I ran across this bit of former everyday-ness at the waste oil disposal tank at my local dump transfer station last weekend. It stood out among the various plastic jugs and containers that littered that area. I haven’t seen one of these things outside of a museum in years. And here it was just sitting around in what is more or less its natural environment. Perhaps the last time I will ever see and hold something like this. Somehow, a relic from the past had been deposited for me to find.
Well, probably not just for me to find, but I’d be willing to bet that I may be the only person who happened upon the item and then set it up for a photo shoot.
This particular can of Quaker State was unopened. No doubt left over from someone’s long ago oil change where they wound up buying one more quart than necessary. And then who knows what happened? Did they get rid of the car? Did they only find oil in plastic the next time they went to do an oil change, so they bought that…and this poor can got shuffled onto the back of the shelf until…”Grandpa had so much crap in the garage! What did he think we were going to do with that??”
I thought for a moment – as I do about many many things I find at the dump – that I’d bring it home and put it on my shelf. Only, I’d make that a shelf in my office or living room because I actually like having stuff like this around. Then, I thought…Hummmmmm…this is unopened. Maybe I could just use it. Oil shouldn’t exactly go bad. It’s already like 350 million years old, right?
But then I noticed that there were no markings that I could see that indicated the grade inside the can. If it were single weight oil or something over 40W, then I couldn’t use it. And anyway, other than in the 47 year old Volvo, I no longer use dino oil in any of my cars. This is clearly dino oil.
In the end, I decided to just take some pictures and to leave the can to ultimately be emptied into the big waste oil tank and to be finally recycled. This seemed like the responsible thing to do; both environmentally and also personally. Future progeny – should there ever be any – will be saved a (hopefully) long off in the future conversation that starts with “Grandpa had SO MUCH CRAP….”
Well, at least about this particular Quaker State can.
Lord knows, if I had saved it, those un-named future generations wouldn’t be tempted to use it due to the fact that they may not know what “oil” is and likely will have no vehicle that they’d be tempted to pour it into. And even if they did, there’s a good chance they’d not know how to get it out of the can. Or know that little trick about punching an additional hole in the can with a screw driver (a WHAT?) to allow for a smoother pour.
Fortunately, maybe they’ll still know what YouTube is and can figure it out that way.
I have to admit I have a small collection of mostly full oil cans that I started when bottles began to replace cans. I like the graphics, for one thing. But I found it was more practical to concentrate on those little 2 oz. “Handy oil” cans for household use. The whole collection fits in a shoebox. And hey, as a hobby, it’s a lot less expensive than a lot of other things I could think of!
I’ve never seen a full-size can that lacks grade markings, though. I decided to use a can of 30 weight Gulfpride, API SF, in a lawnmower, and it worked fine. This was a late production can that was made out of cardboard (with metal ends) and they tend to leak eventually, anyway.
I believe my current lawnmower manual specifies API SF or better, so there may yet be a use for some of the other cans if they leak.
Well, I did recall some time after finding this can (and Paul reminded me of this too), that traditionally the cans were stamped or printed on the top with the grade. I did look when I had it in my hands, but the top of the can was too corroded to see anything. Maybe Quaker State printed the grade, because there was nothing but surface rust on this. There didn’t appear to be anything stamped.
Found this in the basement of a department store in the early 70’s.
I had a friend whose father would buy cases of quart cans of oil in bulk when at a (supposedly) good price. His garage shelves were festooned with dozens of these full, unopened (but old) quart cans of oil.
But, here’s the thing: doesn’t oil break-down over time? So, if true, at whatever time this guy decided to use any of this oil that, while unopened, had been still sitting around for who knows how long, it wouldn’t offer anywhere near the same protection as containers of brand-new, just-purchased fresh oil?
From what I remember, there wasn’t any sort of rotation, either, i.e., placing the oldest cans in front so they would be the next in line to be used. And, back then, there certainly wasn’t any kind of date-coding, either.
A lot has changed over the past couple of decades in the part of New England in which I live; but even today it has a kind of country vibe and there are still households that only recently gave up some manner of farming and a kind of hardscrabble country living. Back when this oil can was much newer, there were a lot more of those folks around, and it would have been entirely likely that someone held on to it in the classic New England “throw away nothing as everything is good for something” way. Meaning, this can – even if it was old and no one could read the grade – well could have been held on to for a less important use than putting it into a car.
Uses such as putting it into the lawnmower, generator…or one of my favorites, chain saw bar oil. I’ve met people around here who never throw away (send to recycling) used car oil and keep it for the chain saw. I think, holy cow, you’d have to be a lumber jack (we don’t have many of those in Massachusetts in the 21st century) to use all that oil for the chain saw. But you know, waste not want not.
Oil “breaks down” only from the operating heat of the engine. Anti oxidation additives resist that. In an unopened can at any storage temperature, it is stable.
The very first think I thought of was coming across my old oil can spout awhile back as I was looking for something else in my garage. It occurred to me that I had not used it in decades, and will probably never have the occasion to use it again. But in the time-honored way of the accumulator that I am, I concluded that as soon as I throw it away, I will come into a large stash of oil in cans.
I used to use Quaker State in the 70s. That can was clearly made after ZIP codes went into effect in the early 1960s. Could the weight identification have been on the lid? I remember reading that “Pennsylvania grade” oil had a lot of paraffin in it. I used to understand that to be a bad thing, but a little reading tells me that it is actually a good thing.
This also reminds me of a time I was helping a family to administer the estate of an elderly lady. Her husband had died many years earlier, and the garage was full of ancient cans of all kinds of things. I saw a can of Ortho DDT that probably dated to the 40s or early 50s. I thought about taking it home but thought better of it.
I was asked to help an elderly widow clean out her garage in preparation to selling her home. There were numerous bottles and cans (some of which had no, or unreadable labels). I bagged them up in hope of waiting for the annual local household hazardous waste (HHW) drop off day, but the noxious smell of one or more chemicals penetrated the increasing layers of plastic bags I used to store them to the point that even outdoors, I could smell it inside my home. I found a HHW drop off site some miles away and was very relieved to be rid of them.
Later the same widow asked me about some guns that her late husband stored in the basement under the first floor beams. I pulled out a very small Sayer (Sauer?) 254139 automatic pistol, a partially assembled Luger, an intact Stevens dbl barrel shotgun, an intact Marlin 22 bolt 806, and a mostly intact Beretta M38/42.
I called BRPD to turn them in and the responding officers first cleared the weapons and then told me: The Stevens and the Marlin are legal (“You want to keep these two?” Answer “No”), the Sayer/Sauer and the Luger are illegal, and the Baretta is VERY illegal.
We turned them all over the the Police and immediately felt better.
This reminds me of my favorite story from my auto parts selling days.
I used to work for a regional discount auto parts chain, called Nationwise Auto Parts. They were known for having a sale each week and the featured item would be different brands of motor oil.
One day while stocking the oil aisle, an older gentleman comes up to me and says “Sonny you got any good oil on sale this week?”
Well, I thought to myself, here’s an older fellow and we have Quaker State on sale. He’ll probably like that. “”Yes sir, we have Quaker State on sale this week.”
“Sonn!,” he replied in a sharp voice, “That ain’t what I asked ya’! I asked, do you have any GOOD oil on sale this week!, I wouldn’t pour that Quaker State on a dead cat!”
It was all I could do to to keep from busting out laughing. Being a Valvoline man myself, I think I mumbled something along the lines of “Well, I don’t think I can blame you.”
Fortunately, oil is not going away any time soon (multiple decades, at least!). Oil and gas made this nation great and will keep it great for quite some time to come.
Oh, sorry. It went wrong. Does not belong here ! Delete, if you please !
I’d say that Capri is about the same vintage as the Quaker State can 😉
I think all of us of a certain age (I’m a year younger than JPC) remember these oil cans, and likely still own an oil spout.
Although I don’t recall the full metal jacket versions of these cans.
When changing the oil in my first car, the ’73 LTD, I recall these cans, but they were metal on the top and bottom only, with the cylinder being made of cardboard. I recall that you needed to be careful not to crush the can if your spout was not sharp.
By the time of about my second or third oil change in the ’79 Fairmont Futura (around 1980), these cans were all but gone, replaced by the plastic bottles.
Now the plastic bottles are 5 quart jugs, making this really simple! Well, on my Mustang, anyway. Whose brilliant idea at Honda was it to come up with 3.7 quarts of oil? And metric ain’t the reason here! 3.7 quarts translates to 3.5 liters which is just as weird!
Ok, sorry for the rant. 😉
I was thinking the other night that once I started regularly doing my own oil changes (which would be around 1980), the majority of the “cans” were the metal tops/bottoms with cardboard sides version that you describe.
That’s one reason why I wasn’t sad to see the switch-over to plastic bottles as more than once I had one of those cardboard cans get soaked in a leaky trunk, roll around, and then start to leak oil all over the trunk before I discovered it. I hate to say, but plastic was a lot tidier.
But I do recall the all metal cans from when I was too young to drive, but helped my dad do oil changes (on those rare occasions where he dared to do something mechanical like change his own oil).
After jugs, the next iteration, that I am just starting to see on the shelves, is a cardboard box with plastic bag inside, like “wine in a box”. This uses less material and generates less waste when the contents is emptied.
Yes, that’s the type I’m now using in my 1998 Nissan Frontier, 5W-30 “synthetic blend” from Valvoline, IIRC. Corrugated cardboard with a capped plastic bag inside, 6 quarts.
That roused some dim memories of oil cans in my father’s garage. I doubt he ever changed his own oil, but I remember oily half cans and getting my hands dirty on them.
When did they stop using cans anyway?
My guess Doug would be two reasons. It’s likely cheaper to put the oil in the plastic bottles, and they don’t degrade and leak like the metal topped cardboard cans.
I think that this happened on a large scale right about the time that we lost 2litre (half-gallon) glass soda bottles and most glass beverage bottles period and everything switched over to plastic. So…the late 1970s?
I personally would gladly go back to metal cans and glass bottles for just about everything.
My dad got oil in cans until the early to mid 80s. The best part was the cool sound it made when you shook the can.
After that it was always Valvoline by the case, whenever he could find it on sale. 99c a quart was pretty good.
As far as oil grades, my memory is when Pat Goss from Motorweek talked about SG oil and called it Super Good. But I don’t even look anymore. All my cars are old enough anyway, I’m sure just about anything besides dollar store oil would be fine.
By the time I started changing my own oil in 1977 in my 1975 VW Rabbit, it came in the metal-capped cardboard cans, as low as 49 cents on sale for name brands. Later when I had a ’79 Rabbit, I remember a partly used can sealed with masking tape that tipped over and leaked in the cargo area.
I was glad when the plastic bottles came out in the early 80s; it made topping up so much more convenient for my oil-using cars.
I too quickly grew to like the plastic bottles with screw on caps, on the other hand I vividly remember old beaters in the mid 1960’s with oil soaked trunks, the rest of the car would be rusted through .
-Nate
I started changing oil in my parents’ car a bit before I got my own license, so maybe 1971 and I only remember cardboard cans with the metal tops and bottoms. Does anyone know when they replaced all-metal cans?
Our community does not accept empty plastic oil containers for recycling as they will contaminate the other materials, specifically paper and cardboard. And we no longer have curbside recycling of oil; not sure if it was the danger of spills, or just took time for the drivers to stop and deal with it. I’ve heard of some oils coming in 5 quart plastic bags enclosed in cardboard cartons to reduce the plastic waste but haven’t seen those locally, but I try to buy it in 5 quart plastic jugs rather than individual quarts. Though all of our cars, even the Golf, take more than 5 quarts.
My town as well tries to get people NOT to recycle the plastic oil jugs for the same reason as yours. As far as I can tell, all that results in is people leaving full containers of used oil sitting in the oil recycling area…and other people continuing to throw oil jugs into the regular “colored #2” area. It’s all really par for the course, as it seems that most folks have an exceedingly difficult time sorting recyclables (many people in my town seem to throw everything and anything plastic into one big “everything else” sorting area 🙁 ).
I will say that it always bothers me to not recycle those #2 plastic oil jugs. But I get it.
A steel can, on the other hand, would probably recycle just as well if it had contained oil, coffee, or cat food. I’m just saying.
My town has a most excellent recycling center. There’s a hazarous waste station where you can drop off jugs of used oil, paints etc. Also bins for metal, electronics, grass & yard waste. It’s free except for dumping garbage, which is $20 per 100kg I think.
I fill the used jugs back up with the old oil in the drain pan/filter and take it right back to the auto parts store I got it, they all seem to take wast oil with no charge around here.
Oh, I hated those old oil cans where you had to use the metal spout! Me, as a little kid, helping Dad change oil–it was so hard to get the spout lined up correctly and push it in, or else oil would drip all over! The modern plastic oil bottles with the screw top–such a big improvement!
To this day I won’t use Quaker State because Dad had a 1964 MG 1100 where the engine and transmission share the same oil. Dad changed to Quaker State and suddenly the car shifted like garbage! He drained the Quaker State out and re-filled with Castrol–and the shifting was smooth as silk! I’m sure today’s Quaker State has no relation to what was sold in the 60s-70s, but I still won’t buy it!
According to this article, the oil now sold under the name “Quaker State” is nothing like the original Q.S. sold in the ’60s & ’70s. Q.S. is now made by Shell Oil, and is supposedly a fine quality oil at a relatively low price. Just bought some today at Walmart.
So I give everyone permission to go buy Quaker State!
https://vehiclefreak.com/who-makes-quaker-state-oil-and-is-it-any-good-2022-review/
Interesting article. So, Quaker State and Pennzoil are probably the same stuff. I often use Pennzoil for oil changes…I tend to use whatever I can get the best deal on at Autozone…and it’s interesting to see that it’s all Shell. The only Shell-labeled oil sold at Autozone is some single-grade “Rotella” stuff that I’ve always thought was only for tractors or rototillers or something agricultural (it’s the name “Rotella” that somehow sets me in that direction).
BTW, on my old Volvo, the specs are to use the same oil in the engine as the transmission. I just can’t bring myself to do that (for likely stupid reasons that go to some kind of warning against that which I heard when young). But apparently it was common place back in the day.
Also, Advance Auto is now selling FRAM oil. Except it isn’t made by FRAM. Apparently it’s the same store-brand oil sold previously, but with the FRAM name used under license. I just bought some for my ’59 Chevy.
I think it’s fine oil since it meets the API standards. However, if you see a bottle of oil that says FLAM, I wouldn’t buy it. 😉
https://additivehelp.com/news/fram-now-makes-oil-or-so-they-would-have-you-believe/
I have been on this planet long enough to recall the bulk oil glass containers at my local Martin Gas station.
I fondly remember asking the attendant for two quarts of oil and a dollars’ worth of ‘Purple Martin’; for my 210 Chevy.
I believed we called it ‘used’ oil, not sure of that was what it was, but when your Chevy burns a quart every 100 miles, you use what’s available and cheap!
Thanks elless for that memory! I distinctly recall a glass oil container like that and its location in the crook of tree at my Grandmother’s house, out by where my uncles (and likely my Grandfather before them) worked on cars. They just kept the container outside there…along with their growing collection of derelict cars whose oil-changing days were over.
I’m guessing that container had last seen use a good 10 years before I was born.
I remember an off-brand station in the 70s that had a gas pump off to the side of the building, with the label “Re-Refined Oil”. I guess it was used oil that got filtered and maybe some additives mixed back in. A friend’s father called it “crude oil” and bought it for use in an old beater car that was always surrounded by a blue cloud.
Thanks elless. You win the internet today for coolest blast from the past. I’ve never seen a glass oil container with built in metal spout before. Glass is heavier and susceptible to breakage but it’s 100% recyclable and can be endlessly recycled.
Back during the lockdowns I cleaned out my grandpas garage in Denver and behind some cabinets he installed I dug out two full cans of motor oil. They’re one of the few things that didn’t make it to the dumpster. They moved into this place in 1981, and they were the first owners so they must date back to that period.
In your picture, as well as in the video Daniel linked to below, you can just make out the printing on the top of the can. Seeing these reminds me that yes, at least Quaker State printed the oil grade on the top of the can. Different grades got different colored printing (yours seems red…the one in video is blue). That printing was just hiding under the rust on the can that I photographed.
I actually had a picture of the tops of the cans as well, the Quaker state is thick! I don’t know what car my grandpa used that stuff on
Oops didn’t attach
When I ran my restoration shop I had a 1 gallon paint can with 5 holes in the lid, each hole just big enough for the plastic quart container opening to fit into the hole. This allowed us to upturn 5 quart containers and let them drain the little bit of oil left over from an oil change. Draining the cans for even a few hours makes a difference.
You might be shocked to learn just how much oil remains in the container after pouring it into the engine, especially in colder weather. We used that clean oil in our hand held squirt cans to lubricate various items on vehicles [and even stuff around the building like door hinges!]
As for oil in 50 year old cans; I’ve began buying estates starting about 1970, cleaning out many garages, sheds, & basements, and have found way too many of these cans over the decades. I’ve had “beater” cars & work trucks that I didn’t care about using the best oil, and I wouldn’t hesitate to use oil in these older [but sealed] cans, because as someone pointed out above, the breakdown rate for oil sitting in a sealed can on a shelf is almost nil.
One of my customers worked for Quaker State and said unless the can has sat on a hot wood stove for several winters, there really isn’t going to be a measurable change in the lubrication capabilities, but he did say that for some of the off-brand oils that used cheaper chemical stabilizers, may have some of those chemicals deteriorate from age.
A long time friend of mine who ran a car repair shop in England, would take oil he drained from late model customer cars, especially when the car owner wanted the oil changed every 6 months even if they drove it only a few miles, and he would recycle the oil right into his antique cars. This was back in the mid 1980s when motor oil in England retailed for almost $10 per liter at the discount stores.
In our area, most shops that change engine oils have a big storage tank for used oil, and as they now sell this oil back to refiners, some of them are willing to let people dump their used oil in the tanks.
This is reminding me that years ago in my town (and I used to live in the town right next to this for several years before that where the same thing happened), the guys at the dump used to actually burn that waste oil in a waste-oil-heater to warm their work space and the workshop where they parked and worked on the dump’s heavy equipment.
I’m pretty sure they don’t do that any more as I think that their heater was a kind of DIY thing and the amount of pollutants created by something like that are not exactly good optics for the town.
A little googling shows that there are apparently high quality furnaces that work off of waste oil.
Two things come to mind:
1. This gallery of toxic house-and-garden chemicals we found carefully sequestered in grandpa’s house when I bought it in 2011. We photographed them, then took them to hazmat dispo.
2. ProjectFarm’s tests of the oil in an unopened 70-year-old can of Quaker State.
Thanks for those links 🙂
The gallery is impressive. I found something like that in a house I purchased in KY in 1993. I was the second owner, the first owner having been the guy who it was built for in 1941 (he took ownership a week or so before Pearl Harbor). Over the ensuing 50 years, he amassed quite the collection of products intended to keep his home and garden in shape, poison insects, and (I’d be pretty sure) unintentionally (probably) poison himself and the neighbors. He was an engineer who worked at the GE vacuum tube factory in town, so he was by nature VERY organized. Most of his chemicals were left on shelves in the basement with the location of each product carefully labeled on the shelf.
And that video very much answers the “is it still good” question. Yep, it’s good.
Well…about as good as it ever was; pretty bad compared to today’s oil.
Turpentine? Well then you need to stay out of my garage when it comes to solvents.
I really appreciated the gallon jugs of oil when they came out. Imagine standing on the frame rail of a truck opening 48 individual quarts of oil when doing an oil change on a Cummins 855. Some shops had bulk oil distribution but with the ever increasing varieties of oil there was a lot of individual cans used. The trick for doing a quick oil change was having a large “tractor” funnel. This type of funnel was found at the farm stores, is was originally designed for twist locking into the fuel fill of tractors. These funnels could hold 4 quart cans at once. What was the trick to learn for quickly pouring oil out of the cardboard cans? I was taught to use a side cutter pliers to grab the medal lids edge with the pliers, hard enough grip without cutting the lid and roll up the lid with the pliers. I would roll the lid about half way back and dump the contents and can into the funnel. Fill the funnel with 4 cans. Rip open the next for cans while the first four finish draining and on and on and on. The only hazard to do this was you learned to spin the can and spot the seam in the cardboard can. Grabbing the lid at the seam could end in seam split and a mess to clean up. Gallon jugs were nice improvement, open it up throw in the funnel and then punch a hole in the bottom of the jug to vent the jug. When your working flat rate every minute counts.
One of the reasons some shops preferred using oil in jugs and cans it was very accurate for costing out. Bulk oil had to cover inaccurate measuring, oil not accounted for, etc.
The fun part was changing diff lube in a tandem and having to pump all the 75w140 gear lube by hand.
The other piece you had to learn was identifying what oil was in the trucks transmission.
Mixing different oils in transmissions or using the wrong oil in the transmissions could result in a catastrophic transmission failure. We serviced and repaired all trucks so you could do an oil change on a class 8 tractor and when you were finished a S10 pickup needing a tune up might be your next job. As they say variety is the spice of life!
I’m shocked anyone would take a tin oil quart can home then back to the recycle place .
The waxed cardboard cans began taking over in the 1960’s, several garages I worked in retained the big oil storage with hand pump as it saves quite a bit on our co$t$ .
I too used to drain the empty oil cans, I was told I could have all the oil I saved this way and was able to keep my old beater in fresh oil and do 3,000mile oil changes co$t free =8-) .
Good way to teach the young ‘uns .
Into the late 1970’s that I know of, service stations Down East often bought waste oil heaters / burners that would heat the bays well using waste oil .
-Nate
” As they say variety is the spice of life!”
Just So ;
But never let the wife discover this ! .
-Nate
I was there for the “Grandpa had…” discussion shown in the article. There was enough oil from that era and the circular plastic bottle era after to fill a tanker truck, and enough coffee to keep you and the crew awake to fill it.
Oh, and this:
I recall seeing that back then.
Or the improved version where they suggested pouring it into plastic milk jugs then throwing it in the trash. Because I guess it has to contaminate everything around it before it can contaminate the dirt?
Yes, that’s what I did (putting it in milk jugs and then in the trash), because of those PS or PM recommendations of the supposed next-best option if there were no recycling places. This was in the 1977-79 period when I lived in Indiana and Kentucky.
Starting in 1980 after I had moved to Virginia, there were gas stations that would take the used oil. Now I go to auto parts stores like Advance.
My dad used to just drizzle it onto the road. Barely a drop in the bucket compared to how the county would spray an oil mix onto the road multiple times a year to keep the dust down.
Yes. I think I’ve literally blocked my recollection of what I did with waste oil in the 20th century. Ugh. I actually think I saw the Pop Sci bit that Daniel referenced and thought that was a good idea at the time.
Topco was (still is) a coöp providing a wide range of house-brand grocery items. Don’t know their branding strategy now, but in the early ’80s they did variations: Top Fresh for…uh…stuff that was best sold fresh; Top Frost for frozen fruit and vegetables and orange juice concentrate, etc. I snapped this in a Seattle secondhand store some years back; guess they used to do engine oil, too:
I did my first oil change, before I could drive in 1969, back in 1967. I, too, still have a chrome metal oil spout. I can’t exactly think when the switch to the cans to plastic bottles occurred and I did all oil changes. The big issue back then, as pointed out by Daniel, was the disposal of used oil. I don’t recall what I put it in after the pan. I do believe I took to a local station although I also recall it accumulating some. Then an auto parts store with large capacity container and today the recycle center where they remove it from my trunk.
The chrome spout is buried in the back of the deep bottom drawer of a tall tool chest. Where else? That is where things fall that aren’t used anymore as the useful tools move forward. How many still use a dwell-tach meter and timing light? My 1968 Craftsman versions were used on Sunday.
I use my old DWELL/TACHOMETER and my SEARS Craftsman timing light with advance dial on a regular basis .
I’m a Tech Advisor to multiple car clubs and they always request I bring these two tools as it makes engines start easier cold or hot, idle better, improves power, makes them run cooler and increases fuel economy .
Older machines still need the valves checked and adjusted, the dwell (points gap) checked and then the timing checked and adjusted at least once a year / every 10,000 miles as they often drift a tiny bit .
-Nate
SAE viscosity scale for motor oils dates back to the early 1930s, but a quick search didn’t give the year. This is also the period the quart can showed up; evidently gallon cans were standard earlier. I do recall that the oil used in the Army Air Corps’ Fokker trimotor “Question mark” refueling experiment flight of 1929-30 had viscosity described in some sort of non-SAE scale like “extra heavy” or similar but lack specific details.
I dug through my stuff and can say that the Question mark used Pennzoil triple extra heavy oil. This good Pennsylvania oil didn’t help the pushrods, which were more or less sealed off in their valve covers with a wad of some kind of grease, leading to pushrod failure in the left hand engine after about 150 continuous hours of flight. The fuel was 72 octane gasoline.
I guess you are not a fan of the American Pickers TV show where Frank would go nuts buying up old metal containers of motor oil while he and Mike were picking through old garages and barns. I think the collectors call it “Petroliana” or something.
I buy old oil cans, and various other auto canned fluids, for my own personal collection. It takes awhile because I only buy full cans and not off eBay because they want to much. I buy at local garage/estate sales, Facebook marketplace ads, and so on. I’ve never paid more than $1, I can usually get them for a quarter. I have about 20.
Props to you for pursuing your collection. I think I have a sufficient number of collections such that I’m glad I passed over this Quaker State can as in my hands it well could have been the anchor of a new obsession. Not something that I need to foster.
There was a time though where I started a beer can collection. Somehow that fortunately got nipped in the bud after a few dozen items.
I think I still have a metal spout for an oil can somewhere but all of my cans ended up in a engine by 1989-90. The switch to plastic had its uses, I made offset funnels for topping up my motorcycle out of the tops of plastic oil bottles.
Jan Smithers and Suzanne Somers for STP Oil Treatment, from 1975.
I see your Suzanne and Jan, and raise you “STP, It’s the Racer’s Edge”.
I haven’t thought about that commercial/campaign for years, but now I recall what a big deal it was when I was in later elementary school to have an STP sticker on ones notebook, lunchbox, etc. This of course was in North Carolina…where Richard Petty really was king at the time. 🙂
Back around 1986 my friend’s grandmother had a garage without a car – she said her Rambler had been the best car ever until she quit driving – but with a lot of old oil cans. Since I had a 1977 Corolla that needed about a litre of oil every fill-up I just used up all that oil and it worked like a charm. Funny how in those days nobody worried about cars generating clouds of blue smoke after rolling away from an intersection.
I have to admit that I think it was incredibly selfish to just leave it laying there. Many people would have loved to have bought that can. Why throw things away that thousands love to collect.?