Hollywood sign H ready for global tour Cash to spare? Buy your own ghost town

A piece of Hollywood history is being prepped for an international tour — from the unlikely locale of a Scottish industrial site.

The letter H from the original Hollywood sign that made the L.A. suburb a byword for movie magic is being seen in public for the first time in 40 years in Oldmeldrum, Aberdeenshire.

It was brought to the village by artist and sculptor Bill Mack, who bought it in 2007 and has been restoring it since 2012 in anticipation of a global tour.

The sign was erected in 1923 and stood until 1978 when it fell into disrepair and was replaced.

According to The Scotsman newspaper, it has taken Mack and his team more than 5,000 hours to restore the H, which is 50 feet tall and weighs 56,000 pounds.

Keith Douglas, who is helping promote the tour, said: “Since 1978 it has never been seen outside, by anybody, and yet here it is in a yard in Oldmeldrum.”

After the 60-city, five-year tour, which kicks off with an appearance at the O2 Arena in London, the H will return to Los Angeles as a permanent installation coinciding with the sign’s 100th anniversary.

An isolated California ghost town is on the market. Cerro Gordo, a 19th-century mining town whose “silver thread” helped feed the development of Los Angeles to the south, is being offered for US$925,000.

For that you get more than 315 acres of land containing an old saloon, hotel, bunkhouse and chapel, as well as mineral rights. The town has been in private hands for decades, but the family who owns it feel now is the right time to sell.