Happy accident

This week we had two accidents. One was not too happy. It ended up with 26 stitches in my mom's knee. She is recovering about as well as can be expected and is in good spirits.

War-time Atlanta - note mosts signs have black letters on light backgrounds.

The other was not as serious and fortunately ended up with a happy outcome. I painted the sign on the Tobacco Prizery using a white background with black letters. A survey of antebellum and ACW era photos shows this was the most common style of painted signs on buildings.  I used a laser-cut stencil with two sided tape. As I was peeling back the laser-cut stencil, some of the white acrylic paint background came off. The effect was that of peeling paint. It looked authentic, so I did not touch up the peeled spots. A happy accident!

I did a little research to find a typical name. I went with B. Gordon Tobacco Storage Co.  Bazil Gordon, had factories and warehouses in Falmouth VA where he exported tobacco and cotton. According to Wikipedia, "In 1847, Bazil Gordon had died: At the end of his life, when he had finally finished accumulating wealth, his net worth was estimated in the millions, which, for the time, was large. By 1847, no other American had recorded a financial worth over a million dollars; it is for this reasoning that Gordon is believed and known for being the first millionaire in America."