Sharpies Golf House Sign, Heritage neon sign in Surry Hills, Sydney, Australia
The Sharpies Golf House Sign is a neon display featuring a glowing golfer swinging and hitting a ball next to illuminated text letters. The figure and text together form a dynamic composition that originally sat atop a roof in Surry Hills.
The sign was made between 1958 and 1964 by Consolidated Neon and sat above a golf business for decades. It was taken down in 2007 and moved to the Powerhouse Museum collection in 2014 due to safety concerns.
The sign represents a chapter in Australian retail and advertising history from the mid-1900s. It shows how businesses once competed for attention using bright neon displays.
The sign can be viewed today at the Powerhouse Museum in a climate-controlled setting. Visitors should check ahead to see if special exhibitions or tours highlight the piece.
Hidden under its fiberglass shell is a sturdy steel skeleton that shows the hands-on engineering work that once went into neon signs. This old craft has largely disappeared as modern advertising has moved to other methods.
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