Vintage Service Awards from Gas Companies

 

Hello and welcome back! We all like to be recognized for our hard work and get some kind of physical item to show that hard work off. A lot of different industries did this, not just gas companies.

 

One way companies did this for their employees was service awards. Most common are the small pins, the earlier ones from the ‘30s were made of 10-14k gold. When gold started to get expensive they only made the enamel part from gold. Most of the pins you see are from the larger gas chains and are between 5-20 years of service. I've found that the 25 years or more pins are not as easy to find as the 5-20 years. These pins were not given every year but every five years, some companies did one year but most were 5,10,15, 20, etc.

 

Another form of service awards was jewelry. Jewelry is one thing that everyone wears all the time and the companies were capitalizing on that chance to advertise a little, while still awarding their loyal employees’ work. Some of the jewelry items included cufflinks, rings, necklaces, tie bars and tacks, etc. While the cufflinks and tie bars and tacks are plentiful, the hardest of the items to find is the rings. Most of the time these were given to employees with 50+ years or retired with 50+ years. These were made from 24k solid gold, no plate, the gems were always diamonds, after all the person worked there for a long time, better have something to show for it.

 

One more award is a plaque. These were given to certain car dealers, gas stations, etc. for these stations’ or dealers’ good job for a certain promotional program or monthly sales records. These plaques are very hard to find and will not be cheap when you do. These are made of a hard wood with the detailed brass plate or tags on it, much like car show awards.  Awards of this type are not made as much as the other ones because they were given to one of the many stations or dealers.