Red and White Hand-painted Fire Exit Arrow Sign with Perfect Patina Planters I am not quite sure

I am not quite sure whether to call this a button or a sign or a what--it is celluloid like a button

Very good condition overall - the backing papers show stains here and there but really not detracting at all

Another curious tool

and one of them is carved wooden whimsies like this chain

but I think it’s a wonderful object

Red and White Hand-painted Fire Exit Arrow Sign with Perfect Patina Planters I am not quite sureIn my younger days I spent some time as an art critic, and I can't look at this terrific Fire Exit sign now without wanting to write about it in conceptual terms, though I'm pretty certain that was not its maker's intent! But whether or not fully aware, what they definitely managed to do was to create a very singular copy of a ubiquitous utilitarian sign a gorgeously painterly version that as such also (re)invests the language of the sign with new and