"REAL OLD PAPER," SAN FRANCISCO (Cheri)

Tourist areas can contain some surprising finds.

I had been looking for a quiet store  that I remembered just off of Columbus Avenue that used to sell vintage French items, also a woman that sold vintage posters in the Financial District.  The woman has retired, and I never determined whether the store off of Columbus is still open, but I found Real Old Paper, a seller of vintage posters and other paper!

I wouldn't have expected to find a shop of this sort in the block next to Ghirardelli Square, but there it was, on Beach Street.  I guess if you're trading items for disposable income, going where the tourists are isn't a bad idea.

(Here's a plaque that is attached to the CVS at the corner, documenting the old Dr. Pepper Bottling Company shop that used to be on the site, before waterfronts became prime real estate.)

We had a great time talking with the Real Old Paper proprietor, Andy:

as well as his buddy (co-owner?), who came in while we were shopping.

Here is a great Perrier water poster, created by Andy Warhol:

I decided to use my image, because it included part of a neighboring Yosemite poster, but the poster's true beauty is better reflected on the shop's very nice online store.

Anyone with Czech background would appreciate this railway poster:

I wished that I'd had a number of these postcards to send out before Thanksgiving:

But more than that, I longed for the day when people did things like that!

This postcard was an advertisement for a tour of Southern California:

Unfortunately I got some glare from the pocket that the postcard was in.

The back said, in part:  "All visitors want to see Pasadena, Long Beach, Naples, Alamitos Bay, and the orange groves."  Unfortunately, that tour was canceled.  Check the year on this message from the back of the card:

A couple of produce packing labels from Monterey Bay companies:

Did you recognize the work of the artist who created the mural captured in the poster at the top of this post?  He was Guillermo Granizo, who created the the mural on the Monterey Conference Center:

(Image Credit:  https://www.granizoart.com/autobiographical-murals.html)

You can see a video about the mural and its creation here.

Also, I believe because one of our friends, Don Kellogg, is an art appreciator, there is one of Granizo's murals, entitled "Water in Scripture," in the Seventh-Day Adventist church that we attended in Pacific Grove!

We bought the poster, which had just come into the shop three days earlier. 

There's a sad story associated with the San Francisco mural itself:

This mural was originally displayed on the side of a building that housed
Harcourt Galleries in an alley just off Powell St.  Granizo and his agents
looked for the right buyer for this piece but the mural was 18' x 14'.  
Granizo's eldest son decided to print posters of the murals and while doing so
offered to place the "Panorama" mural at the San Francisco Airport.  
The donation had to be approved by the San Francisco Art Commission and
then the SFO Airport Commission.

In the meantime, the mural was being stored in a warehouse and
sadly, the mural was destroyed.   Only small sections of the mural remain
and are held by the family.

You can read more about Granizo's very interesting life and murals here.