It seems like after the American Pickers show that everyone wants a piece of history hanging up. I was at my local Cracker-Barrel yesterday and noticed this.



An Original Texaco Skychief PPP and 5 different Imperial quarts.

I thought this was interesting because they never had this there before. And also it is interest that all the cans were Imperial quarts...
I live in Ohio so you dont see them..

Anyways just thought I would share with the collecting world. Now i can just start picking up stuff at the surrounding Cracker-Barrel's!!!!

Most of the cracker barrels I've been in have advertising. They used to sell them off the walls before they became mainstream. I've seen some very nice pieces in cracker barrels. The company itself has warehouses devoted to decor for its restaurants and caters to each particular location with items customers from the area would remember if they grew up there. I know this because I asked one of the regional managers for Cracker Barrel.

Here in Colorado all Cracker Barrels have petroliana displayed I once spoke to the Manager at the Loveland restaurant and was told that the Cracker Barrel has the second largest collection of antiques and is only rivaled by the Smithsonian museum and that nothing that they have is for sale unfortunately because they have some very nice pieces.

I attended a T.G.I. Fridays restaurant auction 4 or 5 years ago. They were selling everything off the walls. I purchased several vintage petroleum signs but 70% of the products were not old. Mostly photocopy images placed in older wood frames.
The manager of that location said they had people purchase and create products for the restaurant chain and a large warehouse stored them all until needed.
Sounds like a similar situation for Cracker Barrel.

Many of those signs that Fridays had are kind of hard to tell that they are reproductions. They have infiltrated the collectors market and are spread around. When you see a bunch of them together you can tell they are a gimmick but when you see one by itself its easy to get sucked in. They had a lot of them that you wouldnt imagine would be duplicated. Hotel signs with room rates. Young Ladies finishing school ect.... Painted on tin. Various medium sizes, like 2foot by 3 foot.

A zaxby's restaurant close to me was broken into a couple of years ago and somebody stole two coca cola sings that were reproductions , The 4ft coca cola button was plastic and the 4 ft bottle sign was a tin litho .Crooks need to do there homework.

Sadly, these have a good chance of showing on KRAK LIST as "RARE Antiques "..................... !!!!!!!!!!!! Ed Shaver

I stayed far away from bidding on any sign if I had any doubt it was real. A bidder know to me did bid on many of the items that looked legit to him. Only days later they appeared in his space within a local antique mall marked at high prices.

The sleeper of the auction was a GULFFLEX sign made with blue porcelain letters mounted on two rails. I was the only bidder. I guess nobody in the room knew what GULFLEX was.