When I lived in Birmingham,England many stores had the numbers 786 or the odd symbols that looked something like >^Y over them.Any ideas what these are or what the hell they mean?
Just done a quick Google and it appears that 786 has some significance in the Muslim religion. I found a shop selling 786 jewellery and there is even a Muslim pop group by that name . As there are many Muslims in Birmingham I imagine that what you were seeing was a good-luck charm , or something similar , over the door of the premises. The symbols you saw was probably 786 in Arabic or some other script
Found another link which sort of explains it :- http://members.tripod.com/maseeh1/advices7/id152.htm
That would be ٧٨٦, the Arabic-Indic numerals for 786 (see the table on this page)