Hello

I am in the middle of building this city house in 1:72 scale:



The house is supposed to be in France or Belgium during the second world war. The ground floor will be a shop or café of some sort, and for that purpose I am looking for some help.

I need a sign over the door saying café, brasserie, tobacconist or something like that in French, and some interiour pictures to fill in the windows. Some commercials would be nice as well, to liven it up.

Thanks in advance....

I could do with a translation in French for general store, while your at it. Thanks Andy.

Here some travel posters that may help.

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BTW , café, brasserie are french words, "tobacconist" translates as"buraliste".
"General Store" is "Épicerie générale" . according to babel fish
hope this helps
Bruce

Tobacconist is TABAC ...Jim

"General store" could be translated into "quincaillerie", It depends on the size of the shop. "quicaillerie" would be OK for a small shop, "bazar" could be used as well, for a larger shop. The problem is that "general stores" are something typically anglo-saxon, not French....

Frenchy

Do they speak French in Belgium or is it Dutch? Perhaps it's dependent on which border you are closest?

They speak French in the southern part of Belgium and Dutch in the North. There are Bilingual areas as well. There is also a small portion of the contry that speaks German.
Cheers,
Bryan

From the 20s to the 50s you could find a lot of enamelled advertising signs in French cities streets. A good source for them are collectors websites like this one :
http://www.ifrance.com/pubemail/TRESORS/FRAMETUK.HTM

I'm not a Photoshop expert but I'm sure some could turn the pictured signs to good account....

To Alan : according to my dictionnary, Belgians speak French, Flemish.....and German. So you'd better check a map before "locating" a Belgian dio...

Frenchy

Thanks a lot for your help, especially the link from Frenchy was very helpful.

Once again Armorama proves its worth, two hours after my question, I now have all the signs and commercial to make a nice liquer store, Vins de Postillon. I'll take some interior pics myself in an old liquer store in Copenhagen to place in the windows.

More pics will follow, and thanks again!

HI,
please take a look at:
www.cpa77.com is a huge collection of french postcards of turn of century that depicts towns from Marne department. around 13.500 photos. alot of these postcards depicts the main street of these towns with is shops.
hope that this helps
Carlos

Cheers guys, you have been most helpful.

Thanks Carlos, that site is a great source of inspiration.

Lookin' to the type of windows, it looks like more belgian than french...Even for the north area !
And although it 's named " guillotine windows "...!
Btw, if you use " tabac ", don' t forget the red double pointed " carrot " sign...Most french " Café-Tabacs " show it . ( This sign came from the plug of tobacco: " carotte de tabac ", in french, methink )