Richfield Oil Co. Lubricant Oil Drum

I spotted this drum in a junk pile a neighbor was going to take to the scrap yard. Knowing that the contents in the pile were going to be melted down, I couldn't let this nice vintage lubricant can be turned into a toaster oven, so I brought it home.




Richfield Oil Five Gallon Oil Can

I did some research and found that Richfield Oil was a company based out of Los Angeles in the imposing Richfield Tower, which, sadly, was demolished in the late 60s. They owned Richfield service stations, and produced automotive oil and lubricants. Richfield merged with Atlantic Petroleum Storage Co. in 1966, becoming the Atlantic Richfield Company, better known as ARCO.



Richfield Tower, Los Angeles, California

We were able to date the drum to sometime between 1964 and 1966, after researching the drum's manufacturer, the Meyers Drum Company, which was founded in 1964. The inside is in mint condition, as you can see by the below photo.



This would be an excellent edition to your automotive or oil can collection, or in just in your garage. You can find more photos here, and I'm pretty sure you'll find the price is right!

Antique Armour's Butterine Sign

When I found this sign, I was at a garage sale in Anacortes, Washington, in a very old neighborhood (I seem to have good luck in older neighborhoods). Nothing really stood out at first, just an old Eastman-Kodak camera and several crates holding some tins and bottles. I then spotted a rusted piece of wrinkled metal sticking halfway out of an old picnic basket. I saw it had writing on it, so I pulled it out and realized it was an old sign. I ended up buying it and a vintage marjoram spice can. When I got home, I found a way online to clean off rust, which worked amazingly on the sign, as you can see in the pictures. I'm sorry I don't have any photos of it before the cleaning. Check out the square nail holes. You can see more pictures here.


Armour's Butterine Metal Advertising Sign

Butterine is a butter imitation developed in France by a chemist named Hippolyte Mege-Mouries in the late 1860s at a contest sponsored by Napoleon III for the best butter substitute. Butterine was one name for margarine, which is made from vegetable oil and animal lard, however now it is mostly vegetable oil. Along with other butterine manufacturers in America, Armour Inc. began producing butterine sometime in the late 1800s-early 1900s, and, being a meat processing company, used mainly animal fat and some other ingredients from their plant.

Anacortes is an old salmon fishing and cannery town, and this sign may very well have hung outside some kind of grocery or supply store. Makes you wonder how butterine and canned salmon tastes! :)

Introduction...

Hi, my name is Joe, I'm 12, and I collect and sell Americana on my Etsy store, Streamliner Vintage, hence my blog. Most of my inventory either comes from garage sales or our own storage room where a lot of stuff has accumulated, which I'm sure is inevitable for any "place of storage." I sold a Blenko mid-century modern decanter within the first hour of my store's opening, which has got to be some kind of record :)  I have very reasonable prices, and each of these items has a story with it, which you can find right here on the Streamliner Vintage blog.

Blenko Decanter #6224L, Jonquil