Black Lion plaque - Plaque - Brass

Original vintage plaque from the 1930s/40s, a promotional item for shoe polish in very good condition, retaining beautiful colors and a magnificent patina of age.
Ideal for creating a lovely vintage decoration.

Lion Noir is a brand of shoe polishes and maintenance products created in the 1890s and developed by the company 'Les Produits du Lion Noir,' established on March 16, 1917. This brand experienced great success in the first half of the 20th century.
The company Les Produits du Lion Noir markets numerous products. Several, such as Le Lion Blanc or Miror, were born during the First World War, a period when the Etablissements Fernand George were very active and employed more than five hundred workers at their factory in Montrouge. A patriotic portrait of the company and Fernand George was created in 1917 in a journal titled 'The Image of the War'. Besides tubes and tins of shoe polish, the company manufactures and sells laundry detergent, stove paste, liquid polishes, encaustic, stove powder, and cleaning products. The Automiror products for automobile bodies were launched in 1927. Some brands of Lion Noir are very well known and have lasted through the decades. This is the case of Miror and Argental.

A prosperous and rapidly growing company
Shortly after its founding in 1919, the company was listed on the stock exchange. Aside from the year 1920, its profits were steadily increasing. From 1922 to 1933, the Société des Produits du Lion Noir achieved nearly 60 million in cumulative profits. In 1938, the Société des Produits du Lion Noir took over the shoe polish activities and factories of the Société Générale des Cirages Français, whose most well-known brand is Eclipse. The company then changed its name to Société des Produits Chimiques Lion Noir – Produits d’Entretien Lion Noir – Eclipse.