Master Chef “We Serve” hand-painted sign

Debbie Keneson turned up a large hand-painted Master Chef board: a thin plywood panel, roughly 4 by 8 feet, with a red field and white Master Chef hand-painted display lettering (thick-stroked, mixed-case brush work — not the same serif/script the tin cans use) and a WE SERVE line across the top. A small black diagonal banner tucks into the M with yellow H and H type; the word COFFEE in black block capitals sits inside a yellow sunburst in the lower right, and a cartoon mustached chef in a toque and knotted neckerchief fills the lower left — a distinct portrait from the open-faced grinning chef on the tin cans — the tin logo’s chef is rosy-cheeked and jolly with a thin upturned moustache; the sign’s chef carries a heavy downturned handlebar and a more direct, less cartoon-jolly expression. Nail heads show along the top and bottom edges, and a bit of wood grain and scuffing reads through the paint—an on-premise sign, not a later reprint. We paid the three hundred dollars in July 2014 for the piece on her West Texas circuit.