Vintage Wall Knife Holder

I purchased a vintage wall knife holder last week during my road trip to Indiana with my sister. While my sister was eyeballing the Greentown chocolate ware glass, I spied this 30's style knife holder and at the great price of 10 bucks...I bought it.The plan is to strip the paint off of the knife holder and repaint it black so it will stand out against the sometime in the future white walls in my kitchen.So far I have stripped the paint from it with citrus stripper. The wood appears in very good condition. I still need to sand it before I can repaint it.R just informed me that his Grandma Rose had one in her kitchen in **Novi, Michigan when he was a little boy. He said her knife holder was just like mine but his Grandmother's was white with a red back. I flipped mine over and said, "you mean like this one?"So obviously the original color of this holder was white with a red back plate. Mystery solved.

**Novi Michigan got it's name because it was the No. VI stage coach stop from Detroit. So just like today with all of our abbreviations the number 6 stop turned into Novi. Do you think it was because it was easier and quicker to say 'Novi' than it was to say 'the number 6 stop'?