You don’t have to be from Vancouver, Canada to appreciate the historic charm of these 1950’s bus scroll throw pillows. But if you are familiar with Canada’s sparkling, Pacific gateway city, you will be sure to recognize the street and route names that are boldly printed across the front of these pillows.

The images on the pillows are taken directly from sections of bus scrolls that were once used on Vancouver’s electric trolley buses in the early 1950s. At the time, bus drivers used a hand crank to rotate the information on the scroll to indicate along which route the bus was traveling. The scroll window can clearly be seen above the front windshield of the bus in the image above. When unraveled and laid flat, the route names on the scrolls are listed in large white capital letters set against a black background.

Using sections from several bus scrolls that now reside in the Museum of Vancouver’s collection, the pillows are digitally printed, and include all the signs of wear and tear that are visible in the original scrolls. They are printed in a dark sepia brown on a cream linen fabric. The pillows are part of the Museum of Vancovuer Retail Collection, a line of merchandise featuring iconic images and artifacts from the Museum's actual collection. Digitized images of many items in the collection can be viewed through a publicly accessible database named 'openMOV'. Go to http://openmov.museumof vancouver.ca/oakridge-line-bus-scroll for more information on one of the bus scroll artifacts.

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