Thursday, February 13, 2014

Nostalgic survivor: the first Australian reference to a ghost sign?

Today a colleague lent me a book he bought at Savers for $5 (thanks Craig). The book, published in 1975 and by John Larkins & Bruce Howard, is called 'The Great Australian Book of Nostalgia'.

In it, there's a photo depicting a painted  Aeroplane Jelly sign on a railway bridge in NSW. It's an example of the 'Whistling Boy' ad from 1938. I took a quick snap with my phone (excuse poor quality):


The 'nostalgic survivor' caption is pretty ironic, both in itself and the fact that the book is itself a nostalgic survivor. Through the book, the (I assume long gone) painted advertising sign has risen from the dead once more, and now here it is, infinitely reproducible in digital form.

And on that note here' another survivor, a 1930s cinema ad for the very same product (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJZ2w6Q_Uww):






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