Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums Showcase and Stories, Petroliana Back in the Day.......

I finally got a few pics scanned and plan on getting more done.
This is the one that started me going... a porcelain 766.
I put my stereo in it...My fledgling sign collection on the wall in my first(solo) apt....1987


Love those GOC pumps!!!!!

Paid $25.00 ea for the GOC pumps and $10.00 for the Bowser box


Fry w/ blue tint cylinder ...$100.00...Bennett clock $25.00

Back then you just about couldn't GIVE a Texaco sign away. Nobody wanted those big 'ol things...lol

I knew it was a GOC but I couldn't resist doing in Shell after I put THAT globe on top!!!!!

ALL ORIGINAL parts decals & globe....they didn't Make repro parts back then!!!!

Why I don't collect GLASS...

Back then a poor guy like me could have a LOT of fun w/ a little cash.......Those were the days !!

Now days you get to have a LITTLE fun w/a lot of cash.

jkyocom
So how or why did you get your first pumps! I sure enjoy hearing the stories of the oldendays. sure would like to hear more stories of the finds and the things you could see in the old days. I recently bought a old Texaco sign that they said laid in lake Coeur D'Alene on the shore. That would have been a cool sight and find.

I started working on pump components, building nozzles in 1981. I was 19.
I had a brass Tokheim nozzle I found in the stock bin and cleaned it up....That's it on the Bennett.
About 1985 I found that Sinclair sign on a pump out in the yard.
Cleaned the paint off and fell in love. I got it and the Ethyl sign for free. I was hooked ...every chance I got to go out back and look, ..I did....found Gulf, Texaco, signs, ad glass etc. It was like a kid having a candy store in his back yard.

Then I got the idea of making a stereo cabinet out of the porcelain pump since I didn't have to strip and paint it.
I had NO IDEA anyone else was doing anything like that, and most folks thought I was crazy for having a gas pump in the house.
It took a couple of years of searching for a globe before I found Weber's where I got the globe and decal for the Bennett.

I rebuilt components for pumps, nozzles, meters, pumping units till 1994. I have been rebuilding crankback computers since 1987.
I will try to get some more of these pics scanned.
If you look behind the shell 62 without a globe there is a Wayne 276 w/ 5 gallon attachment and a #34 Tok.

I was in a building once that the roof was "shingled" with 6' Texaco signs. The guy had some of the only digital visibles I have ever seen.
They were made special by Tokheim for Stone Mt. Park near Atlanta... I still kick myself for NOT having one....There were only 6 made as far as I know.
The gas did not go into the cylinder, and they had some of the first digital computers made, all were "dispensers".pump was in the tank.

Hey Joe - I'll give you $500.00 for each of those frys... LOL I bought my first two Fry Mae's for 200.00 each - and I thought that was too much for them in 1993... Dang I usually drop 700 - 1400 each on them today!

Travis
Topeka, Kansas

I really like that Marathon. Nice clean pump.
Mike

Nice stuff Joe. you've done well

I have posted these before...
The Fry was found by my brother for $100.00 and I traded a perfect 42"? Sinclair H-C sign for it.
The American was found in a scrap metal pile at a bulk plant tank feild in ONEONTA, Al....$25.00... There was only the top, we bought a base from Benkin pump co. and had a buddy make the skins. Both went to Italy. That is a 12 1/2" American Diesel globe....$100.00...yep it's real. We found the handle for the American and two Fry handles under a bulk plant building and the guy GAVE them to us.


I like the 62's also....

Back then Time Passages & Weber's, Bob Bardwell were the only ones reproing stuff....Scobie had a fledgling catalog of a few pages....a guy had to be very resourceful in order to get a pump restored back to original condition. There was so little information like there is now w/ the net.

In the pic w/ the 62 & 39 behind the air compressor we had boxes and boxes of NOS and used pump parts that we sold and pulled from to restore ours.
$20.00 Bennett 76 bezels
$15.00 sheet metal
$20.00 sight glass manifolds
$10.00 trim pieces for most pumps...

I'll try to get more scanned this weekend....

Travis,
The last Fry I bought was from a plumbing customer, they had it as a yard light, it's been a few years but I got it for $500.00
What the strange part is, that I had it sold to Mark Sconyers, he came up here to get it, and
it turned out the folks I got it from, and Marks family knew each other. The folks I bought it from came from Marks home town, on the other side of GA.....
SMALL WORLD.

My European sports car....'69...this one replaced the totaled 1970 Ghia I had.


I have always loved the bodylines of the Ghia ...once you get rid of all the bumpers and junk.

This is the one pump I finally kept.
It came from my grandparents dairy farm in Elverson PA. I beleive it to be one of gasboy's first pumps. Still has the embossed gasboy nozzle. Got a NOS wood handle from a gasboy distributor....they had a nos pump similar & he sold the handle to me, since the pump he had was locked up.

It is the first gas pump I ever USED. When I was 6 or 7 maybe younger I remember cranking it to put fuel in the tractor.
Then my cousin showed me if you put the hose in the filler tube you could pump it all you wanted since it was just recirculating the gas....got in trouble a few times for doing that..... I was playing with gas pumps before I could read good !!!!

Great pics & stories there Joe. Keep them coming

This is the only "collection" I still have that made it through all the years.

MY GEM.....


Sparks oil got their gas from Triangle Refineries, who were affiliated w/ Kerr/McGee...Deep Rock.
I Actually talked to the guy who designed this globe, I imagine he is gone now.
He told me there were only 100 of these globes made.
It came in a white capco body..There were supposed to have been 100 regulars made too.
The lady I bought it from had it wrapped in a plastic bag in her attic for years and it is in near mint shape.
It's the only one I have ever seen.
I never had the opportunity to talk to Mr. Sparks since he had passed years before I found it but I heard a few stories about the guy.

I had bought some pumps in Lineville Al. from a retired Gulf dealer. At the time he was in his mid 80's. I got the whole lot of 5 pumps for $75.00 which included two tall 39's and an 850 Tokheim.
I wanted to take the 850 with me first and he told me he couldn't help me load it. It was laying on it's side on the ground and I told him as long as I could get it upright I could load it myself....Well I almost had it up and couldn't get it any further and I said "Just lean against it"!!! luckily he was a big guy and when he put his hand on it and leaned against it , it was just enough to upright it. I got it on the truck myself.

One of the last big hauls we had back then was from a little building in the woods.

It had two 117 Fry , a 150 Bennett, a #36 Tokheim, a knee high stack of Pan Am pump signs, small Amoco & Pan Am ovals...and more at the guys farm. I had left this revere pole then....
Just two or so years ago we went back and what we left was still there so I snagged the pole.

...still in the same spot 20 years later

I dug through more pics and found the infamous BENGAL
tiger striped pump that Gas pump Ronnie did..... a few of his girly pics too.
maybe he won't sue me for the free advertising
Got more stuff I restored & some other junk....
boy...these pictures make me look 20 years younger...
I should have them scanned soon.

This is one of the pumps that came from the little building.
The pump sat for years before I found the correct computer for it...TOKHEIM #36.....it had the split top. That was the last pump I restored to sell

As I stated before there was no internet...as we know it now,
there were NO reproduction parts for computer pumps.
The #36 had aluminum faces that were about trash, I actually had to use some BONDO on them.
I got the faces straight and painted them white. Brad Lago was having some water transfer decals made for the 39 faces,
so I took a set of those and decaled the logo, amount of sale,dollars & cents, gallons delivered, cents per gallon, tax included and the line of text at the bottom.
I cutout the arrows from black parts of the decal set, and the red lines and some other text was done with airplane decals from the hobby shop.
I used the same face decal kits on the GOC pumps.



I had the local sheet metal shop make the stairstep trim,
they also made the ones for the GOC pumps, and the access panels under the faces.

I used a set of indented wheels to achieve that look on the computer.
It was so labor intensive that I have never done another set like that.
I was lucky the faces & trays were with the pump since the computer was gone.
The 10 3/4" Veeder Root only fit the #36 as far as I know.


My neighbor has been scanning these pics for me, he has a 3-4 yr old daughter.
She saw the pictures of the restored pumps and took a big interest in them....
...hope for the future???

More to come later.......

Nice work Joe!!I can imagine it was ALOT harder than it is now.I can remember the repo catalogs were real small and black and white.We have it made these days.
Joe

jkyocm
Thanks for the stories and pictures! very cool! So you worked at a job where you rebuilt gas pumps? What a job. I always wanted to work at our local scrap metal yard. I have a feeling I would be broke(r) with piles of cast iron and steel all over my place. So whats the deal with the shed? was there a some reason it wold be in the woods? That is a familiar scene and storie to me but I always wake up to reality with a wet pillow. Sure would be nice to hear others talk about the buildings and piles of things they have seen.THANKS AGAIN

Back then it was hard to buy a visible , people recognized them as being old.
You could get almost all the computer pumps you wanted for next to nothing, most of the time for $25.00. Sometimes for free. I guess that's the reason why I headed in that direction.

Once we found an A-38 at a tire store in the town we lived in. It was up against the back part of the side wall, hooked up and the entire pump was painted the same color as the building, I guess that's why it took so long for us to notice it. I went in and asked the guy about it and he replied, "what will you give me for it?" I told him I normally gave $25.00 for most pumps. Well, then he replied;
"I bet 100 people have asked me about that pump" in the time his speach paused I thought..."OK, we'll never get this one "...but then he said " but since today is our last day in business here I'm gonna let you have it." :)That turned out to be the easy part, the only way to get it to the truck was around the end of a fence that had only a few feet before the hill dropped straight down. The ground was wet and we almost lost it down the hill.

It seems there was this legendary "MAN FROM CALIFORNIA"
He once traveled the land with offers to the locals of $1000.00 for their visible pumps.
I heard the same thing from a bunch of folks I tried to buy a visible from......
"A man from California offered me $1000.00 for that pump" usually my response to them was "you should have took him up on that offer"

The shed is at the bottom of a hill. On top of the hill, the building and steel tank supports are still there, but they are behind/ below another building and are very hard to spot from the hwy they are next to. The railroad tracks are about 50 ft behind the shed, and the trees have grown up around everything over the years and has kept it all hidden.
The building is about 60'-70' behind the rock pile in the center of the pic. I took the pic at the base of the hill.



Here are a few things we have accumilated in the last couple years, not much but, but it is a start. Some junk has been sold, some added.

Can't find it as easy as you used to.
still waiting on my other pics....arg !!!

Not me, only made 1 quick trip to Mt. Airy, NC from Bolivar, Mo. approx 1983. Didn't have time to look around in 1 week.

keep scaning those pictures, this is really neat to watch and learn from. thanks so much.

Here is a pic of the infamous Gas Pump Ronnie BENGAL WAYNE 40

It's got CLAWS !!!

Windhoek, Namibia, South Africa.
Jack posted about foreing pumps and I believe one of these were in there.

Parts Department.....

More stuff

More pumps

A TURNTABLE & VINYL remember them?

This is the pump 'OL Sparky came from.
I asked the lady if she wanted to sell the pump, she told me $300.00 . Back then that was way too much for a 300, then she told me she had the globe........I bought the pump and sold it w/out the globe for $150.00

Bought this from a bulk plant in Al. it was still hooked up..$100.00

This one cost $40.00 to buy ....
It was my buddy's pump but I painted it.


1991 Pennzoil display contest....got beat out by an American flag and a mention of Dessert Storm....we were ROBBED !!!!!!
It won the next year.


My brother's pump...I painted

How about a picture of your place from the road? I'll bet it great.

OK.... here is proof I have been doing this a LONG time AND that I have a loose screw up there somewhere.
That's me w/ the glasses and Mark,the JARHEAD TO BE, buddy of mine...sometime before I started collecting...pre 1984
Mark helped me rebuild the tranny in my truck a few months ago.

Those are UNIVERSAL cabinets.

The 'Ol Meter checkstands...that is how we would test the individual rebuilt METERS.....TEST MEASURES !!!!! NOT CANS !!!!

Some of these pics were taken at my brothers, some at other places I have lived at, some at my partners houses... All this junk has been gone for a long time...but I had one hell of a good time doing it !!!!

Halfway through my handy oil collection, I forget who I sold them to but it got into the 100's of cans and dollars. One was a Stanacola can and there was a Shell soap box derby oil too.


This pic was taken in PA. The guy GAVE us all the signs.
That is my brother in the pic, I am on the other side.


LIKE FREE CRACK !!!!!They came home in the suitcases

We got lost and found an old store, we stopped in and looked around then as we were leaving my buddy spotted the Bowser out in a barn...got it for $10.00.
The guy said I don't know what you want that ol thing for , I said well I'll give you $10.00 he said load it up !!!!


This is the pump I robbed the handle off for my 245 Bowser.

The little brown house w/ the visibles is where my partner in pumps lived. We would go out at least 2 days a week hunting for pumps.....from dawn to dark thirty... Later he moved down the street to where the parts & skins pictures were taken. That is where we restored most of the ones we did. The pics with the two little orange clock pumps & trampoline is where he lives now. All the parts were sold from there 12+ years ago to Skip McCook.

It was like an fun engine,,,,we went out looking , RARELY came back with less than a truckload, spent a little cash, kept what we liked, for zero $, sold off what we didn't want to keep,and made $, took that $ back out on the road and bought more, over and over and over. Made $ by parting out the incompletes, restoring the nicer pumps, signs, globes. There is no telling how much stuff we pulled out and introduced into circulation.

LOVED every bit of it too !!!!!
With the economy the way it is I plan on doing some hunting around NOV....best time to do it, no wasps and folks want Christmas money!!!

Wow Joe, you had a lot of stuff. Wish you still had the Tok 34s, I want another one.