Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion dating a Pennzoil can

I have a Pennzoil quart can with a United Airlines Mainliner on the back, says "United Airlines uses Pennzoil exclusively". I'm guessing this can is late 40's to mid 50's? Can anyone confirm the age?
Thanks

I thought by the thread title you wanted advise on going out with your can, sorry.

No way...the Valvoline cans would get jealous!

LOL..perfect come back..LOL
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Hubba

That can came as a soldered seam first and then a crimped seam. The solder seams came out about mid 30's and crimped about 40's.Which do you have? Solder or crimp? Ted

I keep my cans in seperate areas of the house and garage so they don't know what I'm doing and with whom. Just seems to work better that way. Now my pumps, that's another story.

This one is a soldered seam, so it's mid 30's to 40's? Very cool. Thanks for the info.

While I'm on the subject, I have a question about my jealous Valvoline cans too. The older ones say "division of Ashland oil and refining - Freedom, PA." while the later ones say "Ashland, KY." When did this change?

I gotta put my two cents in here. In the mid 1960s while working my way through college i spent a year working for National Can Co. in Cleveland. We did a lot of Valvoline and private label (re-refined) quarts and 2-gal. plus others. That plant was doing soldered cans in 1966-67. I remember the Valvoline qts. were packed in smaller cases because "wimmen" unloaded the boxcars at the filling point. Valvoline also used recycled tinplate on the lids. The inside of your can may have a Gulf logo lurking there. OSHA quickly shut the plant down in the 70s. I still have scars from working there... a nurse was always on duty to sew us up when a line jamed and sharp metal was all over the place. Memories.

[This message has been edited by autoartist (edited 09-09-2003).]

Autoartist you are right on as some companies just hung on to the soldered seam cans. I saw one for trans flush not too long ago. Its just that the Pennzoil with the plane and owls used there cans in those eras. I too have seen a differant logo on the inside of a 1 qt. can. Got to love those cans. Ted

My can has "Pennzoil" on both the top and bottom in raised letters. It's also opened from the bottom and I don't see anything else inside except a little sludge. I figured mine was pre-50's since the plane on the back is an old twin engine, DC-3 I think, and by the mid-50's the airlines were moving to jets. But that is interesting info regarding the Valvoline cans. I'll remember that for future reference.

TO Sohio_native Re: Valvoline Cans
The queston of when Division of Ashland Refining Company as opposed to Ashland Inc, KY. I would say the Division of Ashland Refining Company can is around 1949-1950 as this was when Ashland merged with Freedom Oil Works Company. The other can is probably late 1950s. Are both cans green lower half melting into white/cream upper half with VALVOLINE in Bowtie text? The earliest cans were solid green with the bowtie Valvoliine over the Corliss steam valve logo. During WWII, they did not use cans because of the war effort. Instead, they used what is referred by as large milk bottles. There are a few "applesauce" jars around as well. These were dark brown glass with debossed VALVOLINE around the shoulder. Hope this helps

...and they also used clear 'apple sauce' jars, with no embossing/debossing...the paper label mentions Pan-Am stations, so maybe these were made to be sold there...got it from '5 Quart' at a show a while back, maybe he's got more...?