The poorly structured 13C n.m.r. spectra of coal- and oil-derived products may be edited into partial spectra of the CH 3, CH 2, CH and C q 13C atoms by making use of the one-bond CH coupling constant. To obtain quantitative data, the ESCORT sequence (which compensates for the spread of the CH coupling constants) was extended by an inverse gated sequence. It is shown that long-range CH couplings give rise to additional unwanted crosstalk signals. To reduce these one further subexperiment was added, yielding the QUAMUS technique. Acceptable independence from 1J CH was observed for both sequences. Measurements on 10 authentic samples established that from each partial spectrum, quantitative (10% precision) data can be obtained within a reasonable time (about 10h). It is shown that the H C ratios computed exclusively from 13C partial spectra agree with those derived from an elemental analysis within a few per cent.