Dear Mr. Potts and Fellow Petro-holics:
Greetings & Salutations!
Am now looking EVERY-where for any one of t-h-r-e-e, plastic face & two, wall-mounted signs; two plastic & one terra-cotta. Condition is not as important (as prices are!)...I'll accept cracks, scratches, and/or faded paint.
Notice that all are from Ind. Standard & its pre-American Oil affiliates. Wrote "pre-Am. Oil" because ALL were built & used b-e-f-o-r-e Ind. Standard's "Big Step" in 1960-'62: a watershed, red-letter year for Ind. Standard's nation-wide (even global) refining/marketing. In American/Amoco's case: This "Big Step" was partially product of a s-e-t-t-l-e-m-e-n-t which mollified American Oil's o-ri-gi-nal founders from Baltimore---and t-h-e-y were no Rockefellers! More details about t-h-a-t in future E-mail message.
Some of 1960-'62's graphic changes, Ind. Standard brought-about merely because of customers' confusion between different, regional, refining/marketing divisions of ONE "Standard Oil sibling," and those of another "sibling." (Esp. cross-country vacationers & business-travelers after W.W. II...those who could financially afford to traverse among Standard Oils' different "regions" like Ricky, Fred, Ethyl, & Lucy did---by car---in way that they couldn't have during Depression. Don't forget cross-country t-r-u-c-k-e-r-s! All such trans-continental drivers would a-l-s-o have been confused by "Atlas Tires/Batteries" signs; Atlas Supply Co. s-u-r-e seemed to stock these o-n-l-y at retailers of "Standard Oil siblings"...plus their "Affiliates who will Honor your Credit-Card.")
My point is that we already h-a-v-e most Plexiglas, GE Lexan, or other plastic faces from 1961-'71---the signs I remember from my toddler & kindergartener years (when Am. Oil competed against Ky. Standard's "Chevron Islands"), down here in former "Pan-Am Southern Petroleum" state. (Where Ky. Standard once sold "Crown Gasolines," Esso motor oils, & Mobiloils...before Calif./Tex./B.C./Ky. Standard sold Southeastern copyrights to Crown Central Petroleum---and all before I was born!) Plus one face from after 1969 (kindergarten), dated "1996." (More about trades I will accept for "Big Bertha" in 2nd E-mail.) Also have "AMOCO Battery Cable" display (it isn't plastic, but it IS embossed-in-relief); plus damaged, plastic "Flame" (late 1950s?) within navy blue-&-white "ribs" of porcelainized steel (the Torch's "cruze of oil"?); plus milk-glass, reproduced Crown.
Here are those three signs I'm currently searching for. Can m-o-s-t easily afford any one of these AFTER mid-September. By then---both Fayette's 2013 Arts Festival, a-n-d N.E. Alabama's 2013 "Dry Creek Swap-Meet," will finally provide enough disposable-income for "Primarily Petroliana" members who insist on all-cash. For any "Primarily Petroliana" members who will accept partial-trades...plus those who won't mind h-o-l-d-i-n-g one of these signs in lay-away...please read 2nd E-mail...very, very soon! (Any Midwestern "petroliana" collector, within Ind. Standard's region: Please also read 2nd E-mail yourself.) THANK YOU for doing so!
Yours for v-e-r-y happy, Father's Day weekend:
Michael Shepherd
Ephesians 2: 8-10
