Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion PHILLIPS OIL PUMP TANK

Good Morning and thanks to everyone for all the help we've gotten since joining this board. It's a great community here!

What I was wanting to know was if anyone knew anything about the history or value of the piece shown below. Brass tag says 81H Serial No 59125 Phillips Pump & Tank Co Cincinatti Ohio. On the hand crank it also says Phillips. Pump says The Phillips Pump & Tank Co. Cin O USA and there is another small brass tag that says M & L 7-15769

Any help would be much appreciated!
Thanks,
Michele







[This message has been edited by mcarnicle (edited 10-13-2005).]

Michele,

That's a fairly typical lubester. They were used to fill the glass 1-qt bottles with the funnel tops on them. These lubesters would have either been in the service bay or out on the island.

This one does not have a glass cylinder, nor does it have an oil co. logo cast into the tank lid. It seems to be in good easily restoreable condition, but with no real original finish left. I'd value it at $25-50. People at swap meets and such seem to price these things really high, but notice - nobody ever buys them for those prices

Obviously nicely restored ones or ones with original paint and decals are worth a bit more. Glass cylinder and Oil company logo can bring them up into the $75-150 range. Having special features like being made by a well-known gas pump co and having wheels or interesting tank shapes can bring them considerably higher.

Good luck, and welcome to the hobby,
Wes

I didn't put any of Phillips' products in my book because most of their units were generic looking, meaning they looked like everyone elses. Most of the oil dispensers I put in the book had wheels or glass cylinders.
Phillisp was a Cincinnati company that was in business during the 30s and 40s. They may have sold dispensers made by American (or they made dispensers for American) bucause their catalogs have identical American dispensers.
Jack Sim
Author, Gas Pump Identification book

I worked at a Chevron station in the late 70's. We had two lubesters out back, one for kerosene, and the other for bulk 10w40 oil. Can you believe that we were still selling kerosene in the early 80s? The kerosene was sold to whoever wanted it, the 10w40 was used in the service bay, instead of opening all those cans. The station lasted into the 90s. As they had a large customer base, I'm sure that the lubesters were used until the station closed. The lubester had lost its high visibility position out on the pump island with the introduction of the quart can, but the stayed around for quite some time. I think that they have probably been replaced by the 55 gallon drum, in most cases.



Here is a shot of my lubester, and one of my barrel pumps. This particular one is a Smithway (A.O.Smith) barrel pump. I've got about five or six barrel pumps, but only one lubester. I wish it was the other way around.

In my opinion, the lubester is not a very desirable item right now. But then again, there was a time when people wern't too interested in electric pumps either. For myself, I really like lubesters, and wish that I had a few more...

Nice find Michele...