Canadian Oil Companies Ltd.
Licence Attachment(s)
Are you old enough to remember these ?
Are you old enough to remember these ?
Given out by most the major oil companies
, these were a popular give-away that possibly found
their way onto as many bicycles as automobiles. I guess
you could have called these a fad , but
whatever it was, the oil companies managed to get their
customers to do their advertising for them.
My first thought was that it may not be a wise idea to
pull into a gas station with a competitors logo openly displaying your
first choice , but it may have had just the opposite effect. Possibly the
station owner worked extra hard to impress you and earn your business.
Quite often these licence plate attachments were reflectorized
and added a measure of safety
in the days when many cars had only one tail light and
it wasn't the best.
I have never been able to find any real proof when
these were given out , but a couple of clues lead
me to believe it was during the 1930's. The first
clue is that in early 1939 , Canadian Oil Companies Limited became truly
Canadian again , after being sold by parent company , National Refining
. At this time they began to phase out the use of the Boy and Slate and
began using the image of a White Rose .
I believe they would have chose the new 'Rose'
image for any promotions after 1938.
The second clue , came from the reminisces of a uncle
, born in the early twenties , of receiving one of these attachments as
a child and attaching it to his bicycle. He believes this would have been
during the thirties.
To the best of my knowledge , Canadian Oil Companies
Ltd. only gave out one version of these
attachments, while National Refining Co. handed
out at least two versions , and while similar , all
had different messages and products listed on the
slate .
