Signage, often hand-painted, for products and businesses that no longer exist
A ghost sign on a former bookstore called Nowości, which existed in the interwar period. Today the space houses a small store selling art and office supplies, among other things. Here’s a listing of the bookstore in a directory from 1939:
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Today I was very sad to discover that my favorite Soviet sign has vanished. This lovely fox sign, a remnant of a Soviet-era fur studio, used to protrude from my building, but as of recently, it’s been removed (and rather mysteriously I’d say because the storefront has been empty for […]
I was a bit surprised to find almost no ghost signs in Vienna. Here’s what I did find…
The trend of hand-painted signs continues on this newly renovated building on Lviv’s main square. This time, in addition to the usual Ukrainian, Polish, German, English translations, there is also French, Italian, Spanish, and Chinese. (Though there is a mistake in the Italian translation—should be “teatro” and not “theatre.”) A […]
I’ve been seeing more and more establishments use their facades to list the products that they sell or services that they provide, the old-school way. I particularly like it when the items are listed in several languages, as used to be done in Lviv before WWII. Before the languages used […]
Lviv, like most cities in the nineteenth century, needed chimney sweeps to keep chimneys clean from the soot that accumulated from burning coal. The bas-relief of a chimney sweep on Anhelovycha Street is one of the only reminders of the era of chimney sweeps. At the beginning of the twentieth […]
I found a new faux ghost sign on a shop that sells gold, silver, watches, and currency. The name of the shop is Ломбард (Lombard). The signs are in Polish and Ukrainian: Złoto (Gold) Srebro (Silver) Zegarki (Watches) Гроші (Money) Kantor (Currency exchange) This first example I’ve seen in Lviv […]
On Saturday I went on a bicycle excursion to the Pidzamche neighborhood in Lviv and found this amazing very recently uncovered ghost sign! It must have been uncovered in the last month because it wasn’t visible when I was wandering around this neighborhood in May. Judging from the sign, in […]
The building at 3 Drukarska Street was built c. 1543, and was owned by Stanislaw Schtansl Scholtz. The building later become known as “Under the Mother of God” because of a statue of the Virgin Mary on the façade. In 1858 the building housed the St. Sophia Association of the […]
Two ads for PKO [Poland’s largest bank], likely from the 1970s. The first one is advetising bankboos.
Modern hand-painted signs in Ivano-Frankivsk:
