1940s period outdoor advertising

I’m looking to find period outdoor advertising pictures from 1940 to 1944 that I can print and use on my HO NYC Railroad. I’ve used various search engines to no avail and I’d rather not use commercially available reproduction decals and such in order to keep expenses down. Thanks!

Look at your local Library for good resources you can scan and print out what you are looking for.Ed

Try here:
http://www.trainweb.org/tylick/signintro.htm
Regards, Bill

Hi, Matt! I’ve found a great source for such signs - old Popular Science and/or Mechanics magazines from the 30’s and 40’s. My dad bought a big box full at a flea market for a few dollars. When he was done thumbing through them, I took them and cut out all sorts of neat things!Lots of industrial type ads… Some are HO scale billboard size, some very small, and everything in between. I used several “signs” from different ads from the same company to do a building - from the big sign on the roof, to the smaller one above the door, to the ones on the panel truck sides! Now, most of these are black and white, but I got a cheap set of colored pencils, and colred these “signs” in here and there. They look great and are definitely authentic! I use a little white glue as adhesive… You can probably find these period magazines on eBay.

Another great source is older National Geographic magazines, especially for Coca-Cola and and automotive advertising. You can always find these at yard sales and flea markets cheap. I hate to cut them up though so I scan them, size them and print the out on a color printer…Vic

There is a really terriffic source in the National Geographic on disks, everything from 1888 to last month or so.
print out and or send image to a photo editing program for beautiful results sized just right.
also a paint or draw program can tint the pics.
Doug

Hey Bill! thanks for the advice on the 40’s period signage. That website is AWESOME. I’ve started an archive and have "collected " quite a bit so far

Matt