Ontario Queen Elizabeth Way route marker

Description

The Queen Elizabeth Way is an important freeway in southern Ontario. It links the Toronto area to the U.S. border near Buffalo, New York. Although most people think of the late Queen Elizabeth II when they hear the words Queen Elizabeth, the road opened in 1937, fifteen years before she took the throne. The road was actually named after her mother, also called Queen Elizabeth. Early signage along the route bore the cursive letters ER, for Elizabeth Regina, Latin for Queen Elizabeth. Early signs were the same black-on-white as the King’s Highway signs found throughout Ontario. By 1942, the signs’ backgrounds had changed to yellow, and in 1950, the text was changed to blue. In 1955, the signs were updated to eschew the use of a dead language and simply read QEW in a custom serif font. The signage was updated to use a more standard and widely-available font in 1997.

We offer replicas of a number of designs of Queen Elizabeth Way signage from across the years. Each of our replicas are made using photographs of historic signs in the field, as well as of surviving examples, to ensure maximum historical accuracy. While the modern signs are of course quite plentiful, the older designs can be quite hard to find, even on the collector’s market. When one turns up, they often go for many hundreds or thousands of dollars. Get the display piece you want, without the uncertainty and costs of the collector’s market, with one of our faithful replicas.

Our Queen Elizabeth Way signs are flat printed on heavy 14-gauge steel. The glossy, non-reflective coating is a close match to the old porcelain signs found on the road in its early days. You can install them outdoors, even through a harsh Canadian winter; they’re just as weatherproof as the originals. And, to make installation easy, we’ve included convenient mounting holes. Choose from one of the following designs:

• 1939 (black on white, with ER)
• 1942 (black on yellow, with ER)
• 1950 (blue on yellow, with ER)
• 1997 (blue on yellow, with QEW)

And select the size that best fits your needs:

• 9 in. × 14¼ in.
• 12 in. × 19 in.
• 18 in. × 28½ in.
• 24 in. × 38 in.

All of our signs are fully customizable; we can produce a size other than those listed, should you need one. We can also make just about any other road sign you might want, from Ontario or elsewhere! Just contact Jake to get started on your custom order.