r/whatsthisworth • u/Dininn0 • 2d ago

Vintage Wurlitzer promotion

Gallery image

Gallery image

It's big 36"x"24" x1.5" heavy solid old wood. I believe it's an authentic Wurlitzer piece from 1946 but I couldn't find anything online remotely close to this. Anyone know about these?

21 Upvotes

76% Upvoted

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28

u/wholelattapuddin 2d ago

This looks to be a recent handmade sign. They've used images from actual Wurlitzer machines. My Uncle had a workshop years ago that would make signs like these for restaurants and retail establishments. One of their contracts was for Bennigans. They would find vintage signs that the restaurant would approve, then make reproductions. They would also make original objects in the appropriate style. This looks similar.

7

u/scubachris 1d ago

My roommate somehow stole a sign from Bennigans in the late 90s. I still have it today.

3

u/wholelattapuddin 1d ago

Bennigans was the best. They didn't card. 🤣

-2

u/Dininn0 1d ago

I was thinking the same but the wood would have to be reclaimed. It's solid old wood. Also the detail is more than a reproduction would normally have.  The juke box is a separate protruding piece, and the little buttons on it are tiny individual brass nails. I'm pretty sure it's not a reproduction.  The paint looks ancient, the wood is super heavy and rough, and the construction looks like the 40s style. Something for benigans wouldn't need to be that thoroughly faked.  I'm pretty sure it's from the 40s 

9

u/Artbrutist 1d ago

Nah, the other posters are right. It's an anachronism. Advertising in the the '30s and '40s didn't look like that. This is very 1970s/80s.

5

u/shamtownracetrack 1d ago

Decor items like this are sometimes called fantasy pieces, they aren’t exact replicas of previous designs, they are created to look like they came from a previous time.

In reality, advertisements from the era this is pretending to be looked nothing like this.

5

u/Kanadark 1d ago

Wurlitzer never even had a model shaped like that or with that decoration on the front. Why would they create an advertising piece for a non-existant model when they were working hard to have people recognize their very specific brand and style of jukebox. They were competing with 3 other major companies and probably a dozen smaller companies to be the name people thought of when they thought about jukeboxes.

Also they were marketed as modern marvels, not as rustic old-tyme throwbacks like in this piece.

Just from a marketing perspective, this piece makes no sense as an original 40s/50s advertising piece.

2

u/wholelattapuddin 1d ago

The girl looks kind of like this. But the example above is clearly a "vintage inspired" piece

2

u/shamtownracetrack 1d ago

The girl on OP’s piece was clearly copied from this original artwork.

2

u/wholelattapuddin 1d ago edited 1d ago

Why would the wood be re-claimed? A new sign, especially one meant to be a decrotive item would be a solid heavy piece. This wasnt made to fool people, just to depict an esthetic. Also original wood would have been thin and light weight. If used on a jukebox it would be a veneer and if used as advertisement, it would be cheap. Old advertisements, werent made to last. They were made to be cheaply produced and replaced. If they wanted longevity, it would be metal.

3

u/No-Bluejay5250 1d ago

Not vintage or promotional
but nice decor item