A friend of mine picked this up at a flea market (i.e., boot sale) last week and sent it to me.



It looks like a reproduction of a magazine cover. The Motorcycle. November 10, 1938. No. 1857. Vol. 61. But it's a piece of tin, with a hole in each corner for mounting on a post or wall in a garage, like vintage signs/advertising. It looks vintage, although I suppose it could've been produced recently. Is this something that could've been hanging in a BSA shop? Was that a common thing to do? Or the work of a modern hobbyist? Thoughts?

They are modern repros...I have the same one on the back of my workshop door...

You will probably find them on the internet...There is something similar if you look on the 'Sump' magazine website...Danny (who runs 'Sump') does a range of different designs...Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

Aha. Thanks, Ian.

Around 1990 the first paint jet printer hit the market.
They were horribly expensive and a PIA to clean.
By 2000 they were down to about $ 5000 and the first floating head model came out that could paint a pannel door so it looked flat and a flat door so it looked panneled it could also paint directly onto glass.
Since about 2000 any motorcycle or car related advertisment, catalogue / brouchure has been reproduced to death.
A lot of the images come off evilbay, craigslist, trading post, auction catalogues etc.
the perspective warp and warp correction was a feature of photoshop CS2 so any image from anywhere is a target.

You can get them from A2 size for around $ 30 Aust right down to on the sides of a zippo cigerette lighter.

So yes that image was originally a BSA ad it then went on to be used by Bacon on the BSA Gold Star & other singles book.


The paint is only good for around 5 year in the sunlight then it starts to fade unless they have put a clear fixer over the top .
In 2008 one of my customers got a vertical machine that will paint the side of any vehicle, car , truck, train, motorcycle whatever.
They use it to replace adheasive mylar sinage that they used to make,

Amazing gear,it lazer scans the side of the vehicle then you place the sign where you want it and the machine paints it on,compensating for any surface irregularaties so for instance a union jack on a sheet of corragated iron would look like all the lines were strait.

Motorcycle related it can paint motorcycle tanks including the pinlining and any decal that would be on there as a single coat of paint.

Down side was the owner died ( aged 42 ) while playing week end amateur footbal and the gear went up to Queensland before he had finished my round tank.

email (option): bsansw1@tpg.com.au

And to answer your question.
NO it would never have graced the walls of a showroom.
BSa would have paid the Motorcycle to run that cover.
Then it was common practice to have an extra few hundred ( or thousand ) run off.
In te trade it is called a "run on" then several pages of road tests or favourable editorial would be bond inside as a booklet to be distributed to dealers ( who would have paid for them ) to be handed out to potential customers & gotten nicked by light fingered lads .

email (option): bsansw1@tpg.com.au

Interesting stuff about the painting machines...

No wonder it's hard to find a signwriter these days..and soon the guys that made the vinyl signs that took the work from signwriters will be gone as well by the look of it..

Someone better invent a machine that can apply gold leaf... ...Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

That was the problem with doing the round tank
Initally we tried doing it as a wrap and that worked out well except for the gold.
The only gold we could get was a spot colour gold at $ 150/ liter.
However it would not take properly on the mylar and the green and black both bleed into it ( Std & deluxe tanks ).
When we cranked up the saturation it promptly blocked the nozels, but it is only a matter of time.
Like the 1st class machinist, the signwriters days are numbered.

By now the vertical machines would be portable and probably able to be stuck on a shop window with suction cups.

And on the subject of vinal letter cutters.
Replace the knife with a chisel point pen and they can be used to forge signatures.
And the only way to pick them is because they all were exactly the same,,,,, untill Photoshop warp became commercially available.

Watch for a rash of long lost hand written manuscripts of books the historical schollars never wrote turning up at fine art auctions in the near future

email (option): bsansw1@tpg.com.au