Wednesday, March 4, 2015

The Commercial Movie Poster Sign

About 5 years ago now, I got my hands on this big commercial movie poster sign left over from a local Video Store that was closing down. I actually got two of them, but sold one soon after to a neighbour after giving it a once-over.



I haven't looked at this one in a while and decided to pull it out of storage. The unit is in good working order and the actual condition of the sign is also in pretty good shape. This thing stands at least 5 feet tall, 3 feet wide and a foot deep. It probably weighs about 40 to 50 lbs. The marquee lamps around the outside are custom to the sign, unfortunately, so I suspected that it would cost a fair chunk to replace the burned out ones. It has two industrial hooks on top and the sign is double-sided (so it can take two posters). However, the marquee lamps are only on one side of it.

So, instead of buying new bulbs, I replaced them with cheap LED's and the substitute worked pretty well for a while. They looked good and I was able to fill all of the sockets. The problem was that the LED's are not authentic and they tended to burn out quickly. I still had a handful of the original bulbs and replaced about a quarter of the LED's with what I still had in original bulbs. I admit that the original bulbs still look better.



I haven't decided yet if I am interested in putting the money into getting new bulbs for this thing or not. The company that manufactured it is still in business and still makes signage (BASS Industries located in the USA). You can still get the bulbs from the manufacturer, I'm sure. I figured this sign is almost 20 years old.

Without a poster in it, it is REALLY bright to the eyes and would probably make a good ceiling lamp if mounted sideways. That would probably make a pretty unique feature to a Man Cave or Rec Room. I am on the fence about selling it as is to pool my money towards things I am more interested in. In my last house, we had it hanging in the family room with it's own custom light switch on the wall. But we hardly ever turned it on.