You know, although scooters are pretty small, they do take up some space in the garage. At some point, if you are not Jay Leno, you max out space for storage. At that point, what do you do if you still are crazy for scooters? Well, you start collecting scooter-related memorabilia. I've been doing it for years. I was inspired by a good friend of mine, Ansgar Fulland in Germany, who built one of the best alltime scooter sites, Vespa Das Archiv. He had collected brochures, and when I saw his collection of memorabilia and it really impressed me with its quality. He was also one of the first to scan brochures and paper material and put it up on the net. Well, I took that inspiration, and have built my own modest collection.
Here is a photo of one of my most recent aquisitions. It is (obviously) a Lambretta dealer sign. There are a few things that set this sign apart. First, is the fact that it is a US market only sign. There are quite a few of the big heavy porcelain European Lambretta signs that I have seen, but very few of these lighter US signs have survived. Second, is the non-obvious fact that this sign is NOS, or "new old stock". This sign has never been hung. It was in the original packing cardboard box from the manufacturer up until about six months ago. There is a slight bit of edge damage from storage at one corner, but otherwise this sign is perfect. It would be hard to find a better one. I'd been looking for one of these signs for at least a decade, and I'm happy that I finally found this one!