So the other day I was hanging out with a friend of mine who is also a petro collector. We got into a discussion and he INSISTS that the plastic quart's that we buy now in the stores are going to be just as collectable and valuable someday as the cans we collect. I think it is complete craziness. My questions is do you all think these things may be collectable 30 40 years from now?

Plastic does not rust. If a small independent company puts out 50,000 bottles, any sitting on a shelf 50 years from now will still be there. The small independent producers put out small batches of cans that rusted away, dripped all over and got thrown away.

Most of the cans I collect come from the 30's - 50's. If oil is no longer used in 2063 maybe the plastic bottles will be valuable, but will you care?

Plastic doesn't rust but it does get recycled. It is all a matter of supply and demand. I have a friend with a major tin collection and he has been looking for the last five years for an early plastic Co-op litre that he remembered using on the farm by the case in the 1980s. He hasn't found one yet. Maybe it is of little value to 99.9% of the collectors now but to him it is a dear memory. It is always tricky to predict the future but I am glad to be in the here and now collecting what I find and not worry about what I put into the recycle bins. Cheers, Don.

Who knows? This same conversation might have been going on 30, 40, 50 years ago as dads and friends were watching their kids shoot BB holes in their used oil cans and signs. Even today, who would have thought that a box of Twinkies would be selling for $100? I guess we just can't predict what people will want in the distant future.

Interesting discussion.I have a few plastic containers in my collection,nothing available now to my knowledge,because I think they help to tell the story of the evolution of marketing petro/TBA products.

Will they become collectibles on their own in the future?I have no idea.But for me,some of them are collectible right now if the objective is to collect and display history.With that in mind,who knows,they just might.Just my thoughts.

Two things to think about... The labels on these plastic quarts, change every so often. Sometimes only a minor detail, but a change, none the less. For those of us who collect a specific company, we look for variations like this.

The other thought though is... Just imagine something else that you like, (I happen to like trains) I sometime see an old railroad grade and think, "how magnificent it must have been to see that steam locomotive pulling that grade". I'm drawn to the nostalgia of the past. It was an everyday event back then, and even a bother at times. Reality though, reminds me, that I drive a truck. I just cant ever imagine, that someday somebody will say, "How magnificent, it must have been, to watch Thunders old "A-Car" pull that grade!"

It kinda makes ya wonder...

Everything we collect today was yesterdays garbage.

For me, my collecting interests are not based on my personal memories. For me; it`s the pride, quality, craftsmanship that went everything. The general boom in manufacturing and advertising post World War I and II all play a part in my collecting interests. Even the packaging that was to be discarded was quality built...another reason why it survived, because it was repurposed. In my opinion, the lure and the romance of those years will never really die or fade. Those are truly iconic years of advertising, innocence and good wholesome family values. We as a civilization will never have those simple and carefree times again.

I don`t think that items from the 80`s, 90`s and onwards will be as collectible.

Found this eBay listing interesting relative to this conversation.

271163130184

Does anyone here remember Union Oil of California experimenting with a Plastic pouch back in I think, 1969 or so ? Yes, they were short lived as were the Plastic oil cans used by Texaco and Shell with the metal tops .

I had a similar discussion years ago at an automobile electrical shop where the owner and I were throwing about the stark realities of finding plastic replacement parts for a 1980 Camaro Z-28.

As someone who has been in the automobile restoration business, I can tell ya about the scarcity of finding several NEEDED pieces when trying to repair some of the "Late Model " Muscle cars . The same applies to plastic petrolinia . Ed Shaver

I realize that 50+ years ago when these products were actually being used they never thought there would be people collecting this stuff, but a lot of pre-1965 plastic items are pretty hard to come by in my opinion. The most plentiful plastic items are grease tubes and outboard oil cans from what I have seen.
In the photo below are 3 plastic Mobil items. The Mobiloil Outboard quart is usually available if you're looking for one, but I can tell you the other two were pretty tough to find. The taller red windshield cleaner is the only one I've seen in my 6 years of collecting Mobil items, and the smaller one to the left of it is only the second one I've seen of that bottle. Believe me, I had to step up to win both of those bottles on Ebay. I think plastic bottles and items are an underappreciated item in most collections and some are more rare than you think! Will the new stuff ever be worth something? Maybe not in our lifetimes, but as Wendell stated above they are part of the evolution of these company's marketing and more than likely will be collected at some point.
Darin

I'm guessing some will end up collectable, due to graphics or uniqueness. Got a soft spot in my heart for this plastic/metal DX can I bought a few years back, haven't seen many of them.



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My Harley Davidson can collection didn't end with the composition cans, kinda glad I started grabbing the plastics years back as there's been a half dozen changes so far.



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See now, when you see a chronological display like that Harley collection, the plastics seem to make sense. And it dont hurt that those have some pretty cool graphics.

As we say,"a picture is worth a thousand words".Thanks Darin and Kwilal for posting the pics.You guys just showed exactly what I was trying to explain.Nice stuff guys;products probably available only in plastic and the evolution of containers in marketing.