Collecting Gas and Oil Advertising The Ultimate Garage Art

Any person with a lick of common sense would collect stamps, glassware, fountain pens, salt shakers dolls, or a variety of other small antique and collectibles that can be neatly displayed on a shelf or a case or in an album. Who would want to collect items that are large, often dirty or rusty, have been riddled by bullet holes or take up a 9 ft. space, and the kicker is that the collector must be willing to spend hundreds of dollars on their collections. The crazy collecters of gas and oil advertising items (now commonly referred to as Garage Art or Man Cave Art) and sometimes Petroliana are growing in numbers and can be found all over the world.

From the time America became an automobile culture and then service stations became part of the automobile culture, recognizing the various refining company logos, colors and advertising became common place. Since producing high grade gas and oil became a major big bucks industry, refiners hired the best graphic artists and advertising agencies. The result was a stunning amount of interesting packaging designs.

Most collectors of gas and oil items, used to have some connection to having worked for one of the oil companies, or who had worked in or owned a service station or who had been a mechanic, or in the racing industry where most cars have a gasoline sponsor. Some collectors had a brand loyalty to collect memorabilia from the company that they had once been associated with such as Standard Oil of California or Conoco or Esso, but like all those who begin by collecting "just one thing" they soon found themselves seeking other "cool" items. Then, when advertising art in general became so popular, collectors of advertising soon were attracted to the gas and oil items, and since the idea of having garage art to showcase antique or collectible cars or to enhance one's man cave, major auction houses for collectors' cars such as Barrett Jackson, have begun including gas and oil items in their auctions. The result has been a dramatic increase in values, even in a downturn economy.

Gas and oil advertising signs seem to be the most popular item that collectors seek, followed by gasoline pumps of all types and the glass globes that sit on top of them, the early tins and bottles that were used to sell and pour gas, then the quart oil can that was introduced around 1932, and racks that were used to display the quart cans. The variety of other advertising items issued by the oil companies include: calendars, blotters, pens and pencils, key chains, maps, and tour aide guides. Service station attendants uniforms and hats fetch a pretty penny, and even the early hard plastic credit cards are collectible. The items that fall into the categories that service stations once gave away as premiums include: ash trays, glasses and china, banks, children's toys, booklets, wall art and trading stamps. Other advertising items for products sold in service stations such as tires, batteries, sodas and snacks are also considered part of gas an oil advertising.

Two collectors magazines, Petroleum Collectibles and Check the Oil have kept collectors informed of gas bashes which are swap meets and upcoming auctions for gas and oil collectors. Both magazines include a want ad section and have interesting articles on collections, avoiding reproductions, and having items restored.

As with all antiques and collectibles, values are based upon rarity and condition which will be a topic for another Hub.