The Brown Derby Sign Restoration

As of this writing, this is easily the most famous neon sign for which I have done restoration work.  This sign, from the late 1920s, originally hung over the entrance door to the first Brown Derby restaurant, the famous "Hat," on Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles.  It has long been in the hands of a private collector, who finally decided to have the long-missing neon tubes replicated.  His choice was to leave the original metal sign cabinet as-is, with layers of paint, chipped in some places, because of all the Hollywood and Los Angeles history and personalities that paint had witnessed.  Originally, the neon glowed red, but this collector felt that--although authentic--it would be too jarring and "hot" a color for where the sign would be displayed in their house.  This collector had been a friend of the late Sally Cobb--co-founder of the Brown Derby--who had once told him the neon had lit in white, according to her memory.  Perhaps it was changed to white as some point, but early color photographs indicate red.  The earliest neon signs, of which this is one, contained neon in clear glass tubes, producing a red color.  In any case, the collector chose to have tubes of clear green glass made.  I was brought on the scene to draw the paper patterns, from which the glass bender would shape the tubes.