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Anyone know where there are examples of old showcards online?
-------------------- Preston McCall 112 Rim Road Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 text: 5056607370 Posts: 1552 | From: Santa Fe, New Mexico | Registered: Nov 1998
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Give me some time (maybe a couple of days) and I'll post some.
-------------------- Kimberly Zanetti Purcell www.amethystProductivity.com Folsom, CA email: Kimberly@AmethystProductivity.com
“Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up.” AA Milne Posts: 3722 | From: Folsom, CA | Registered: Dec 2001
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Here is a cool old guy who only does paper show cards. He has a lot of samples, his mame is John Hodgins He is from Batavia,NY. Any one know him? http://papersigns.com/index.html
Here is a site I googled it's a sign co.s portfolio.
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Yes, I've known John for a long time. Back when the Letterheads had Letterheads University John attended the class that I taught on hand lettering.
That was the 21st anniversary of the Letterheads - held in Fargo. "21 and Legal"
John's son has an exhibit at a lot of the Sign Business shows.
We were stranded in an airport together at the end of the Letterhead gathering that had been held in Fargo, ND - hosted by Butch (Super Frog) Anton.
[ February 08, 2010, 07:00 PM: Message edited by: Raymond Chapman ]
-------------------- Chapman Sign Studio Temple, Texas chapmanstudio@sbcglobal.net Posts: 6306 | From: Temple, Texas, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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That's awesome Ray. He is retired, has a little web site and does just hand painted paper signs and hand painted colorplas sandwich signs. What paint is used for show cards? I might take another stab at hand lettering.
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Preston, If you can locate work by Bob Harper, he was an awesome show card writer.Emmett Morelli, Lane Walker, Mike Stevens and Gary Godby...Very talented and many more out there.
"Some are born to move the world, to live their fantasies. But most of us just dream about the things we'd like to be." - Rush Posts: 1192 | From: Washington, NJ | Registered: Feb 1999
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Mr. A: right and wrong, Emmett Morelli is/was from Vegas, his son is still in the shop, but Lane Walker is from Reno...now he's been thru, but not as a resident...always a tourist...hope that helps to clear that up...(edited to add-let's not forget that Bob Shepard and Ross Hurdle are from Vegas), Shep's since moved and Ross migrated there from Quincy, Ill., he's still there, he worked w/me for about two years before he and Shep started Classic Design, an award winning duo, lots of coverage by Tom at Signcraft,check old issues for those articles..
[ February 08, 2010, 10:52 PM: Message edited by: Frank Magoo ]
-------------------- Frank Magoo, Magoo's-Las Vegas; fmagoo@netzero.com "the only easy day was yesterday" Posts: 2365 | From: Las Vegas, Nv. | Registered: Jun 2003
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Frank, you beat me to it! Lane Walker lives here in Reno (Sparks to be exact) and has a business called Solo Signs. He used to paint a lot of showcards for the casino's in northern Nevada back in the day. He mainly does vehicle lettering and window splashes now, along with some pinstriping. I visited his shop last year and he had four or five big photo albums filled with snapshots of his showcards and was kind enough to show them to me. The only vinyl I saw there was his record collection... no computers. I love it when I'm in traffic and pull up alongside of a truck he lettered! He's a nice guy and an amazing talent. He was in Signcraft about a year ago but they didn't show many pictures of his work. There's an issue I remember from the early 80's that featured some of his showcard work.
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Dana, Thanks for those fabulous links!!! Very inspiring work there. I appreciate the effort in sharing these.
-------------------- Preston McCall 112 Rim Road Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 text: 5056607370 Posts: 1552 | From: Santa Fe, New Mexico | Registered: Nov 1998
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Dana, back in the day when I was doing show cards I used Rich Art Moist Water Color - bought it in pint or quart jars and transfered small amounts to plastic film canisters.
I don't know if it is still around or not and no one uses film anymore.
The card I used was Crescent 14 ply - clay coated.
SignCraft published a book in 1987 with a collection of Mike's work called "Ninety-Nine Showcards by Mike Stevens", but I don't know if it is still available.
I have one of Mike Steven's original show cards from the late 60's or early 70's in my collection
[ February 09, 2010, 09:56 AM: Message edited by: Raymond Chapman ]
-------------------- Chapman Sign Studio Temple, Texas chapmanstudio@sbcglobal.net Posts: 6306 | From: Temple, Texas, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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I have the H.C. Martin, "1000 Practical Showcards" book. It's pretty beat up but the pictures are very clear. Published in 1929 by Signs of the Times Publishing. The layouts are very classic and at one time I considered re-doing a 100 or so just for grins. Most of the products on the cards do not have a place in our lives today.
-------------------- Jack Wills Studio Design Works 1465 E.Hidalgo Circle Nye Beach / Newport, OR Posts: 2914 | From: Rocklin, CA. USA | Registered: Dec 1998
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Years ago a guy I worked with painted showcards on Crescent board with oil based poster color and used quills rather than red sable showcard brushes. They looked great. I think he was taught by Mark Baty... I know he used to work for him.
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Brent - yes, I did that also but the poster colors were very hard on the brushes because they dried so fast. And it was hard not to smudge the cards all up because your hand were always oily from cleaning and oiling the brushes.
The colors would clot up and skin over very easily. It was just too much of mess for me.
And drips were hard to fix. Of course, I never dripped anything, but I heard that others did.
-------------------- Chapman Sign Studio Temple, Texas chapmanstudio@sbcglobal.net Posts: 6306 | From: Temple, Texas, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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Thanks Ray! Preston I found this book on line It is a complete how to ,from the day, on show card writing. There are tons of examples, and all you would ever want to know about lay out, color, what direction and steps to make different strokes. Its called principles and practices of show card writing, copy write 1922.
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I worked with Emmett Morelli for a couple years as his shop was directly next to mine at the end of Industrial in Las Vegas during the 80's. He was doing many shoCards for casinos and signage as well. He and I would have breakfast, talk, funnel through his paint infested shop and worked together on one or two projects
-------------------- HotLines Joey Madden - pinstriping since 1952 'Perfection, its what I look for and what I live for'
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You're right Ray. I remember now that the oil based paint was a pain to work with. I had about a six year period in my career when I painted a lot of cards with Rich Art. I also made a lot of corporate sales charts with row after row of speedball lettering. I had a father-in-law at the time who had been a theatrical showcard writer in the 30's & 40's and I learned a lot from him.
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I did many show cards back in the 60's. Here are two that I did in 1997, I used crescent 14ply show card, Rich Art (moist water color) done with red sables. All the above are still available today.
Back in the 60's Signs of the Times magazine each month pictured many show cards from the bench of show card writer Bill Boley.
[ February 09, 2010, 11:57 PM: Message edited by: Len Mort ]
-------------------- Len Mort Signmaker1.com 11 Juniper Drive Millbury, MA 508-865-2382 "A Good Business Sign, is A Sign of Good Business"(1957) Posts: 811 | From: Millbury, Ma | Registered: Dec 2006
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