Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion Blackhawk Ethyl

Good afternoon, I have a question for you guys, Does anyone have a picture, sign, or decal of a Blackhawk Ethyl?
I bought a National B-38 yesterday, and from what I can make out is a decal on the front that says Blackhawk Ethyl.
But I can't make anything else out. Did a search and have not been able to find anything really, did find a picture
in the archives of OG of a Blackhawk gas globe but does not look like what is on the decal. Thanks for any help!!
Brian

I did some research on the bird related brands not too long ago, I was interested in Golden Eagle gas. I've never seen Blackhawk before. I zoomed into the image to check it out. I can make out BLAC - - AWK. The center portion also says something thats not the typical ethyl logo. I'm assuming bottom says ethyl, hard to tell.

In the past I've taken the thinnest paper I can find and made a rubbing with a pencil lead to figure these things out. M ight work on this one,

- Paul

Hey Paul, Thanks for the reply, It deffinetly says Blackhawk on the top, and Ethyl on bottom but like you said the Ethyl logo is different
than what you normally see, it looks like the (sun burst) around the triangle logo but I cant make out what words are in the triangle,
if that makes sense.

Brian

Definitely be interesting to see what they used for their main logo. Might be really cool.

That is what I was thinking, at some point it was made into a Conoco pump, so I was going to leave as that
until I seen that decal painted over now it has my interest. The ad glass panels look like somebody removed
the original name when it became Conoco. I will post pictures in Buy of the week.

Brian

Brian,

Not sure anyone here will know this brand, you might get lucky and someone remembers it, hopefully! If you are curious and want to dig more, there are newspaper archive websites that go back to the 1930s. I've used newspaper.com before and found maybe 10 ads related to "golden eagle gasoline". If the key terms are uncommon enough, like "blackhawk gasoline" or "blackhawk gas station" probably is, might get some hits from gas station adds in old newspapers without it being overwhelming. They may have their logo in the ad. Takes a little time to get used to how there database works, but not too hard. If I remember correctly its organized by states or regions. Newspaper.com has a one week free sign up and gets really expensive after that, so make sure you cancel your subscription!!! Probably take you an hour or two of searching.

Anyway just an FYI.

- Paul

The Ethyl logo is fairly standard - even if it's the EGC version.

And I believe there's enough detail left to reproduce the decal.

You'd just need to figure out the outer background color and the color of the lettering.

The lettering looks like it matches the Sweney Sky Hawk . . .

Sky Hawk / Black Hawk?

I'd be interested in recreating it for you if you want.

Later . . .

Jim

Not sure if this is the same company, but there was a Blackhawk Oil Company out of Waterloo, Iowa in the late '20's. I'll get a picture of a map and post it a bit later.

Thanks Alan I would appreciate that!!

Brian

Neat map! I'll see if I can dig anything else up.

Not my can! just saved the picture from a long time ago.

I know Faultless Oil and Red Ball gasoline are typically associated with the Hawkeye Oil Company out of Mason City and Waterloo. I did a quick search and found out why here:
https://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4873&context=palimpsest

In 1926 Hawkeye Oil became Blackhawk Oil, under new management and a new slogan, All over Iowa. A year later the company was bought out by Mid-Continent Petroleum Corporation (later known as Diamond or Sunray D-X).

Based on this I don't think its the same company as the one from the pump. Who knows?

another example .. ...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Rare-Hawkeye-Faultless-Motor-Oil-Can-/313417645827

None of the shown examples have lettering that looks anything like the decal remains.

The name might match the decal, but due to where this pump was found and the lettering used on the decal and the Sweney Sky Hawk lenses - I still think this is a as yet unknown Sweney image.

Later . . .

Jim

Alan, That is a neat map with cool graphics, also a good article on the Iowa oil companies.
Thank you for sharing the info, and Randy also.

Brian