Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums Online Auctions, eBay Craigslist Petroliana 1920's Sunoco bottle. Or is it??

Here's the problem I have with this. Sunoco opens it's first service station in 1920 and starts selling "Blue Sunoco" in 1927. Also, the sunburst logo's seems to be gone by the 30's or so.
So my question is, is that 280 & 12-4-57 some kind of oil code? Or is this a fake?? If this is real and that 57 is a date then I am totally confused.
It is also stamped Tol. & Refy. which I assume is referencing Sunoco's Toledo facility. Which happens to be the location of the piece which makes it more intersting.
Just trying to figure this one out. So any thoughts on those numbers?

Sure looks OK to me Steve....I don't know why anyone would repro an item like that, but nowdays if there's a buck to me be made.....
Darin

Yah I totally get that Darin. It's just confusing for me to see 1957 associated with that that logo. Kinda throws a wrench things a bit. But then again maybe I can learn some new little tidbit of info on Sunoco from this. Could it be that the refinery just happen to have a spool of 30 or so year old lables laying around and they typed in that date? Hard to believe.

Can anyone tell me why the refinery would create a gasoline sample bottle such as this? What would be the point of taking gasoline out to a station owner or anyone like this as a salesman sample or such? What could they possibly get/learn from it?

Steve:
Blue Sunoco dates back to the 1940's but the 280 & 1957 would be closer to blend pump era. The label & bottle looks correct but I would say it would have been used for lubes as we always used metal cans to take samples of gasoline to the Sun lab.

Dave

...I think it's just a case of the research dep't using old labels/bottles, which they probably had a zillion of...no need for 'up to date' labels, because this wasn't intended for the retail market...the bottle likely contains a sample of the first Blue Sunoco, 280 Grade, and the date it was bottled...not a sample like the oil sample bottles, per se, but likely something that the bigwigs involved in the creation of blend pumps/Blue Sunoco 280 at the Toledo Refinery received as a memento of the occasion...