Collectors focus on antique signs because they are colorful, humorous, and offer a glimpse into the day-to-day life of our ancestral counterparts. Antique signs might advertise medicine, soda pop, tobacco, or an entire mercantile store. In the days before radio and television commercials, products had to rely on in-store displays, banners, cards, and packaging to attract customers. Many of these kinds of signs survive, minus the original products, to educate and entertain antique collectors. Other types of signs are generated by the government for informative purposes, such as traffic signs or names of streets, towns, and parks.

Hobbyists could focus on collecting signs only from a certain city at a certain time, for instance Philadelphia during the Great Depression. Other hobbyists might try to recreate the effect of walking down a street in their own living room. They'd decorate with signs for the barber, tobacconist, pharmacist, the local newspaper office, and the gas station. A retro, vintage, or kitsch look can be accomplished by careful selection of antique signs related by era, company, geography, or theme. Someone could decorate a lodge, conceivably, with old National Forest highway signs, combined with Smokey the Bear public service notices.

We are curious about what used to excite, tempt, or inform past generations. Were our grandparents attracted to cherubs promising the sweetest chocolate? Did they react to catchy slogans selling straight razors? Victorian signs might appeal to people's moral sense of cleanliness and chastity. Signs explaining appliances of the 50s, though, would highlight the futuristic, timesaving mechanisms for the modern family. We learn about values and customs of a generation by interpreting advertising.

We also can study the actual methods of sign making, such as ink and stamps needed in printing or fonts and colors chosen for their originality. Each era calls to mind its own font styles, icons, borders, or illustrative design, as immediately recognized as a certain company's emblem. Signs are made out of paper, tin, wood, and might hang flat, wrap around containers, or integrate into display cases. Some signs were combined with a clock or thermometer to encourage shopkeepers to keep them in view. These characteristics teach us about the evolving technology of sign making, indicative of an entire era in manufacturing.