A BLAST from the PAST …

This looks like an old, broken-down real estate sign … and it is; but, it’s a whole lot more than that. It’s actually a trip down memory lane.

On my last trip North to visit my daughter and her husband I was shocked to see this sign in their home. It immediately took me back to the late 1960’s and to the small “Mom and Pop Real Estate Agency” that my husband and I owned then.

When I asked where they had found the sign my daughter said that it was a big shock to her too. She’d found it at a sale where the owner had it high up on an inside shelf of his barn. I believe it was the farm that we’d sold back in the 60’s.

I do know that I was the one who had hand-painted that sign on a white piece of tin all those many years back. (and proudly adhered the “SOLD” portion to it, too !)

Those were the years when it was still possible to have a small, home run Real Estate Agency. We did do some co-brokering but Multiple Listing and the takeover by large, mega financed Agencies was still in the future.

My husband had been a free lance photographer when we met and married in NY City in 1958. He had to give this up due to his Type 1 Diabetes and we’d moved to the country. He still retained his logo though …


The Art Director of Swissair was a good friend of ours and he had designed it. You may notice that it’s actually my husband’s initials in lower case…rd. It had worked especially well for him in the city because it seemed to resemble a camera, but we always liked it and we retained it when he got his Broker’s license.

Now it’s over 40 years later but, thanks to a beat-up old sign, the memories are as fresh as ever.