Signs of the Times ... slowly fading away.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

I’m interested in old buildings, architecture,  the history of places.

It’s wonderful to see how buildings evolve in style and function, how they change with the times (or don’t).

I particularly like old advertising… and chanced upon this one whilst out on a walk one day.

The unexpected thing about this one is that I found it on what looks like an ordinary house, in an ordinary street full of houses, and not in a shopping street as I might have expected.

There are two signs, a long one and a short one. The short sign is easy enough: “wijnen” means “wines”, but the longer sign has deteriorated to the point where it is no longer legible.

I’ve tried guessing, but there are too many possibilities and combinations to be able to make sense of it at all.

I wonder when this was a business, when, for how long and why it stopped being one.

One thing is clear: businesses going out of business (for whatever reason) are nothing new… it’s being going on for decades, centuries and probably millennia.

Lack of heirs to take over the business?  lack of customers?  fell on hard times?  or suffered ill health? or maybe the owners went on to better or different things? … or simply moved somewhere else.

Who knows? It’s all part of the mystery.

The mystery remains, and will do so until the final letters slowly  fade away entirely.

Then no one will even know that a mystery had even existed….

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)