The reason I'm leaning toward hand painted lettering, is the imperfections, the visible brush strokes, the thickness of the paint, plus there is also some shadowing around the letters. The texture and depth of hand painting would be hard to get with vinyl I'm afraid.
http://www.stovebolt.com/gallery/pankratz_keith_1947.htm kind of hard to see in these pictures, but you can get an idea.
