there's a texaco fire chief pump plate for sale on e-bay right now starting at ten bucks and it is supposed to be from 1940.
in my limited experience with these, i'm not sure if this is real or not, the first thing that jumped out in my mind was the manufacture date, it only has a month and a year, not a day, month, and year. secondly, it says made in USA at the bottom right corner. my plates all have the date in the lower right and made in USA in lower left, but mine are slightly newer than 1940.
so, with all that said, did they produce these things with only a month/year manufacture date up until a certain time period or specific year? and did the date swap corners with the USA after a certain time or year?

thank you,
tred

I have 12" X 18" Fire Chief and Sky Chief pump plates that have "Made in USA" in the lower left corner and the month/day/year in the lower right. The 8" X 12" Sky Chief pump plate I have has "Made in USA" in the lower left and just month/year (3-42) in the lower right corner.
(I don't have the 12" X 18" signs here to look at, but do know the years are 1948 and 1959)

Pat

It helps to post the Ebay auction number when you are inquiring about an Ebay listing.

Right off the top of my head though, original Fire Chief signs I've seen dated 1940 are just dated "3-40". The date is on the left, which is opposite from the later dated ones. I'm not a Texaco expert by any means, just what I've noticed over the years on these plentiful pump plates.
Darin

Here is an original one I will be having for sale and it is just like you describe and yes they did it this way on the early signs.

cool, thank you everybody for the insight.