Facebook has purchased an old sign reading “The Hacker Company,” and hung it at its 1 Hacker Way headquarters. Interestingly, the acquisition of the sign took longer than the buying of Instagram – the whole process took 7 months, which is longer than it took the company fo relocate its headquarters from Palo Alto to Menlo Park.

According to reports, in April 2011, former Facebook employee Chris Putnam saw the vintage sign in Lake City, Florida, while visiting his girlfriend’s mother. Putnam was hired by Facebook for hacking the social network in the first place, which might be the reason he’d coveted the sign, or perhaps it’s because founder Zuckerberg runs the company under “The Hacker Way.” Putnam, who left Facebook in 2010, had told TechCrunch, “I’ll always feel pretty close with the culture and all my friends there, so I immediately thought ‘Man, this should be on FB’s campus.'” Putnam had posted a picture of the sign on Facebook, with the caption reading, “Facebook NEEDS this sign.”

Facebook engineer Serkan Piantino liked Putnam’s idea, and got in touch with Tony Hacker, the sign’s owner. Then the sign had to be shipped, installed – which was rescheduled six times – and lit up, which finally happened today. No word on how much Facebook paid for the sign, though it was likely an absurd amount, which is good for The Hacker Company, which is actually a sign-maker in itself. For lack of a better attempt at Tuesday morning cleverness, it is unlikely that Facebook paid as much as it did for Instagram.