shows like The Pickers or Storage Wars,
where roadside enamelled signs have been found displaying a companies name and it's logo, which are then cleaned and sold on to collectors, the one above for Sinclair Oil is an example, but the logo of the dinosaur intrigued me, but it was all explained on the companies web site, it appears that in 1930, Sinclair's advertising writers noted that Wellsville-refined lubricants, the best in trade derived from Pennsylvania grade crudes laid down more than 270 million years earlier, so why not use a dinosaur to promote the product, but how to popularise and market the product and logo?
one great idea was the 1964 World's Fair which took place at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens, New York, the Sinclair Oil Corporation sponsored 'Dinoland', which featured life-size replicas of nine dinosaurs, including a seventy foot long version of Sinclair Oil Corporation's signature apatosaurus (Brontosaurus),
even better someone in advertising started the publicity ball rolling before the fair had even began!
but what happened to these huge models once the show was over? by the time the New York World's Fair closed in October 1965, 'Dinoland' had been enjoyed by over ten million people, the Sinclair Dinosaurs would next spent a period of time as a travelling exhibit, they even made an appearance in the 1966 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade,
today, Sinclair Oil Corporation no longer owns the dinosaurs, after the travelling exhibit ended, the Brontosaurus and Tyrannosaurus found a home at Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose, Texas, the Triceratops is owned by the Louisville Science Centre in Kentucky, sadly, it has been neglected and is now in poor condition and no longer on display,
the Trachodon watches over the Brookfield Zoo in Brookfield, Illinois, the Stegosaurus was donated to Dinosaur National Monument, and is located in Jensen, Utah, still on display to this day,
its unusual repainting has generated some controversy, a duplicate of this Stegosaurus (a.k.a. Wally) resides on the front lawn of the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, the remaining Sinclair Dinosaurs each found museum homes with the exception of Ornitholestes which was stolen and never recovered, all of this from a discarded roadside sign!
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