To a Mobil specialist, the IR54 dated Mobilgas pump plate is kind of an oddity, being a crossover year from the wide blue border plates made from 1947 to 1954, to the thin white outer border plates made from 1954 to 1962. (Although personally the latest IR dated thin border Mobilgas plate I have ever seen is a 1960 (IR60). Date info comes from the Mobil Collectors & Price Guide)

At any rate, the wide blue border IR54 plate is pretty rare IMO. I have only seen maybe 4 in all my years of collecting Mobil. Most all you see are the thin border version with the IR54 date code at the lowest point. I was surprised recently when an Ebay seller listed a pair of them. I was outbid on the first one, but won the second plate she listed about a month later. While not mint, it fills a spot in the shield variation collection.

Here's the interesting part....the first one I got outbid on sold for $208.50 on Sept. 14th, item number 332372519011. The buyer relisted the plate on Nov. 21st, cleaned up a little bit, and it only sold for $158.50 plus shipping, item number 332457442530. Obviously there is no wrong doing by either seller here, the situation just caught my eye. There's no real point here, lol, other than I don't understand why a person would buy something then sell it 2 months later at a 25% loss? Even with the upper point damage, the new buyer got a good deal IMO, I just didn't need two of them!
Darin


Darin Sheffer
Always looking for Mobil and Marathon items I don't already have!