According to an article published in The Guardian, ‘ghost signs’ are typically hand-painted advertising signs or old shop signs from the late 19th or early to mid-20th centuries preserved on buildings that have since changed use. To be precise and adhere to this definition, I have also included ‘vintage signs’ in the title of this page.

Old signs are among the most fascinating ‘traces of the past’ that can be found in cities. Fortunately, many blogs, pages, and websites document them around the world. I find them particularly interesting when they preserve a memory of a past that is gone forever, such as signs in Yiddish and Polish in Lviv, Ukraine, or signs in German in Wroclaw, Poland.

When compared with the beauty and diversity of signs found in U.S. cities or in French cities, ghost signs in Budapest are rather scarce and modest. Fortunately, there are also plenty of newer signs from the socialist period that are also very interesting to spot.