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Firstly, I must stress that this website is an amateur site written by an enthusiast and collector of road maps. As such, it may contain errors and omissions, although I do try and verify information wherever possible.

Secondly, I would also like to note that I don't own all the maps shown on the website, and to thank the many people who have sent me images of maps in their own collection, or given me additional information about maps that I have incorporated on the website. A list of some of these helpers is included on the "Thank You" page.

Having said that, I am also willing, when possible, to help people seeking more information about the maps or the locations that they represented, and to provide images to bona fide magazines or other media. As well as hobbyist publications for road map collectors or those interested in petroliana, images from this site have appeared in magazines as diverse as French Life, Fuel Oil News, the Cartographic Journal and Practical Classics. The site has also been featured (though without any pictures!) on BBC local radio.

I have contributed articles (which often show maps from my collection) to Route Nostalgie, Check The Oil!, A.C.C.A, The Legend (the newsletter of the Road Maps Collectors Association) and Garage Door News.

If you are a journalist and would like more information about road maps issued by petrol and oil companies, including their social or economic context, or potentially to use a scanned image, the please send me an e-mail. I cannot promise that I will reply immediately (I have to go and hunt for new maps from time to time), but I can generally provide high resolution images without too much difficulty. If it requires a lot of effort, I may occasionally ask for a small donation to be made to a favourite UK charity; I do also usually want to receive a contributor's copy of any publication in which an image is used. Publishers are responsible for any necessary copyright clearance; I do not own copyright on any of the map images. And for that reason, I will usually not be able to make available any images that are based on Ordnance Survey mapping in the UK. As well as maps from Europe, I have (or can source) images from the rest of the world, especially North America. The five maps below all come from the Esso (ExxonMobil) group, as Esso maps, along with those from Shell, are the most widely found internationally. BP, Caltex/Texaco and Mobil maps can also be found from most continents, along with a number of other international and local brands.

1950s Atlantic Union (Esso) map of Victoria, Australia

1956 Creole (Esso) Map of Venezuela

1960 Esso map of Nigeria

1963 Humble (Esso) map of Ohio, USA

1976 Esso map of Mie/Aichi, Japan

1950s Atlantic Union (Esso) map of Victoria, Australia

1956 Creole (Esso) Map of Venezuela

1960 independence edition Esso map of Nigeria

1963 Humble (Esso) map of Ohio, USA

1976 Esso map of Mie/Aichi prefectures, Japan

Please do not use images from this site, or significant blocks of text, on other websites without checking with me first. There may even be a few deliberate traps placed to catch the unwary!

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Text and layout © Ian Byrne, 2007

All original copyrights in logos and map extracts and images are acknowledged and images are included on this site for identification purposes only.