Back in the early 1970's, I bought J.C. Gury Company. We sold aluminum signs to go on bell boxes and window decals. J.C. Gury was a sizeable company in California selling in the Hollywood and Beverly Hills areas to high income clientele. These areas consisted of long-time loyal customers who purchased large quantities of decals and bell box signs.
At the time, we were only selling bell box signs and decals in California. One day, someone called me and asked if I had any stakes - I thought they were looking for meat steaks. No, they were looking for real estate stakes. I was able to find some heavy steel stakes from a real estate supply company. The customer bought 500 of these heavy duty real estate stakes. They put the aluminum signs on the stakes and then put them in the front yard of houses where they had installed a security system. This was the start of security yard signs. Later, we moved to an aluminum extruded stake that we use today for yard signs.
The company that started the yard signs was named Morse Signal in North Hollywood, California. It took a while to sell the idea of a yard sign to security dealers, but advertising was the major reason to use the signs. The signs also acted as a deterrent to the everyday average burglar, even though the pro could still get in with no problem.
Security dealers across the country started seeing the benefits of using the signs while attending state trade shows. The signs have paid big dividends to the security industry.
