1884: Letter to the Publishers of Every Other Saturday, letterhead from the Post Office of Bar Harbor, Maine

in ,

It seems that someone in Maine had given an honest go at selling a Boston circular called Every Other Saturday. On a Bar Harbor, Maine Post Office Letterhead, our scribe submits:

POST OFFICE,

BAR HARBOR, MAINE,

[…] Aug 1884

To Publisher of

Every Other Saturday

Boston, Mass.

Dear Sir:

I return by this mail 20 Copies of your Paper. I have distributed the sample copies which you sent me to the best advantage but cannot sell any. I think you had better not send any more. I am sorry that I cannot make any sale.

Yours Truly,

[A. J.] Grant

1929: The Seaboard Oil Company, Lake City, Florida Invoice to Winfield Trading Co. Purol Gasoline, Tiolene Motor Oil, the "Twins of Power"

in ,

1929 Invoice from the Seaboard Oil Company in official letterhead.

"Form A-2 LAKE CITY 1M P50 9-7-26 Leak - Invoice No. 406

THE SEABOARD OIL COMPANY - DIXIE AND RAILROAD STREETS - LAKE CITY, FLORIDA P.O. BOX 57

Purol Gasoline - Twins of Power - Tiolene Motor Oil"

Invoiced to Winfield Trading Co. of Winfield Florida, Feb. 27 1929 (C). The invoiced material was gasoline.

The invoice requests:

"Please remit direct to station from which purchase was made. Preserve this invoice. We do not itemize again. No receipts mailed unless requested." The piece measures 8.5" wide by 7" tall, with two hole punches on the left. The letterhead is printed, the details were typed by typewriter.

Antique Purol and Tiolene brand signs are collected as petroliana. This piece then would be an overlap collectible, both ephemera and petroliana.

We weren’t able to find out much about the specific histories of these companies - some may have been bought or merged since 1929, and companies with the same or similar names were operating in different regions. Do you have more information about the history of this piece? Drop us a line!

Resources that may fill out the history or context of this piece:

Contemporaneous publications about the industry, such as International Petroleum Register: A Yearly Directory of the Active Oil Companies of the World, Petroleum Age, or National Petroleum News.

Encyclopedia of Petroliana: Identification and Price Guide by Mark Anderton

History of Petroleum Engineering by The American Petroleum Institute

Enterprise in oil: a history of Shell in the United States by Kendall Beaton

Petroleum in History and Finance by Dwight B. Cragun

Petroleum Progress and Profits: A History of Process Innovation by John L. Enos

A Pictorial Survey of the Petroleum Industry publ, Norwich, Jarrold & Sons Ltd

The Early Petroleum Industry (Perspectives in American history) by Paul H. Giddens