Promotional Pieces Take Center Stage at Rockabilly
Signs, promotional merchandise, and country store classics kept bidders busy throughout the Rockabilly sale.
The Advertising, Americana, and Automobilia Auction at Rockabilly Auction Co. this past March featured what they described as “an extensive variety of quality collectibles.” The auction offered neon, porcelain, tin, and cardboard signs, as well as advertising clocks, thermometers, gas pumps, and gas globes. The variety continued with country-store display cases, hardware cabinets, barber-shop poles, pedal cars, and coin-op machines.
Advertising signs from stores, restaurants, gas stations, and garages made up much of the sale, joined by a wide variety of promotional merchandise bearing familiar company names. This subset of advertising includes functional products bearing a company’s name and/or logo. Consumers can purchase these items, win them in sweepstakes, or get them as giveaways and use them around the house.
25.5” L × 26.5” W × 20” H, $2,800.
The promotional merchandise in Rockabilly’s auction included a wide variety of items, such as the Frank Tea and Spice Co. five-drawer wood spice cabinet. This well-crafted wood cabinet features the original painted graphics and finger pulls. The large text on the drawer fronts advertises the company’s name and its “highest grade” ground spices. Each drawer also displays smaller text listing spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, pepper, and cayenne. The cabinet opened at just $50, before cooking up a total of $2,800.
Father Time was well represented, with advertising clocks in a variety of styles. The Pine State Dairy Products double-bubble light-up clock, featuring the company name in white and a light-green pine tree in the center, realized $650. The double-bubble glass face lights up, giving the interior a warm teal glow, and the black clock numbers on the outer perimeter are illuminated against a white background. A Tastee-Freez Time light-up clock advertising soft-serve ice cream sold for $475. It has a white background with red numbers and an ice cream cone above the Tastee-Freez logo, which glows softly when lit.
The long-running Coke-Pepsi rivalry was reflected in a pair of complementary lots. A set of two Pepsi folding chairs invites people to “Relax Have a Pepsi” via text on the back supports, along with the image of a Pepsi bottle cap and “The light refreshment” text. The painted metal chairs with blue-and-white striped seat cushions sold for $400. A “Drink Coca-Cola in Bottles” picnic cooler brought $150. The red vinyl cooler, in original condition, features the catchphrase on both sides, a bottle opener affixed to one side, and an interior tray.
Keeping tabs on more than the weather, advertising thermometers promoted a variety of businesses. Among the few round thermometers in the auction, the Franklin Fire and Marine Insurance and E.R. Werdin examples were offered together as one lot. The larger thermometer features a glass face with a metal can and the Franklin Fire Insurance Company logo at its center, while the smaller example has a glass face and metal housing. “The pair sold for $175. A 1946 Drink Royal Crown Cola” RC thermometer with an intact tube closed at $375. The solid red piece has a yellow arrow pointing up, showing the thermometer, with “Best by Taste-Test” text at the bottom.
25.5” L × 9.5” W, $375.
A Chadwick’s Spool Cotton wooden display cabinet with multiple compartments for thread sold for $700. The top opens on hinges to reveal more slots for thread, and the original Chadwick’s Spool Cotton logo is on the top front portion of the cabinet and across the backside.
Beyond these featured lots, numerous other advertising signs, store displays, promotional pieces, and country-store antiques crossed the auction block, reflecting the wide variety of advertising memorabilia offered throughout the sale.
For additional results, visit rockabillyauction.com.
Images courtesy Rockabilly Auction Co.
