Australia KGV Perfin "Vacuum Oil Co. " Background

When I was sorting a pile of KGVs, I identified several of them as perfinned by the Vacuum Oil Company of Sydney. I assumed it was a fairly common perfin.




(images from two different stamps)

I recently came across a rather battered folder from the Vaccuum Oil Company in the 1920s. It is essential promoting their range of products, and shows some of the companies and individuals who have used them. It includes pictures of famous motoring and air exploits, such as round-Australia trips. Also some testemonials about their products. I thought I'd post some pics, especially thinking of our recent influx of Aussie members

Wow!
Top post Stampgal.....

Plume indeed, Sir Charles Kingsford Smith
our very famous son flew from the UK to Australia
and his world flights on Plume!

I'll have to dig deep into the Hard disk and see if I can get
some appropriate images to support your thread

Vacuum Motor Oils

The Vacuum Oil Company was the first oil company established in Australia. Prior to this other
brands of oil based products were marketed by overseas companies through their Australian agents.

The company set up their Queen Street, Melbourne, branch in February 1895, less than 30 years
after Vacuum first started operations in the US. Vacuum Oil's first salesman in Australia, Mr David
Clarke, sold the company's first barrel of lubricating oil to a gold mining operation at Eaglehawk,
near Bendigo, on his first day in the job.

In March 1904, Vacuum Oil was officially incorporated under Victorian Law as a proprietary
company, and in 1906 the company issued Australia's first ever chart of "Recommendations to
Motorists" covering about 200 makes of car.

By 1908, Vacuum was growing rapidly and merged with the Colonial Oil Co, a company marketing
kerosene and motor spirit, adding to Vacuum's specialty lubricant products. In 1916, Vacuum
introduced its "Plume" and "Laurel" brands to the Australian market and a year later brought its first
100 gallon, horse drawn tank wagon into service.

As motor vehicles became more popular in Australia, Vacuum expanded its operations. In 1924
Vacuum opened its first bulk petroleum products terminal at Pulpit Point in Sydney and took
delivery of its first imported bulk oil products cargo, a 1.5 million gallon shipment carried from the
United States by the tanker "HT Harper".

A decade later, Vacuum introduced "Ethyl", Australia's first Super grade motor spirit. Around the
same time in the US, Vacuum's parent company, Vacuum Oil Inc, merged with the Standard Oil
Company of New York to become Socony Vacuum, then Socony Mobil that ultimately became
Mobil Corporation. Vacuum replaced the famous Plume brand name with Mobilgas in 1954.

I used to break down old albums,
by cutting out pages of hinged stamps
using a scalpel at the point where the page meets
the spine, and soaking all the stamps off in the sink.

A cinderella was hiding under the page stuck in the
crease of the spine, my scalpel sliced the stamp in half

I don't use that method any more.




Sir Charles and the famous "Southern Cross"
refuelling on Plume (possibly North Queensland)

IIRC got a bit carried away with this one at auction,
and paid a price I regretted at the time.
Possibly now it has reached its purchase price.

Thanks for your encouragement and all the extra info, Rod!
There are many more pages of historic and epic Australian journeys of the 1920s in the folder, I'll try to post some some more later.

While we on an Australian aviation theme...

I'll add this image for a bit of fun, and in context
albeit at a tangent.



This is an Australian Surf Lifesaving reel.
It was used on beaches where surf was prevalent and
sometimes dangerous.
The lifesaver would place a belt around his/her waist
and swim out to the person drowning, or having difficulty,
and the team would then winch the swimmer in.

The first recorded rescue of a man using a surf reel at Bondi was that carried out on
Charlie Smith, who was later to wing his way around the world as Charles Kingsford Smith.

Here is the lad in all his glory............

Hey, stampgal, a similar cancel mark, plane flopped horizontally was used in the States.
Go figure.

Nice cancel, Jamesw!
To bring Rod's tangent back full-circle (if its possible for a tangent to be circular !?)
here's a copy of a thankyou letter from Kingsford Smith to Vacuum Oil Co.