The "Company Of The Month" for May 2013 is MOBIL, which most of us felt would be the natural choice after last month's installment of SOCONY. Many thanks to Tom for hosting last month and to all whom contributed information and photos of their items for all of us to see. The following is a brief history of the company from Wikipedia, most of which was covered in Tom’s feature last month.
“Following the break-up of Standard Oil in 1911, the Standard Oil Company of New York, or Socony, was founded, along with 33 other successor companies. In 1920, the company registered the name "Mobiloil" as a trademark.
In 1931, Socony merged with Vacuum Oil to form Socony-Vacuum. The red Pegasus or "Flying Red Horse" was adopted as the company logo at this time. In 1933, Socony-Vacuum and Jersey Standard (which had oil production and refineries in Indonesia) merged their interests in the Far East into a 50–50 joint venture. Standard-Vacuum Oil Co., or "Stanvac," operated in 50 countries, including East Africa, New Zealand and China, before it was dissolved in 1962.
In 1955, Socony-Vacuum was renamed Socony Mobil Oil Company. In 1963, it changed its trade name from "Mobilgas" to simply "Mobil," introducing a new logo (created by New York graphic design firm Chermayeff & Geismar). To celebrate its 100th anniversary in 1966, "Socony" was dropped from the corporate name.
Through the years, Mobil was among the largest sellers of gasoline and motor oils in the United States and even held the top spot during the 1940s and much of the 1950s. Various Mobil products during the Socony-Vacuum and Socony-Mobil years included Metro, Mobilgas and Mobilgas Special gasolines; Mobilfuel Diesel, Mobil-flame heating oil, Mobil Kerosine, Lubrite, Gargoyle, Mobiloil and Mobiloil Special motor oils; Mobilgrease, Mobillubrication, Mobil Upperlube, Mobil Freezone and Permazone antifreezes, Mobilfluid automatic transmission fluid, Mobil Premiere tires, Mobil Stop-Leak, Mobil Lustrecloth, among many others.
In 1962, the gasoline product lines marketed as Mobilgas and Mobilgas Special were rebranded as Mobil Regular and Mobil Premium in a move to emphasize the shortened brand name "Mobil" in promotional efforts although Mobiloil continued as a single word term until the 1970s. After a few years of advertising Mobil gasolines as "Megatane"-rated and as "High Energy" gasolines, Mobil began, in 1966, to promote both its Regular and Premium fuels as "Detergent Gasolines," due to the inclusion of additives designed to clean carburetors and various internal engine parts.”
I started collecting Mobil items around 2007. While I have no personal affiliation with the company, I had always been drawn the “The Flying Red Horse” logo, one of the most iconic trademarks in advertising history. I was told early on when I started collecting old gas items that I better pick a brand as the amount of items available would be overwhelming if you tried to collect them all. Well I’ll tell you, Mobil in itself produced enough items over the years that it seems like I’m always seeing items that I have never seen before, and I’ve been in the hobby for over 6 years now and search the internet several times a day to see what is out there. Mobil is not the brand for the collector who wants to have an example of every item the company ever produced, as I don’t think anyone could ever succeed!
While I have a pretty extensive Mobil collection to share, I would first like to have all of those willing to share photos of their items to go ahead and show us what you've got! That way everyone has an opportunity to post. I’ll start posting photos now and then as we proceed of items that have not yet been shown. Mobil is a very popular company and I’m sure almost every one of us has a Mobil item or two in our collections, so let’s see them!
I’ll start with one of my most recent additions, the very scarce Mobilheat Stove Oil globe, produced from 1955-1962.
