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Hi all, new member here. I've been into old gas and oil for years and this forum is fantastic. I've been picking full time for almost 28 years now. My last "great" find was an original porcelain neon Avery Tru-Draft Tractors dealership sign(which has since been beautifully re-neoned by it's new owner, which I'm sure is a member here wink ). This latest find though has me stumped, and I was hoping to get some guidance from the many knowledgeable members here. On a recent deep-in backroad hunt, I spotted a very interesting porcelain sign on the side of an ancient store building that had obviously been closed for decades. After making contact with the owner and making a very fair offer, I was able to take it home with me. The sign had hung on the side of that old wooden store building for years, he actually had to pry a board off to get to the nails holding it in place. It's originally flange sign but the flange has been flattened (which happened to a lot of them, apparently). I'm guessing the sign hails from the early 1900's. From the research I've done, I believe it may be the American Gasoline Company, established in 1912 by Henri Deterding. From the web: "Henri Deterding creator of the Royal Dutch-Shell Group in Holland and Great Britain, moved into California in 1912 with his American Gasoline Company (Shell Company of California after 1914)". I've searched everywhere for another sign like this with no avail. No images, adverts, oil cans, nothing. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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I have read AMERICAN GASOLINE CO.was started in Baltimore in 1910,later absorbed by AMOCO.

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I looked into that initially, but turns out that was actually called the American Oil Company. I think the American "Gasoline" moniker was used by the American Oil Company on pumps in the former of globes and pump plates.

If only we could find another sign like this one - that would help tremendously.

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If the sign is in fact a construct of Henri Deterding, the very Roman looking red eagle would make sense. Deterding had partnered with the Rothschilds in 1902, and in 1911 purchased the Azerbaijan oil fields from the Rothschild family. Deterding, determined to break into the American market, started in California in 1912 with his "American Gasoline Company". He had admitted just 10 years prior to Sir Marcus Samuel, the British founder of Shell that "Once we are combined with the Rothschild's, everybody knows that we hold the future, but we cannot do it without their name". So, apparently Deterding knew he needed the weight that came with the Rothschild name. The Rothschild's were Barons of the Holy Roman Empire, and knowing this, Deterding could've given a nod to the Rothschild's by adopting a very Roman looking eagle as the centerpiece logo of his newly-formed(and very important) American venture. Of course the American Gasoline Company became Shell Company of California just two years later.

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Quite a discovery. There were numerous companies that used the name American Oil Company all across the country in the first 30 years or so of the 20th Century. Ultimately by 1933 American Oil Company (Baltimore, Amoco) had bought up all of them or had bought the name rights from them, along the eastern seaboard. In 1960 Standard of Indiana, then owner of American Oil, wanted to expand the American name coast to coast, and bought up several remaining companies to secure the name, including American Oil (Davenport, IA) and several smaller companies. First off, your sign is not related to American Amoco in any way. We have good documentation going way back on their images. At least two other companies used the American name within 200 miles of you. American Oil Company in Morristown, TN used the American name in the 1920s, became a Sinclair jobber in 1926, and sold the name to Standard (IN) in 1960. It is not their image. Likewise, American Oil Company in Winston Salem, NC operated in the 1920s before selling out to Amoco. They had some tie to American Oil in Texas, probably a supply arrangement, and used the eagle and "powerful as its name" earlier logo in blue. They were gone by 1932. It is vaguely possible that this would have been a sign they used, depending on where it was found. American (W-S, NC) is known to have supplied stations as far west as Davie County, NC, and up in the Mount Airy area. Where was it found? I don't have any evidence of them extending into Virginia, but nothing says they didn't, either. The American Gasoline Company you referenced tied to early Shell operations was only along the West Coast, beginning in Tacoma in 1912. Despite the name, they used the Shell brand. Other Americans existed in Jackson, MI, Troy, NY, Dallas and Wichita Falls, TX, with none known to display this image. You have discovered a truly unknown piece. An incredible find. I have a lot of reference material, and if you could post the general region or county of this discovery, I'll see what I can find.


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That is quite a nice sign.


"Remember, history that is forgotten is doomed to repeat itself!"
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Wayne, lots of very interesting information there. The sign was found in Grainger County, TN. I was able to look through the inside of the old store(which had been closed for decades) and there were indications of some wealth existing there at one time. In the past, I've almost always been successful in finding a duplicate(or at least a mention somewhere) of my finds, but not with this piece. Would you say this sign is possibly one of one?

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Grainger County? Congrats, you now have the only known example of a sign from American Oil Company, Morristown, TN. Here is the history from the globe book:

**THE AMERICAN OIL CO. -MORRISTOWN,TN:
The American Oil Company was founded in Morristown, TN in 1921 when Mr. Barto Fisher bought a failing Texaco service station and private branded it American. The American brand name was used through 1926 when Mr. Fisher acquired a Sinclair distributorship and rebranded his stations Sinclair. The company survived until 1993 as Fisher Oil Co., having been a Texaco jobber since 1960.

I knew the Fisher family, and the company was active in Grainger County, with plants in Morristown, Sneedville, and Newport. The logo on the globe gives no hint at the design of the sign, but there wouldn't be two Americans that close together. Great find added to history and collective knowledge.


Wayne Henderson
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Globe from the same company. Found in Newport, TN in the early 1990s.

AMERICAN MORRISTOWN.jpg

Wayne Henderson
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Fantastic sleuthing, Wayne! I had a feeling that coming to this forum would help solve the mystery - GREAT job. Hard to believe this sign represents a local independent oil company that existed many decades ago right in my back door, and on top of that, it is the only known example. I'm amazed that it still exists and hasn't been lost to history.


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