One good way to check is to do a search for the brand or business shown on the sign. It may be less effective for some things, like the detective agency, but in a fairly widely collected field like fishing stuff it should work well. As an example his "chief pequa bait hooks" sign. Searched for "chief pequa bait hooks" and the only things that showed up were the signs, and another one for baits and lures. It would be really crazy if there was a brand that had signs made, but that didn't have enough sales for any of the product or packaging to survive.
Another way is to look at the item and see if it makes sense.
His auto dealer sign makes little sense. A dealership has a metal sign made- sometime after or during 1970 (The car shown is a 1970 Chevelle SS) And that sign shows a car that makes the sign dated after the current model year - maybe it's ok for another year or two, but Chevy updated the overall look regularly. And since they show a Chevelle, you'd assume they're a Chevy dealer. But there's no indication of it at all, not even a Chevy logo.
So in context the sign makes no sense. Maybe there were places that were dealers that didn't promote the primary brand, but that might not have even been allowed by Chevrolet.
If the items don't make sense, then I'd have to really look hard at his other items as being just modern decorative items as well.*
*There are always outliers, but they're unsual and someone having a bunch of those outliers should also seem suspect.
Steve B
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