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I remember sitting in the back seat of my family's '59 Ford station wagon on a rainy night and looking up at a Conoco globe atop the pump. I was probably 4 years old. In 1982 a customer gave me that very globe.


Over the next 10 or 12 years I picked up 2 or 3 more globes, but I didn't consider myself a collector. The thing that really turned me into a collector was a 25 cent quart of Sinclair Extra Duty oil my wife picked up at a garage sale. Karen bought that can so I could use the oil but she didn't complain when I put it on a shelf in the house and said it was cool and proclaimed that I was going to collect a few more cans to display with it.

After all these years I still have the Conoco globe, and its Conoco Ethyl counterpart that came from the same station. I also still have that Sinclair can that kick started my collecting obcession.
My kids enjoyed the hobby too. Jeff decided he was going to collect Sinclair while Darrel concentrated on Shell. Every weekend we would go to an auction, a flea market, or hit the antique shops in hopes of finding more petro treasures. I'd get home from work to find the new issue of Check The Oil magazine all dog eared because the boys had been reading it.



[This message has been edited by Lastgas15 (edited 01-09-2007).]