Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Zip-change letters

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-09-2019, 03:49 PM:

Does anyone have an online source where I could order individual zip-change letters? The only way our sign company sells them is in "packages" and all I need is some punctuation. (Periods, colons, commas, apostrophes, dashes.)

They want to sell me a whole array that includes way more than what we need. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 01-09-2019, 04:44 PM:

I got mine through https://geminisignletters.com/

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-09-2019, 07:08 PM:

Perfect, just what I was looking for. Thanks Jack!

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-10-2019, 12:43 AM:

Well I just got the bill from our sign company for the work on our marquee. (We had it re-wired, which was about 40 years overdue, plus swapped out our old hand-made letters for new zip-change letters.)

They charged me $1500 for a set of letters I could have gotten from the website above for $486. Same brand and everything.

I know venting here isn't going to do me any good, but it sure proves the value of shopping around. Lesson learned. I wish we weren't already using the damn things, I'd send them back.
[puke]

Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 01-10-2019, 09:48 AM:

Thats is a really large up charge.

However to play devils advocate for a minute consider that a local sign shop has an overhead they have to cover in order for them to be available (im assuming 24/7 for emergencies?) that online retailers don't have to. If there wasn't a local sign shop qualified to restore the marquee what would it have cost to fly someone in and put them up in a hotel and pay for other expenses such as meals for the time it took?

I'm not saying that a 1,000 up charge is reasonable here but I sometimes hear from people that feel certain parts are too expensive. In the case of a small run or one off projector part that has to be re-engineered and manufactured it can cost a lot more than what they sold for originally.

I know you are (or were) in the auto parts business to Mike so I know you get this and I am not trying to say this type of up charge for what seems to be a readily available product is defensible I am just trying to toss out some food for thought. [thumbsup]

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-10-2019, 12:24 PM:

Sure, I agree they are entitled to make money on what they sell, but I have a feeling they pay less to Gemini than what they sell for online.

But to me that markup seems excessive considering they already got a large chunk of money for the other work they did on the sign.

Who knows, maybe that's a customary amount of markup for a sign company. You're correct, I'm still in the auto parts business and our markup is usually 25 to 40%, except on "commodity" items like oil which is closer to 10-15%. But I've heard that jewelry stores get as much as a 200% markup. So who knows what a sign company gets. Maybe Bobby H. will chime in here.

Posted by Mike Croaro (Member # 3123) on 01-10-2019, 05:54 PM:

How many letters/numbers came in the $1500.00 set?

Posted by John Eickhof (Member # 323) on 01-10-2019, 08:31 PM:

hi mike, sorry i didnt see this thread sooner, i sold thousands of genuine wagner zip change slotted letters through the years,a good source is signletters.com the current price for slotted wagner letters in 6" ht is $4.05 / letter or punctuation, wagner has been a leader in marquee letters 3D slotted are durable and wind resistant and use no metal clips like lesser brands. gemini are decent but lighter plastic and are brittle in colder weather like you experience so handle them with care. i would bet the sign looks bright now! take care.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 01-11-2019, 12:54 PM:

A $1000 up-charge is quite a rip-off for a standard package of letters, assuming the order is a quantity of 100 letters. Wagner's Zip Change letters usually cost a bit more than Gemini's Pronto letters. The high price the sign company quoted almost sounds like they just don't want to mess with the order.

If you have a Gemini catalog or look online those prices are retail. Our shop pays a little less for them on the wholesale end, but we only mark them up to the listed retail price.

Normally Gemini doesn't sell direct to end users. You can buy them from sign companies or buy them from distributors like Graphic Solutions Group, Reece Supply, etc. You have to order individual Pronto letters from JDS Industries or National Readerboard.

One hazard: Wagner Zip and Gemini Pronto look like the same kind of product, but the clear plastic panel sizes are slightly different. Wagner Zip panels are sized at whole inch heights while the Pronto panels are usually 1/8" shorter. For example a 6" Zip letter comes on a 7" tall panel. A 6" Pronto letter comes on a 6 7/8" tall panel. You really have to be careful about the letter track spacing. If it was set up for Zip Change letters then it's usually best to stick with those, the Pronto letter panels will sit too loose in the track.

We're selling fewer "analog" changeable copy signs and fuel price signs. More and more people are going with the LED jumbotron style displays for messages and LED digits for things like fuel price signs.

Posted by Alan Plester (Member # 852) on 01-12-2019, 07:14 AM:

Mike..... presuming thats come out of your tab savings then????

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-12-2019, 09:16 PM:

The letter set we got was a 300-piece set.

quote: Alan Plester
Mike..... presuming thats come out of your tab savings then????

I'm not sure what that means!

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 01-12-2019, 10:38 PM:

What size were the letters in the 300 piece set?

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-12-2019, 11:23 PM:

They're six-inch Gemini letters.

I wanted to get 8-inch because that's closer to the size of our old letters, but the openings in the sign face were about a half-inch too small to fit the tracks.

quote: Bobby Henderson
We're selling fewer "analog" changeable copy signs and fuel price signs. More and more people are going with the LED jumbotron style displays for messages and LED digits for things like fuel price signs.

I thought for a few seconds about changing out our readerboards for something electronic, but it proved to be prohibitively expensive, as you can imagine. Plus it really would look too modern in our "1935" marquee anyway.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 01-13-2019, 12:12 PM:

quote: Mike Blakesley
I wanted to get 8-inch because that's closer to the size of our old letters, but the openings in the sign face were about a half-inch too small to fit the tracks.

There's a big size jump between 6" Zip and 8" Zip. It actually works out to a 3" difference. 6" Zip letters come on 7" tall panels while 8" Zip letters come on 10" tall panels. The distance between track is 6.25" for 6" and 9.25" for 8". Take off 1/8" for Gemini Pronto letter track spacing and letter panel sizes.

quote: Mike Blakesley
I thought for a few seconds about changing out our readerboards for something electronic, but it proved to be prohibitively expensive, as you can imagine. Plus it really would look too modern in our "1935" marquee anyway.

Yeah, LED displays aren't for everyone. The up-front cost is probably the biggest issue, with periodic maintenance and power consumption adding to the total cost of ownership. Newer LED boards are getting better and better. Still, you're not going to get more than about 7-10 years of life out of one before it's time to replace it.

Then there's the issue of creating content for the LED board. Daktronics has some excellent message creation software (Venus 1500), but it still requires someone with some graphics talent and knowledge of motion graphics software (like After Effects) to get the most out of these displays.

Even though they require more space, I kind of prefer the look of slotted Wagner letters. They provide more of a classic marquee look. Instead of the letter being screen printed on a piece of flat clear plastic the letter is a solid dimensional object with .625" deep returns. The slotted letters hang on rails. The downside is those kind of letters require bigger sign faces to contain the same message as a flat changeable copy sign (due to how the rails are traditionally spaced). 6" slotted letters are roughly $4 a piece.

Posted by Buck Wilson (Member # 5885) on 01-13-2019, 08:58 PM:

quote:
I'm not sure what that means!

Tab= screen curtains

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 01-14-2019, 04:21 PM:

Before I retired, I sold a lot of letters. Typical cinema dealer worked at 10-12% markup. Typical sign company works at 300-400%. Neither stocks the letters; too many sources colors and sizes. Molded letters in BLACK have an advantage that they are less subject to UV deterioration. Letters on polycarb will freeze in the tracks, but are OK further South.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 01-14-2019, 04:50 PM:

I've spent too much time standing on a ladder at midnight in a snowstorm chiseling letters out of the tracks and trying to warm them with a hairdryer. No letter signs for me, thanks. [Smile]

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-14-2019, 06:27 PM:

quote: Frank Cox
I've spent too much time standing on a ladder at midnight in a snowstorm chiseling letters out of the tracks and trying to warm them with a hairdryer.

This is why I hire teenagers...they are fearless about the weather.

quote: Bobby Henderson
I kind of prefer the look of slotted Wagner letters. They provide more of a classic marquee look. Instead of the letter being screen printed on a piece of flat clear plastic the letter is a solid dimensional object with .625" deep returns. The slotted letters hang on rails. The downside is those kind of letters require bigger sign faces to contain the same message as a flat changeable copy sign (due to how the rails are traditionally spaced).

Agreed on all counts about the dimensional letters. Our drive-in here (where I got my first projection experience) had a sign with those letters. Biggest issue there is space... we have a tiny basement room where the letters are kept and the dimensional letters would have been just too space-hogging. We've had flat letters all along so the new ones look fine compared to the old. I picked the "modern" font because it is basically the same font as the hand-made letters we had before. Just a little smaller. The letters float in the white space a little, but still nice and readable, and much neater.

I do worry about the freezing-in-the-tracks issue. Guess we'll deal with that when it happens. I know it's going to happen.

quote: Alan Plester
presuming thats come out of your tab savings then????

Not really, it falls under maintenance. But our curtain (tab) savings has pretty much been combined with "new projector" savings lately. Since we need to plan on upgrading projection every now and then we may never have proper curtains. Sad as that is. Maybe I should start a "gofundme" for that.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 01-14-2019, 10:36 PM:

quote: Louis Bornwasser
Typical sign company works at 300-400%. Neither stocks the letters; too many sources colors and sizes.

My company does not mark up changeable copy letters 300%-400% in price, much less anything else. We do pay a little less (the wholesale price) for those letters, but not very much. I don't know of any other sign companies in my region foolish enough to charge really high mark-ups either. Not many people get rich in the sign industry. The profit margins are not all that high.

To repeat what I said earlier, my theory is either the sign company who quoted Mike the super high price either had a serious brain-fart. Or (more likely) they did not want to mess with the job. That could be for a few reasons. If the sign company is too busy they might give a high price quote as a means of sending the customer elsewhere. Lots of people shop around after all. Another reason: if the sign company didn't originally build the sign then they're hesitant about touching the existing structure for any service work. Once a sign company starts doing any service work on a sign they didn't build the client will figure any on-going problems with the sign are the new sign company's fault. I've personally seen that scenario play out numerous times.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-23-2019, 11:18 PM:

Well, this company has been working on this old sign for at least 20 years now, maybe longer, so they know it inside and out. The same neon guy has been with them the whole time, too. I don't think they would ever think of me as a "problem" account -- I am not demanding, I always pay invoices in a timely manner, and they do a lot of other work around here too so it makes sense for them to work on our sign. I've never had a hint of them not wanting to mess with the job.

They are the ones who suggested that it needed to be rewired, and I always take them up on their suggestions. It seemed reasonable since all the wiring was original, as far as I know, and some of it looked pretty shabby. So, I haven't ever had a reason not to like this company. Until the high-priced letters.

Speaking of the letters, they are proving a huge pain in the ass to work with compared to the old ones... we've had a few snow storms followed by "melts," so the letters are getting frozen in the tracks. Plus the flat panels are harder to handle than the previous cut-out letters were. Maybe the molded ones might not be a bad idea after all. Luckily my hardy nephew handles the marquee job, so he's the one out there freezing. I feel bad for him. A bonus or a raise may be in order.