A Little bit about the Author...

I live in a small town in Oklahoma on the corner of two old highways that in the past were the main arteries of the country. One of them is US hwy 81 and the other is the very famous US hwy 66, also known as the Mother Road. These two historic highways intersect in our town and earned them the name "The Crossroads of America" El Reno has many claims to fame including the Rock Island railroad, the world's largest onion burger, and being hit by the widest tornado ever recorded, but I want to focus on the history of the oil business in this town and also the state and country.

a selective color photo of the corner of US HWY 81 and US HWY 66 with a mural that says Crossroads of America painted on the side of a building in the small town of El Reno Oklahoma

US hwy 81 and US hwy 66 in El Reno OK, The Crossroads of America.

I am by no means any expert, in fact I never even knew I was interested until my husband went to work for a local oil company owner who recently retired and sold his long time business. He was also a life long collector of petroliana (vintage oil cans and collectibles) and had a warehouse full of things he had collected. It was because of this that I was inadvertently blessed with part of this large collection to liquidate. So in the process of researching the value of items in the collection I developed a love for the subject!

I am an artist, so the appeal of the vintage advertising logos and designs was strong for me. Also the rich history of this industry that helped to build this country is so interesting to me that in addition to sharing images of items that I have handled and sold, and offering links to items that are still for sale, I will also share what I can about the history and link to the source whenever possible.

I am not going to try to keep things in any chronological order but rather just follow my inspiration so I hope this won't disappoint! Since the collection I am selling off is quite large and varied this blog will not be only about antique oil cans but also many other cool collectibles that are related to the business. Many of them are from the Phillip's petroleum company, better known as Phillips 66 brand. That is because my husband's former boss and our friend was the owner of several Phillips stations in town from the time he was a young man. This blog really isn't about him though and so I will leave him anonymous. This blog is about the amazing collection of vintage items he gathered over the years and sharing it with other petroliana enthusiasts.

So with that I will begin...

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Learning the Dating Game or How to Date an Old Oil Can.

When I first started researching the cans in this collection I didn't have the first idea of how to go about it. I spent weeks doing nothing but searching and reading, trying to absorb as much as possible from generous experts that have shared what they know. It didn't help that one of the first cans I was trying to date was an obscure tall, square, one gallon Maytag multi-motor oil can with a very rare label and handle. I looked in all the obvious places, eBay, other auction sites, petroliana collectors forums, Google images, but I kept coming up with nothing that matched. I would see the same logo colors on other types of cans or I would see similar types of cans but the colors and logos didn't match. This was actually one of the ways I learned that logos can be a big help in dating a can if you can find data on company history and when they were in use. With the Maytag can it was a combination of color, logo style, can style and wire handle that finally led me to

Solving a Vintage Mystery

Executive Meeting at Phillips Petroleum circa 1930's One of the strangest items in the petroliana collection I am selling is this old framed photograph of some sort of executive meeting at Phillips Petroleum company that looks to be from the 1930s. At first glance it looks like an ordinary somewhat boring image of some business men, maybe the board of directors? But look more closely and you will see why I call it very strange and began to think of it as a mystery. In the back lined up on the wall are drawings of men in their underwear. Also in the back on the right hand side are some men standing up against the wall, one of them is partially undressed and another is wearing a whiskey barrel. They both have their hands on the shoulders of another man in between them who is still fully clothed (for the moment?) The rest of the crowd are all turned toward the camera but they are not looking at it. They seem to be focused on something just out of camera range and whatever

So What Exactly is Petroliana?

Petroli-whatta? It sounds like a mafioso or a strange Italian pasta dish. That is exactly what ran through my mind the first time I ran across this strange word. I mean even my auto correct thinks it isn't spelled right. So I did my due diligence and looked it up... well okay, more accurately, I Googled it. Here's what I got... According to Collectors Weekly, petroliana is antiques related to the oil industry and gas stations. An area of collecting that focuses on advertising in categories such as gas pumps and globes, oil cans, road maps, signs and other promotional merchandise. There is another closely related area of collection called automobilia which sometimes intersects and blends with petroliana since they have cars in common. But pure petroliana is not limited to automobiles, rather it also encompasses oil and lubrication of all kinds of engines from small cream separator and washing machine motors to jet turbine engines and everything in between. Some of the

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