The,"ACME SIGN CO>"

knife7knut · Post by **knife7knut** » Mon Jan 18, 2021 2:34 am

This is the story of how my version of the Acme Sign Co. was created.It was started purely in fun and just kind of spiraled out of control after that.
Having started out in 1957 with the pinstriping of my first car and having more jobs come to me as a result of it I thought I should at least have a business name even if I didn't have a real business. The name I started using on my first printed business cards was ,"The Stripe Shoppe";a catchy little name with an English like spelling of the word "Shop".The space for the phone number I left blank because we did not have a phone! When we finally did several years later I was writing the number in.I would tell customers the reason it was blank was that I was living on the street at the time which was only partially true.
It was about that time that I started signing my work with the nickname " el Vago" or the vagrant.It seemed apropos. This was to follow me all of my life and I still sign my work with that on occasion.
On one occasion I had done an extensive amount of pinstriping and lettering on my friend's 34 Ford roadster and as I was putting my brushes away he said,"HEY! You forgot to put your autograph on it!". So I took out one of my brushes and in very tiny letters put on,"Striping by Otto Graf". For years afterward people would ask him who Otto Graf was.
Anyway fast forward to my move to Michigan in 1993. Shortly after I moved here I bought my 1955 Pontiac Safari wagon and started decorating it as sort of a rolling billboard for my paint work.In doing some restoration work on the car I bought some new hood letters that spelled out "PONTIAC". Noting that they could be installed in any position individually I thought about what I could spell and came up with the word,"PAINTCO" and my new business name was born!
While I was still using the el Vago signature to mark pinstriping work I decided to use something else for my ever increasing sign business and so I decided to use the Acme Sign Co. logo. I had acquired a number of old tool boxes;most in pretty sad condition and I would letter them up and auction them off at our charity auctions. Most of the examples shown here now belong to other people including several fellow sign artists.
There are also a couple other variations I used including the "Outrageously Expensive Sign Co" and the "Helen Back Sign Co." There is another one that says the,"C.J.Stoiber Sign Co" that was an actual business in Toledo Ohio in the 1920's and 1930's.That box was made by the son of Carl Stoiber and given to me by his grandson and he also gifted me with his grandfather's sign kit. I decided to paint up his dad's tool box as a tribute to him and when he saw it asked if he could have it when I passed. I decided to give it to him anyway.
So here it is 2021 and I am still painting up a storm(well a small storm)and I have a new sign kit.It is shown in the last picture. This will take a few posts to get them all in as I can only post ten pics at a time. Hope you enjoy them.Oh yes the very last pic is "some old fart" lettering a rat truck for an upcoming TV show.

knife7knut · Post by **knife7knut** » Mon Jan 18, 2021 2:37 am

A few more..........

knife7knut · Post by **knife7knut** » Mon Jan 18, 2021 2:39 am

Not finished yet..............

knife7knut · Post by **knife7knut** » Mon Jan 18, 2021 2:41 am

Last ones...........

doglegg · Post by **doglegg** » Mon Jan 18, 2021 3:09 am

Wow!!!

treefarmer · Post by **treefarmer** » Mon Jan 18, 2021 3:36 am

Well that last picture is quite a sight! A left handed sign painter wearin' bib overalls, must be ol' Otto Graf his self!
Thanks for sharing your some of your masterpieces!
Treefarmer

danno50 · Post by **danno50** » Mon Jan 18, 2021 3:59 am

Good story, Ray, thanks for sharing. Beautiful work! I have a friend in Alberta who was a sign painter, old style, like yourself. I don't believe there are a lot of artisan sign painters like yourself left, mostly computer graphics nowadays.

Mumbleypeg · Post by **Mumbleypeg** » Mon Jan 18, 2021 4:45 am

Enjoyed the story and seeing some of your work Ray! Thanks for sharing.

Ken

zzyzzogeton · Post by **zzyzzogeton** » Mon Jan 18, 2021 5:29 am

That brings back some memories of my dad. Back in 1950, he let a drinking buddy set up a sign painting area in the one corner of his feed store. People would come in and leave orders for Ginny Lee. As Ginny got to drinking more, the sign orders kept falling behind. My dad started painting some signs for folks so they wouldn't be mad at him and his feed store. He ended up being good at it and got talked into repainting the courthouse clock faces. He was paid $10 a clock face.

Later, he started buying old cars and repainting them behind the feed store for resale.

One time, he had just finished repainting an old car when a sand storm blew in from west Texas (no decent weather guessing back in the early 60s) and left the entire car feeling like it had a sand paper finish.

Rather than sanding the car down and repainting it, my father advertised it as have a "rare sharkskin finish".

He never painted another one like it. I wonder why?

Froe · Post by **Froe** » Tue Jan 19, 2021 12:35 am

Knife7knut!
That is so cool! Love your work.
Froe

woodwalker · Post by **woodwalker** » Tue Jan 19, 2021 12:56 am

So much talent! Outstanding Ray!!

Colonel26 · Post by **Colonel26** » Tue Jan 19, 2021 1:01 am

Wonderful story Mr. Graff! lol

And those tool boxes are fantastic.

knife7knut · Post by **knife7knut** » Tue Jan 19, 2021 3:23 am

Thank you for all the kind words.I truly feel that I have been blessed to be able to do what I truly enjoy doing and actually getting paid for it!
This next post is something that I also truly enjoy:finding a small piece of history and relating the story behind it. This is the story of Floyd W.Hovey. I never met Mr. Hovey but from what I have learned of him he sounded like a typical great but unsung American.The story goes something like this:
On one of my many days cruising for bargains at various yard sales around my home town,I stopped at one being held at the home of a friend.Jeff usually has some unusual items to sell and today was no exception. The first thing I spied was an old tool box sitting on a table in his driveway. I was looking it over when Jeff came over and in the course of our conversation he told me about Mr. Hovey.
It seems that Mr. Hovey was his maternal grandfather and when he passed away Jeff had acquired the box during the cleaning out of his house. He kept it for years and then decided to let it go at this sale,but first he asked members of the family if they had any interest in it.
Apparently his family is not unlike many families nowadays in that family history is not something they really care about.
This is sad because if you do not respect your history ,it is difficult to respect anything.Just my opinion folks.
Anyway Mr. Hovey worked as a mechanic for the Gridley Motor Co. in Kansas City Missouri. They were a Peerless auto dealer which helped date this tool box as Peerless built cars from 1900 to 1931;one of the victims of the Great Depression. What drew me to this box was there were little saying hand painted all over it and there was what turned out to be a Peerless radiator emblem bolted to it. I found out later that it alone was worth about twice what I paid for the whole box!
The box itself is rather small for a mechanic's box and is made of wood that is covered with thin sheet metal. The tray has had dividers made for it from sections of a wooden yard stick. The box is also unusual in that it has a paper lining and still has the company tag of the manufacturer(the R.H.Buhrke Co. of Chicago Illinois).It also still has the original keys for the lock.
What really got to me though was one of the inscriptions on the inside of the box.It simply says,"May 30 1918- Homeward Bound". Sounds to me like he was coming home from the first World War. Just reading that sent a chill up and down my spine! If this one could only talk!
Anyway it now occupies a place of honor in my assemblage of vintage tools.Hopefully who ever gets it after I pass on will honor it as well. Here are some pictures of it. My next chapter will include the story and pictures of a sign painter's kit from the 1920's that I acquired in trade for a striping job on a Corvette.It also led to more work and a great friendship.

knife7knut · Post by **knife7knut** » Tue Jan 19, 2021 5:29 am

And this is the story of how I acquired a 1920's era sign artist's kit. In the previous post I showed a box I had lettered with the name,"C.J.Stoiber" on it that had been handmade by the father of someone who was to become a very good customer and friend.
I met Russ at a car show some time back and in the course of one of our conversations he asked me if I knew anyone who would be interested in,"some old striping brushes". I told him I would be and he offered to bring them to my shop when I striped his Corvette.
When he showed them to me;along with the box I offered to buy them from him.He said that maybe we could trade them for the paintwork on the Corvette and I immediately agreed. The box(made by Yarder Mfg. in Toledo Ohio;a company still in business)contained approximately 80 striping brushes and broad liners(a brush used for filling in large letters)and some old hardened paint cans and a few tools of the trade. He had come across it while cleaning out his father's garage after he had passed away. The kit belonged to his grandfather.
His grandfather and his brothers had all worked for the Willys-Overland Car. Co. in Toledo in the early 1920's. Carl's job there was laying down the pinstripes along the side of the cars.Rather than do them on the production line as a lot of companies did,they were done in a separate building after assembly. The picture shows Carl and his brothers in the Willys factory.As far as I know this is the only picture of him. The one I have is a copy Russ made for me from the original.
He left Willys and opened his own shop doing mostly signs but still had all his old striping brushes. Sometime around 1937 he must have either died or gone out of business as there is no listing in the Toledo business directories after that date.
The brushes were stored in old metal cigarette boxes and the layers were separated by pieces of wet-or-dry sandpaper.They were pretty hard and looked like they had been stored in lard oil(a popular brush preservative back then). Usually brushes stored like that will get eaten by rodents but as these were sealed in the boxes that was prevented.
I cleaned them by soaking just the hair in acetone(didn't want to ruin the sealant on the wire wrap)and running a toothbrush through the hairs after soaking and eventually managed to save all but two or three of them. I still use them today. By the way if you could purchase brushes of this quality today they would run about $30-$35 apiece. They are still made in Jonesville Michigan and they are great brushes but not like the old ones.
I was doing another job at Russ' shop one day when he presented me with the box his dad had made.His dad was a sheet metal worker and a craftsman and the box showed that.Hard to describe but it was bent and fitted together using rivets and solder. I wound up lettering it in honor of his grandfather and when he saw it he asked if he could have it when I passed. I told him,"Why wait?" and gave it to him.First time I ever saw someone cry over something I had done.
Anyway that is the story and now here are the pictures. The only tool I am in doubt about is the tong like tool. I think it may be used to pick up a heated container of sizing used when doing gold leaf on windows.

zzyzzogeton · Post by **zzyzzogeton** » Tue Jan 19, 2021 6:25 am

knife7knut wrote: ↑Tue Jan 19, 2021 3:23 am Thank you for all the kind words.I truly feel that I have been blessed to be able to do what I truly enjoy doing and actually getting paid for it!
This next post is something that I also truly enjoy:finding a small piece of history and relating the story behind it. This is the story of Floyd W.Hovey. I never met Mr. Hovey but from what I have learned of him he sounded like a typical great but unsung American.The story goes something like this:
On one of my many days cruising for bargains at various yard sales around my home town,I stopped at one being held at the home of a friend.Jeff usually has some unusual items to sell and today was no exception. The first thing I spied was an old tool box sitting on a table in his driveway. I was looking it over when Jeff came over and in the course of our conversation he told me about Mr. Hovey.
It seems that Mr. Hovey was his maternal grandfather and when he passed away Jeff had acquired the box during the cleaning out of his house. He kept it for years and then decided to let it go at this sale,but first he asked members of the family if they had any interest in it.
Apparently his family is not unlike many families nowadays in that family history is not something they really care about.
This is sad because if you do not respect your history ,it is difficult to respect anything.Just my opinion folks.
Anyway Mr. Hovey worked as a mechanic for the Gridley Motor Co. in Kansas City Missouri. They were a Peerless auto dealer which helped date this tool box as Peerless built cars from 1900 to 1931;one of the victims of the Great Depression. What drew me to this box was there were little saying hand painted all over it and there was what turned out to be a Peerless radiator emblem bolted to it. I found out later that it alone was worth about twice what I paid for the whole box!
The box itself is rather small for a mechanic's box and is made of wood that is covered with thin sheet metal. The tray has had dividers made for it from sections of a wooden yard stick. The box is also unusual in that it has a paper lining and still has the company tag of the manufacturer(the R.H.Buhrke Co. of Chicago Illinois).It also still has the original keys for the lock.
What really got to me though was one of the inscriptions on the inside of the box.It simply says,"May 30 1918- Homeward Bound". Sounds to me like he was coming home from the first World War. Just reading that sent a chill up and down my spine! If this one could only talk!
Anyway it now occupies a place of honor in my assemblage of vintage tools.Hopefully who ever gets it after I pass on will honor it as well. Here are some pictures of it. My next chapter will include the story and pictures of a sign painter's kit from the 1920's that I acquired in trade for a striping job on a Corvette.It also led to more work and a great friendship.

Being curious, I did some searching -

I found a reference to an undated letter written home by Floyd W. Hovey being published on 14 November 1918 on page 6 of Henry County Signal, an Ohio newspaper. A compilation of letters to the home front was compiled by Bowling Green state University,

According to Findagrave, Floyd Wheeler Hovey was born 01 November 1896 and died 29 October 1977, and is buried in the Forest Hill Cemetary in Napolean, Henry County, Ohio

According to the 1916 - 1921 edition of the Farm Journal for Henry County, Ohio, he was a machinist in Florida, Ohio and is listed as having a son named Joseph.

According to a Ocala, Florida 1987 Obituary, he may have had a daughter, Mary L. Hovey Hoover, who was born in 1928 in Napolean Ohio, which is also in Henry County.

Since I don't have an ancestory account, I couldn't see his obiturary or any reference to military service, if any.

eveled · Post by **eveled** » Tue Jan 19, 2021 12:16 pm

Some of the best reading I’ve done in a long time. I appreciate your passion for history.

Your artwork is fabulous, I watched as my Harley was pinstriped by a gentleman who had Vietnam helicopter pilot. It was amazing to watch the stripes and patterns emerge.

Your sense of humor is almost as good as your artwork.

One of the things I rescued from the trash when I was a kid is a picture with around 100 guys. One of them is my Great Grandfather the caption reads “Home from France 1918”

Thanks for sharing.

knife7knut · Post by **knife7knut** » Tue Jan 19, 2021 1:13 pm

I guess that would explain the lettering,"Florida Ohio" on the case. I thought it may have been two separate states rather than a town.Thanks for researching that. I can check with Jeff(Lee);the guy I got it from. Being born in 1897 would put him at the age of 20 when the USA entered World War 1 so if he were of sound body and mind he would have served in the military.
Now you have my curiosity aroused!

knife7knut · Post by **knife7knut** » Tue Jan 19, 2021 1:21 pm

eveled wrote: ↑Tue Jan 19, 2021 12:16 pm Some of the best reading I’ve done in a long time. I appreciate your passion for history.

Your artwork is fabulous, I watched as my Harley was pinstriped by a gentleman who had Vietnam helicopter pilot. It was amazing to watch the stripes and patterns emerge.
His name wouldn't have happened to have been Russ Mowrey would it? Russ was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam and when he got out went to work for a TV station in New Jersey flying newsmen around New York. He is also famous for crash landing his helicopter on top of a skyscraper in New York and being filmed by another crew.
Russ does a lot of Harley events(Sturgis;Daytona;etc.)and is currently living in New Hampshire.

Your sense of humor is almost as good as your artwork.

eveled · Post by **eveled** » Tue Jan 19, 2021 2:19 pm

I left out his name on purpose. Wondering if you’d know of him. Yes it was Russ.

Nicest guy on the planet. I had a newborn son at home, and a police Harley that needed some color.

I brought it to him at Laconia told him about my son and that I had $100 to pin stripe something on this blank white bike. I said stop at $100! I gave him artistic license to do whatever he wanted. Which I think he appreciated. He told me he was going to do a classic 60’s California pin stripe job on it.

He started pin striping and kept adding on. I asked him to stop “I only have $100.” He said “I know, but It’s better for business if people see me working”. He did the whole bike. Had to be $1000 dollar job.

Every year after that I got to park my bike on his spot right in the middle of the action at Weirs beach. He loved it because he could show my bike off and show how well the pinstripes hold up.

He’d stop and flirt with the girls walking by and paint their names on their breasts, or cleavage depending if they were topless or not.

VN vets would stop by frequently and stop him to thank him and shake his hand vigorously even hugging him. If he wasn’t the pilot that saved their bacon they thanked him like he was.

The whole experience was the coolest motorcycle memory I have.

knife7knut · Post by **knife7knut** » Tue Jan 19, 2021 6:58 pm

Knew it had to be Russ and I agree;one of the nicest guys on the planet. I met him about 20 years ago at Alan Johnson's shop in Blairstown NJ at a pinstriper's panel jam. Russ did one of his famous,"alphabet" panels for my wife in about 15 minutes! If you haven't seen one of them he takes a metal panel and letters the alphabet;turns it 90 degrees and letters another one. Keeps doing this until the letters form a cross.
We also had in common that we both owned Mini Coopers(I think he still has his).I believe he bought his new when he got home from Vietnam. He restored it and drove his daughter to her wedding in it. I found out he had moved to NH when I talked with Brian Downing of Brian's Cycles in Boston.I think he and Bruce Cambriello(another fantastic gold leaf letterer)both told me. If you run into him again tell him Ray Smith said hello and I still have his panels up on my shop wall.

eveled · Post by **eveled** » Tue Jan 19, 2021 7:14 pm

I will. But I doubt I’ll ever see him again. I sold my bikes and he is retired anyway. Maybe he’ll google his own name and find this thread, and know we both are thinking of him.

That cross sounds cool.

knife7knut · Post by **knife7knut** » Tue Jan 19, 2021 8:02 pm

eveled wrote: ↑Tue Jan 19, 2021 7:14 pm I will. But I doubt I’ll ever see him again. I sold my bikes and he is retired anyway. Maybe he’ll google his own name and find this thread, and know we both are thinking of him.

That cross sounds cool.

I looked where I thought it was hung(in my wife's stained glass room)and it wasn't there I will check and see where she hid it and post a picture of it.

knife7knut · Post by **knife7knut** » Wed Jan 20, 2021 9:19 pm

Today it snowed and is bitter cold outside so I am foregoing doing any work in the shop today and decided to go through some old pictures. One of the files in my documents is titled,"Old paint 1950's through 1970's". It is basically a chronicle of some of my paint work starting around 1956 when I was still practicing and hadn't striped my first car yet.
That occurred in August of 1957 on my friend Dick's 1950 Mercury. coupe.After an aborted attempt to paint it red(a long story for another time)it was cleaned up and a quickie paint job done on it by his older brother's friend who worked in a body shop.
As we were not allowed in the driveway anymore and the car wouldn't fit in the 1930's era garage it was decided to stripe it parked on the street.
Unfortunately for me the car was parked on a raised portion of the road so it sat at an angle.As my design was vertically oriented I wound up with a design that tilted like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.It could not be erased as the paint that had been shot on it was enamel and still soft. Add to the fact that the car was a sort of semi-gloss black and the daytime temperature in August was approaching 90 degrees.Dial in the fact that there were no shade trees around either and you have a working surface that you could literally fry an egg on!
Somehow I managed to get striping put on the hood and trunk;over the headlights and around the tail lights and dashboard and even some brushed on flames coming from the front wheel wells. I stood back and looked at my work;ignoring the obvious tilt of the designs and thought:" I'M A PINSTRIPER!".
I must have impressed someone because when Dick's friend Billy saw it he asked me to do some striping on his 51 Pontiac convertible. And that was the start of my business that I like to call my,"profitable hobby". Every time I pick up a brush to do some work on a car I think of that Mercury.
One of the pictures in here is the striping I did on the foot board of my bed around 1956. It is hard to see because it is done in light blue Red Devil enamel and the picture was taken much later. Another is a cartoon car I painted on my grandfather's cap that I gave him for his birthday in 1961 or 62. I found the hat in my mother's apartment when I was cleaning it out after she died.
A couple are of a T roadster I painted for a friend of mine in 1961 that was the first car I ever did that wound up in a magazine(Hot Rod December 1963).A couple of shirts that I did with Magic Markers in the Navy in 1965. A couple of helmets I painted for friends in the late 1960's that they still own.Several race cars that I striped and lettered in the late 1960's and early 1970's.
One of my first forays into painting in miniature(or at least really small);a Tonka truck for a friend's nephew done in 1974.He still has it.A motorcycle I painted in my (ex)wife's parents living room and another in my own living room.Got gold leaf everywhere!
A refrigerator in our first apartment around 1970 and a car I painted for a company I worked for occasionally that built race cars.
And finally a series of pictures showing my friend Charlie's T roadster being prepped and painted with flames in his living room(!) in 1974. His wife is STILL finding traces of yellow enamel overspray!
A display I did for my cousin Dick for his maroon 1932 Ford roadster show car.The name of the car was,"Big Boy's Toy" so we created a scene with a backdrop that represented the end of a model car box.For props we made a giant tube of glue by taking a piece of stovepipe and soldering a metal funnel to one end and flattening the other.Painted it up.We also did a giant spray can by taking a cardboard30 gal. barrel and affixing a coffee can to the top to simulate a nozzle and painted it up.Won quite a few shows with that one. That was around 1971.
Hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I did painting.