Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion How many years collecting?

Back in the early 70's I was allowed to skip school for Hershey. I remember one year we took a 70 Cutlass wagon and set up on the grass (only one field then). Put a rectangle porcelain Chevrolet sign in the car and then the boxes of car parts on top of it. Set up the stuff and slept in the car. Sign didn't sell that year or the next.

Last year when we were knocking down the old barn, I found the sign. It still had the masking tape "price tag" on it- $40.00.

1990 at Allentown automobilia show, guy had full NOS case of Hess handy oilers. Bought a few for 5. each, kept one for the collection and turned the others around quick for 10. each.

Another vendor had a round porcelain Oilzum sign, a little weathered but still nice enough to put over your mantle. Couldn't get 100. for it. Think of that one every time I go through Allentown.

My name is Travis and I am a pump addict…

LOL


Travis
Topeka, Kansas

Always wanted a Visible pump like the one I saw on the Waltons series.
In 1994 I was in Vegas at an antique mall and met a dealer "Bob Grant" goes by veGAS BOB at the mall. His booth had some nice petro stuff but no pumps. After chatting with him he told me he had pumps at home for sale. I followed him home and he sold me a unrestored G&B visible and an Erie 50s pump. This started the whole pump crazyness for me. I restored both pumps and still own them plus 300 more!!! I am pumped up now. LOL

My father told me about working at his brother's Sinclair station in Murphy, NC making $8 a week working from when he got out of school til midnight 7 days a week. Then he gave me a Mae West that turned out to be an original Sinclair pump and from then I was hooked. I would like to have more gas related stuff but it's become so expensive and being out of work for a year hasn't helped but I'm still chugging along looking for that elusive barn find!

Dad saw a wall mount air meter not in use at an old gas station turned repair shop. Stopped and asked a few times over a couple years time if it was for sale, no was always the reply from the foreigner owner. One day driving past he saw the meter was gone off the wall, and the outside of the building was freshly painted. He went in and inquired about the meter, guy said yeah I just threw it away. Dad walked over to the dumpster, there it was.

I was 19 , I needed a job, I got a job, rebuilding nozzles...1981...
I think that had a lot to do with it.

Travis you wimp... I been doing this for years and ain't hooked yet.....Denial !!!!...isn't that a river in Africa????

I like Jim Potts have been doing the body work route since at least 1967. I have collected old gasoline paraphanaila since mabye 1961. I started with the maps as my folks never objected to them . Ed Shaver

Driving down a road in NYS I've been on many times before. Heading back to Jersey hungover from partying at a swap meet. I tell my friend turn around, I just saw a cut corner Colonial ethyl sign on the inside of an open door of a run down shed. We pull into the drive and he said how did you spot that? A lady comes out with a Rottweiler and I ask if Cujo is ok and does she want to sell the sign. She says she'll get her husband and he comes outside. After looking at the sign (it's super clean) and agreeing on a price, he says he'll take it down and grabs a claw hammer. I say no thats ok I got it and take it down. I ask if there are any other signs around and he comes up with a feed sign that was so rusty you couldn't read it. I thank them and pass on that one.

When I was a kid, maybe 12 or 13, I used to go to the beach on vacation with my parents in NC. Once we hit VA from MD we'd drive primarily country roads and there were still a fair amount of old stores, stations, etc with old pumps, signs etc that had been long since out of service. I always thought that was really neat and had always been into old stuff even as a 1st grader. Other kids were playing with GI Joe or He-Man, I was into old civil war stuff and looking for old soda bottles in the woods. Anyways, along one of these roads we used to travel was this store packed to the gills with old pumps, signs, and other great junk and finally I convinced my parents to stop there. It turned out to be Wayne Story's place (not that I knew him at the time). I looked through all his stuff and as bad as I wanted a gas pump there was no room in the car. But there was room for the 36" nice double sided 1930s Texaco Gasoline/Motor Oil sign. I had money with me that I'd made shoveling driveways in the winter and doing other odd stuff, Wayne gave me a price of $75 and the sign was mine (and is still mine). I'm 28 now and I've been friends with him ever since. I got my first pumps a year or so later, a GB 96 and a M&S 70. Still have those pumps. I've got 13 or so now, along with 8 soda machines, signs, cans, you name it. I like it all, which is sometimes a problem!