Eat Colman's Mustard With... Enamel Sign

In the early 1800s, Jeremiah Colman began making mustard at a water mill near Norwich (England)... Jeremiah founded Colman's of Norwich in 1814. From 1855 the firm introduced its distinctive yellow packaging and bull's head logo, and in 1866 was granted the Royal Warrant as manufacturers of mustard to Queen Victoria. (the Royal household still uses Colman's!).

This small enamel sign was produced in 1933 (date marker just visible in the lower right, pictured) - it's one of the more unusual Colman's Mustard enamel signs "Eat Colman's Mustard with our noted cooked meats, pies etc and enjoy them more" - an awful lot more going on with this one than the usual, very simple "Colman's Mustard'. I've seen this version with a white background and the dark blue background we have here.

It's survived the decades in good order; there's slight fading to the red enamel layer used for "our noted..." (mainly to the left side) and the outer edge is slightly corroded - I'd guess it was displayed in a frame that trapped moisture around the edges. There's light surface scratches and a couple of losses along the upper edge but all of this said the colours remain fantastically vibrant and the surface is wonderfully glossy ... so much so that with the deep blue background acting like a mirror it's a challenge to photograph without reflections of everything. On this note - the 'hazing' in the upper corners in the main photograph is mainly where the sign has caught the lighting - if you look at the angled photographs you'll see that the upper corners are about the same as the rest of the sign.

It measures 55.5cm wide x 35.5cm high.