Typophile

Pawn shop opening times

mili

I went to see an exhibition today on the life of women in Helsinki 100 years ago. In one room there was an old aluminium pawn shop sign which stated opening times as: 10–1/2 4, that is 10 to 15.30. In Finnish, puoli neljä (puoli = half, neljä = 4) is the same as half past three, but I've never seen it written like the sign in the museum. Unfortunately I was not allowed to take pictures there, I would've loved to show it to you!

Below is a very rough reconstruction of the essence of the sign (as per requested by Chris!)

Chris Lozos

Mili,
Can you reconstruct it in some simple way that we could see it?

Chris Lozos

Thanks, Mili! That is very strange looking but then I am not even a Finn.

nina

That's cool – FWIW it would be understandable in German too, as that is also the way we say it.

On a sort-of laterally-related note, the Swiss 50 cent coin reads "½ Fr." (for «Franc»/«Franken»), which visitors usually find funny, or confusing, or both.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CHF_50_Rappen_1969.jpg

mili

Oh, I think that coin's pretty clear!

@Chris, After a couple of blinks the sign made perfect sense, I've just never seen anything like it.

K Cerulean Pease

"½ Fr." is greatly more informative than "ONE DIME". It even beats its counterpart "QUARTER DOLLAR" because it's in numerals and doesn't require the language.

Captured from web.archive.org on 24 Feb 2013. view this capture