Vintage Dover 1-Quart #80 Thumbprint Glass Oil Bottle w/ Mobil Oil A Metal Spout

Description

In the day, a motorists would pull up in a service station, ask for a quart of oil, and the attendant would pour it into his engine via a glass "oiler" bottle with built-in tin funnel. Then the attendant would refill the bottle and repeat the operation for the next motorist. Oilers were an honest method of selling oil, an improvement over pumping an unknown quantity into cars from a barrel. The first oilers appeared in the early 1920s and become commonplace until disposable metal and paper cans and bottles started to be made after World War II. Because the bottles could be under filled, the embossed state labels along the top of this bottle were added as states passed laws to guarantee a full quart. While a few old timers may still remember these bottles from the 1950s, they are long gone aspect of petroliana.
The Dover Stamping and Manufacturing Company, situated in Cambridge, Massachusetts, began in 1833 stamping household and industrial objects from tin plate. Its first claim to fame was the Dover egg beater, the hand turn-the-crank beater replacement to the egg-beating fork still in use today. Patented in 1877, the Dover egg beater kept an entire factory busy until the early twentieth century. That's when Dover began stamping tin metal funnels for the new oiler bottles. Add a bottle with its own name and Dover became a leading oiler manufacturer until the 1940s.
Mobil started out in life as the Vacuum Oil Company. From trademarking the brand name in 1909, Vacuum used Mobil and the red winged-horse on its petroleum products until it became the Mobil Corporation in 1966. However, Vacuum merged with Socony (Standard Oil Company of New York) in 1936 and changed its name, so this funnel probably dates to before 1936 because it reads "Property of Vacuum Oil Company" on its base. The bottle isn't date marked, and they probably weren't originally together.
This #80 Dover oiler bottle measures 9 inches (23 cm) tall without the spout, 15 inches (39 cm) with the spout screwed on, 4 inches (9 cm) in diameter at the bottom, and 2.5 inches (7 cm) at the top. The bottle is in prime condition with no visible cracks, chips, dings or large imperfections in the glass and is neat and clean. The funnel is still structurally sound although there is some tarnishing, flaking, and chips. Your funnel may look better than the one in the pictures. A must have for all petroliana collectors, that recreated gas or service station, or any Depression-era decor. Shipped free in the US. Check out our other petroliana and advertising collectibles at www.ebay.com/str/agitpropshoppe
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