Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion how you got your start

I know this topic has been up before but I was wondering how you got your start collecting. I got my start when 9 years old. I was with my uncle cleaning out his buddy's barn and I spotted a STP diesel fuel treatment can,FULL. So I decided to hang on to it. I was,nt "addicted" yet but I found myself buying small petroliana items. Then when I went with my dad about a year ago to fix his friend's tractor and noticed a sunoco pump I asked his friend about it and he gave me it. It was a wayne 511 blend o matic pump. That's what got me hooked. I still have the can too,.. it's sitting on top my 511. Can't wait to hear your response.

Will, I was raised on a farm west of the city of Annapolis. We always had old stuff around because we were farm folks and could keep the junk working! I grew up caring for machinery and found that it was cool. Gas pumps are just an offshoot of the things that have always interested me. I have somewhere around 350-400 pumps in stock today. You might say that I'm addicted!! It's like they say.....you can live with just one!!! Paul www.severngaspumps.com

During the 1940s I started collecting pictures of old cars. In 1958 when I got out of the Army I purchased my first old car, a 1923 Dodge, then a 1930 Studebaker Roadster. After college, started buying Model T Fords, all the time looking for mostly signs to decorate with.
In early 1980 I purchased my first pump (a St. Louis visible), then all hell broke loose, within a year I had over 200 pumps, and a garage filled with just about everything.
I know a lot of you like to collect, but one of the things I like to do is accumulate a large collection of one type of petro item, then sell them, then go to another search. I have tried to predict what will be the next big thing to be collected.

Jack Sim

About 7 years ago, I moved to a different house with a detached shop/garage. I had just purchased a 1972 Chevelle and was looking for items to decorate this shop with, when I found 5 pumps at a friends house. I bought them and took one to a well known collector to have restored. When I walked into his place and saw all of the different stuff he had, I was hooked! Its been full speed ahead ever since and I don't see the end in sight!

My parents were into antiques and collectables so I started young with various toys,mugs,games,glassware,etc. As I got older, I started to furnish my house with antiques and the collectables I had gathered over the years.
I bought an old farm and it had a pump (Tok 300)they used for their tractors. Every spring, a guy used to stop by offering to buy it. I always meant to restore it, but never got around to it. I got sick and so was out of work and going crazy being unable to do much, so I started thinking about restoring that pump. Thats how I found this site and have been hooked ever since even though I have not been able to add too much to my collection.
John

My Father bought and sold antiques (furinture),as I was growing up,I was the only kid of 3 that didn't move out of state. So monthly I would help him back and forth to local flea-market,the seed was planted. 19 years ago I think I started building racecars ,as my son showed a intrest. I had tools to replace floorboards,truck pan,kick panels etc just doing roughin on old cars and done several for guys around here. I would walk in to their places and they had all this stuff,signs,pumps -well another seed planted. Started collecting texaco, since then I still have some but have sold allmost all texaco and on a new search. No dis respect to texaco collecters,but it was just too easy.

My Grandfather owned a Texaco station in Northwestern Ohio, and my Dad restores old cars (so I have always been around old car "stuff"). I use to hear stories all of the time about the "shop in Wayne". I picked up my first Texaco sign when I was 12 and have been buying ever since (I'm almost 32 now).

Jamie

My grandfather had a grocery store, and sold Standard gasoline. I grew up on a farm, and have been into antique cars and street rods, since I was 15. When my father pasted away, I found the original contract my grandfather signed with Standard Oil in 1933, and started looking for Standard Oil items. My wife bought my first pump apprximately 16-17 years ago, and as they say "the rest is history".
Everyone have a great Thanksgiving!

Buddy

I have always loved all things old car. When I was in high school, I met a man who worked for the city installing traffic signals. I ended up buying quite a few of them from him, and started wheel-n-dealing with signals. I was working for a sandblaster at the time, and a guy came in with a gas pump. I asked him where he got it, and met the guy that sells them. I ended up trading the man a car load of signals for a Tokheim 39. Later I got a Wayne 80, and then I was hooked. Later, this hobby ended up leading to my current job.

When I was a kid and we ran out of pot we would huff gas every now and again. I always had cloudy but yet fond memories of walking to the gas station with my 10 cents. But even if you changed the timing the distributer was. On my bike the ride was fairly smooth but yes I have been collecting records for a long time. I think it was during the late 60s but im not sure.

Hillsideshortleg, you have a very strange sense of humor. I love it ! LOL

I had an auto repair shop from 1983-1997 and sometime during that period I decided I needed to have a gas pump on display in my shop. Well, one lead to thirty and then came signs and globes. I no longer have any pumps but I have plenty of signs and globes. In fact they've taken over my apartment.

I was a bouncer in a nightclub my senior year in college (1977-1978) and they had a 1422 Rock-Ola jukebox in the corner. I thought that it was pretty cool and started hunting jukeboxes in the early 1980s.I went to a couple of big flea markets and auctions in and around Atlanta and I was introduced to gumball machines, coke memorabilia, slot machines, neon clocks, gas pumps/signs, etc. I started reading everything and learning everything that I could get my hands on. I appreciated the style and grace of the early machines whether they were gas pumps, jukeboxes, etc. I truly enjoyed meeting and getting to know some of the men that had hung on to the stuff and I especially enjoyed the "hunt"...digging the stuff out of a kudzu patch, an old outbuilding or in the crawl space under a house. I had a part time job working in a pattern shop in a grey iron foundry and had access to all sorts of tools and so repair and “restoration”(I use the term loosely) was a natural progression. Dave

p.s forgot to put this in my message.......... I'm 12!

Hillside, you have a career in comedy. You could be the new guy on the Blue Collar Comedy Tour.

Not far off from the truth when I was 12 or 13 years old. I got older and had a more entrepreneural spirit and could afford the better things in life. No more gas just kegs and other things. A mile down the road from us was a old mom and pops station. They lived in the back. We would call them up and ask if the had Prince (something) in a can then hang up. It was our candy store and I alway think back to that station and how important it was to our growing up(candy,gas and cig's). It is long gone with no pictures I can find. I love the memories and have tried to create something like it in my own yard. By the way my wife who I met it high school changed my direction in life, without her I hate to guess what kind of darkness my life would be now.

Always collected. Been going to auctions since I was five and I am fifty now. As a teen I went into Boston every Saturday to hit the used record stores. Still useing the five thousand or so that I picked up. Had to add the few thousand tapes and cd's as well to keep up with the times.Ipod's are a great space saver.

My first pump was a farm auction fresh wayne70 with Fire Cheif plates. Five years later I restored it and can see it from where I sit in my music room listening to Aerosmith while on a chat line. Have picked up about another hundred pumps since. Got involved in the shows and have been having a ball meeting all the people and seeing others collections. Stay broke all the time but the hunt is always on. Wishing I was at the Daytona Beach Turkey Run right now finding the next treasure. Signs , globes, pumps, radios, records, local, architectural, cameras,ephemera, soda machines, juke boxes and on and on. I collect what I like and intrigues me. Love walking around the shows and meeting all the interesting people.

Mr. Shortleg,

Your first post 'splains a lot!

this from the person who stumbled into this doing a painting of an old gas station...

You need to lay off of that "stuff" before you go blind and end up in real darkness. LOL Good hunting...Dave

Hey 60wayne, I,m doing the same thing, listening to old records while I,m chatting online. Conway,Cash,Waylon,Elvis,Jerry Lee,....