Neon Americana owner holding final sale to liquidate collection of vintage, custom-design pieces

[Erik Sine]

Neon Americana owner holding final sale to liquidate collection of vintage, custom-design pieces

By Chris Knape | The Grand Rapids Press

November 25, 2009, 8:30AM

Photos by Jon M. Brouwer | The Grand Rapids

PressIan Macartney, owner of Neon Americana, is shutting his business down and moving to

South Carolina.

GRAND RAPIDS -- Neon Americana, a company that has crafted distinctive neon signs and clocks for businesses around the country for more than 20 years, is preparing to turn off the brightly lit storefront. A sale from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the 510 Leonard St. NW storefront that the business has occupied since 1989 will liquidate much of the remaining inventory of vintage and custom-design neon signs, Lumichron wall clocks, tubing and accessories.

Owner and founder Ian Macartney said you only need to look at today's largely neon-free commercial corridors to know why the business is closing.

"I got into it in the '70s and '80s," he said. "Now it is almost completely gone. It is akin to being a buggy whip maker."

At one time, he had 12 employees. Lately, it's just him, with help from his wife, Karen, and their son, Kier.

Many neon signs used today are either mass produced at Chinese factories or are only neon-like signs that use fluorescent or LED lighting.

Macartney said Chinese companies even copied some of his clock designs, selling them for a fraction of what they cost him to produce.

Among the offerings at the sale are first runs of clocks custom made for companies such as Harley-Davidson, Trek Bicycles and TAG Heuer watches.

The original Dog 'N' Suds neon sign that Ian

Macartney restored more than 25 years ago.

There's also an original Dog 'N' Suds neon sign that Macartney restored more than 25 years ago, tubes used in the original Weather Ball in downtown Grand Rapids, a star from an old Holiday Inn sign and several neon sculptures that Macartney made over the years.

Odds and ends include dozens of vintage mixers and blenders and Cadillac hub caps that were, at one time, intended to be dressed in neon along with drafting tables and other related equipment.

Janet Ramsey and Kyle Laitila, of Estate Sale Junkies, are coordinating the liquidation sale.

Prices will range from $1,000 for the Dog 'N' Suds sign to a few dollars for an old, but usable tube or sign.

Macartney said he'll continue to make and repair neon signs on Leonard Street until the store closes when its lease expires at the end of January.

After that, he's heading to Charleston, S.C., where he will merge his commercial Lumichron clock-making business with Christoph Paccard, a maker of bells, chimes and carillons.

Macartney said he understands the changing trends.

"It's just hard to believe I lived through the complete life cycle of a product," he said. "There were guys who were neon craftsmen in the '30s when I started this business saying, 'Why mess with neon?' Back then I thought, 'Wow, this is so cool -- tubes of light.'"

Macartney's custom work can be found all over the state.

Portions of Celebration Cinemas' distinctive neon designs were his. He also helped restore the old neon Regent Theatre marquee in Allegan and Richmond Stamp's sign in downtown Grand Rapids (which he considers the last vintage neon sign in downtown).

His most recent major job was the pink and purple neon tubes that adorn Showgirls Galleria, an adult club on Market Street.

"The trend for doing it is gone," he said. "No one is interested."

Well, not exactly no one. Joe Bultuis, owner of Neon Leon in Comstock Park, will be among a handful of companies doing custom sign work.

"It's gotta turn around at some point," said Bultuis, adding that he stays afloat as a one-man shop concentrating on high-quality custom work.

[Brian]

I don't think it is as gloom and doom as he says

[fishing nut]

I dont either. If you wait for customers to come into a store then yes. It;'s like anything else. go out and get it because people are lazy and the less they have to do the better no matter what the quality is.

To me it sounds like tired of one trinket and moving to another.