Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion Iowa Gas From The Past- Socony Signs

Is was looking through some old Iowa Gas photo's and came upon this interesting shot. Does anyone remember or have photo's of this crazy scene? One vendor brought around 50 Socony Air-Craft Oil signs and sold out within minutes. I think the year was 2003. Does anyone else have any photo's or stories of past Iowa Gas memorable moments?

Forgot the story behind the find & didn't take pic's.
He was swamped with buyers & sold out shortly after setting up. He went home a Very Happy vendor.

If I remember the story correctly they came out of an old house someone bought and they were being used as shelves in the closets downstairs! At one point I looked at the sellers pile of Franklin's (100's) and it was rather large. Any other stories/pics?

I remember, He said they came from a guy out east that used them in his garage for shelving, The signs were numbered 1 2 3 1500, 2000, 2500 if you bought more then 1 he would give you a 10% discount, My friend bought one and tha wad of 100's that he pulled out looked like the size of a baseball. I would of bought one but spent my wad on a nice porcelain Conoco Minuteman sign.

The late Kerry Holder of Springfield MO bought a large group at the end to finish them off.

IMO, those signs plumented that day and have never made it back it value.

I think Chadrock might have some pics as he was there.

I remmber this frenzy. I didn't have enough money at the time to join in but did watch some from the sidelines. Guy showed up in an old van and left a couple hours later with probably 30-40,000 cash. Pretty cool. Wish that would happen to me.

Does anyone remember how much they sold for ?

That guy that left with a pocket full of money in the old van has had some of the best antique advertising in America...In the photo he is the guy in the back with the black t-shirt selling a sign to John.....he use to set up every year at Des Moines & he's from New England with the last name of Palmorino....

Bob always had some of the rarest pieces to show up at the show.He sold his collection years ago. If his collection sold in todays market, it would be way north of a $1,000,000.
For you guys who weren't collecting or going to Iowa Gas fifteen years ago or more, there is just no way to describe the super, super rare items that used to be brought to this show.Pat.

I do have some pictures, but no way to scan them where I’m at. I don’t remember the numbers in total signs (30’s I thought), but the 1, 2, 3, and $1500, $2000, $2500 sound right if I can remember. He also had a slug (12 or 15) of Socony signs that were just plain lettered porcelain signs and they all sold as well. He had a couple different sizes of these and I think he was getting $200 - $500 out of those. A friend and I counted them up and we tried to figure out what this guy had made in roughly an hour, it was well over $50,000. I think this guy was a contractor and one of his crews called and said that these were in the walls, floors, and being used as shelving on a building that was coming down or that they were remodling.

I woulda paid a fee,just to stand next to them on the tarp..WoW!

I was there and bought one.
It was amazing. He was setting them out and had not priced them yet but everbody was grabbing them up to make sure they
got a good one. When I handed him my money he didn't even
count it. The price was right(at the time) but the comment about the prices never being the same is spot on.

Sully........

What a great find!

Adding for Posterity... http://oldgas.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=printthread&Board=4&main=15458&type=thread