FIRE CHIEF, Unusual and Excellent Old Brass Stencil with Aptly Black Patina vintage glove stretchers Some rippling to the paper

Some rippling to the paper from the pasting

I find it pretty transporting

As I tried to do some research into the history of railroad signals in order to date--and to fully understand

the second two in pencil--which I think do a pretty fantastic job bringing the story to life

FIRE CHIEF, Unusual and Excellent Old Brass Stencil with Aptly Black Patina vintage glove stretchers Some rippling to the paperI love old brass stencils bearing evocative words and phrases and am always looking for them, good for hanging like signs and fun to situate. This one I was delighted to find this week in Manchester, NH. I have 100% never come across a stencil reading FIRE CHIEF before, and curious that hyphen, too. As these were typically used for stenciling crates, and most often apple crates, it occurred to me that perhaps Fire Chief was the name of an apple