Petro-Glyph Column
Featuring Nathan Lippe
Check the Oil! Magazine, March 2004
Earl Ma
You Don't Have to be Old to Like Oil Cans
When I began collection motor oil cans back in 1981 - at the ripe old age of ten - I had no idea that another decade would pass before I'd meet a fellow can fanatic. And while my college years finally introduced me to many of the movers and shakers in Petroliana, it was not until after graduation that I cam across a peer who actually approximated my age group - and he was a whopping eight years younger!
That face, coupled with the fact that fellow "CTO!" contributing writer Nathan Lippe did not grow up in a family involved in gas stations or oil company marketing, made us kindred spirits of sorts. To this day I still do not know of anyone in the hobby younger than either of us Generation X-ers. So how did someone like Nathan get started and make himself one of Petroliana's most influential names under the age of 30?
"In 1994 my uncle from Indiana was attending my parent's 25th wedding anniversary party, and he mentioned he was selling off his collection," the Iowa native recalls. "In his basement he had a collection of all sorts of train memorabilia and advertising signs. When he died suddenly several months later and his stuff went up for auction, my dad said we ought to go and check it out."
"I came home with a Double Cola sign and a Royal Crown Cola sign for ten bucks apiece. The following June (at age 15) I decided to start collecting advertising signs and at that point got involved in eBay, when it was just getting off the ground. I bought a Texaco Fire Chief pump plate, which is just about the most common sign you could get. But I thought it was the coolest thing and at that point made the switch from advertising to gas and oil."
Nathan says getting into collection was nothing new, as he had dabbled in philately at age 3. But the teenage epiphany changed his life. "I don't really know how I got into this whole thing, but it's been awesome ever since. I guess it was inspiration from my uncle that got me started, as well as an interest in the past that keeps me going. A funny coincidence was that my uncle actually worked in a gas station in college, but I didn't know anything about it, which is different from most collector's backgrounds."
Nathan's collection consists of roughly 300 quarts, 100 round outboards, and several hundred maps. "These were all affordable items," he explains. "I've gotten into signs and globes a little, but they're still pretty much out of my league. I've bought a lot of cans and smalls off eBay - they're like commodities in a sense. After you've been to so many shows, there's only really a few left on the market that are one-of-a-kind."
He does also own 125-200 signs (included the Double Cola sign that started it all), six pumps and an unrestored island display case. "There's lots of stuff sitting there for a time when I have something larger than an apartment to work with...I hope to buy our build a house in a year or two." For now, the larger items sit in his brother's barn, awaiting that permanent home.
While Nathan's collecting background lies rooted in unconventionality, his foremost interests, like many others, lie in hometown brands. You will frequently find his ads in the "CTO!" wanted classifieds for Dubuque's own Iowa Oil Company artifacts, of which he already owns quite a few unique items. One current project involves obtaining the original Iowa Oil building signs from 1915. He also has a special fondness for fellow Iowa brands Hawkeye and Liberty, along with Paraland, Wareco, and Martin Oil Service.
Nathan attended his first Iowa Gas in 1997 and has averaged about half a dozen major shows annually ever since throughout his university career. After starting out in biology, he earned his degree from Elmhurst College in Illinois in 2002, majoring in Business Management. After spending much of 2003 in California working on several startup business ventures, he has returned to Dubuque with an administrative position at Enterprise Rent-A-Car.
His extended stay in the Golden State allowed him to continue working with his mentor Fred Stoke, with whom he has spent the past several years collaborating on an ongoing oil can catalog. "I bought a case of cans in an auction and traded some to Tom Allen, which led to meeting Fred. He just loves this stuff, and he constantly has people stopping by to look. He's a great historian who's done so much for the hobby, an he's been an inspiration to me."
The project originated as a standard book, but is now evolving into something more interactive. "I first worked with Fred in January 1999 to do a first edition (the pair own the only two copies in existence), he got someone else to do a second, and then we started on one for the general public. We were planning on 10,000 pictures (covering most of Fred's collection) and over 200 pages, but we found it too expensive to publish on a reasonable scale. We talked to several publishers and they all wanted too much money."
At this point Nathan envisions the end product as an online database or CD-ROM which can be customized for more specific markets, and he feels this gives him a leg up on the existing competition. "With many different items still being found every day, books become obsolete very quickly...plus it's a lot cheaper this way. It's not very cost effective to publish a book when you have just 3,000 cans. There are thousands more out there, so do these books really do me any good? But on the other and, they've gotten their books published, which is more than I can say."
Despite being involved in Petroliana for nearly a decade, Nathan remains a bit of a maverick among his friends and family. "I told my mom I was going to stop collecting to save money and buy a car, but that never happened! I never owned a car until last spring (instead he bummed rides off friends in college). In the beginning, my parents thought I was a little crazy, but after they saw the excitement and the people I was able to meet, they grew to appreciate it. One time they even let me borrow their car to haul oil cans to Iowa Gas."
Nathan believes the way his interests have rubbed off on his school friends indicates all is not lost for future generations of collectors, even if they've grown up in a world of plastic oil bottles, MPD gasoline pumps and convenience stores. "They still tease me about being 'the oil can kid'. In college, it also allowed me to increase awareness among a generation that others might think take this stuff for granted. But we're not just hung up on expensive cars and computers and stuff...some of us still have an affinity for the good old days, event though we never actually experienced them."
While many senior collectors may feel cynical about the hobby's long-term future, Nathan feels exactly the opposite. While he doesn't not know of many active people in his own age group, "the number of new people entering the hobby i see at shows absolutely amazes me. It also amazes me to drive through small towns and still see old signs hanging up. I've talked to many an old-timer who's said it's nothing like it used to be, but I still think it's neat to catch even an occasional glimpse of the past.
"I'm excited about the number of different (gas and oil) items always hitting the market....and the people in the hobby are just awesome."
