Huh, interesting; flip boards like these used to be all over things like train stations, but they had to replace them with screens (big challenge, they deal with extreme weather / temperatures) after the company that made and maintained them went under and they ran out of spare / replacement parts.
Some years ago our local chapter of the CCC got hold of some old flipdot panels that originally hung over the Autobahn[0] and they've since been repurposed and with the help of other spaces improved for display, pics at [1] and you might have stumbled over them at the Chaos Communication Congress or other events.
They're actually pretty robust and most obvious malfunctions can be rejiggered manually and it's just one of the magnets.
But yes, the replacement parts are kinda finite unless another stash of old traffic sign hardware is discovered.
