has it's badge of honor. In the red border, about center near the flange elbow...One thing to remember about porcelain signs is they've been outside all their life...so you have to be more forgiving of condition...

OTHER EXAMPLES OF FLANGE SIGNS

The foremost attribute of this Spalding sign is that, it is what is termed as a flange sign...Flange signs are unique because they protrude 90 digress from the surface they are mounted on. That is they stick out from the wall and are especially noticeable to passersby. They attach to their mounting surface by the use of a flange which is bolted flush to the wall. They are typically double sided and therefore can be seen from two opposite directions...At the top of this feature I've posted photos of both sides of our Spalding, noted as side 1 and side 2...

SIMILAR REACH FLANGE SIGN

Sold Hunt Auctions Feb. 2016 $3,750.00

About 1910 Reach Sporting Goods made a double sided flange sign similar to this Spalding sign. It had a round baseball shape but without the red border area. The big differences though was that it was lithographed, not porcelain. An example of it sold in the February 2016 Hunt Auction for $3,750.00

I must say spotting this sign on eBay was an eyebrow raiser...Had I not been wrapped up pursuing something I wanted more, when I saw it, I'd have certainly joined the fray!...stay tuned for that item I wanted more!

Wrapping this up...I can only speculate why this sign is so rare and why I've seen so few in 30 years collecting...Questions I would have are...Did every Spalding's Sporting Goods Store have one?...Were they supplied to independent stores, like hardware stores, that carried Spalding goods...Or were they supplied to Spalding Sporting Goods Stores only?...Who made them?...who designed it?...No telling how many may have been discarded...Say it was 1949 and a real estate developer buys a building that used to be a Spalding's store...it's vacant but one of these signs is still attached to the building...Maybe they were going to renovate the building...maybe they would raze it and put up a new one...either way these signs were likely considered worthless...How many times did that scenario play out around the country and one of these signs was bulldozed into a heap of rubble and hauled off to the dump...And now we're paying $2,000.00 to $24,000.00 for them!!

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