Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion Wayne 505 share

Thought I would share.I was taking off about 4 layers old paint and found this. I would keep it if it was in better shape.

You could take some pictures and put them in a file to document the history of the pump. We all should be attempting to preserve some of these things to have a record for the future. Otherwise, all we will have is a bunch of pumps that have been restored multiple times and no one even knows what they looked like originally.

My assumption is that you have a Wayne 505 pump from the mid to late 1950s. This was the time when service stations/oil companies were doing anything to get you to come into their station and purchase eight gallons (the minimum to receive a dish or a glass), or stamps for every .10 cents you spent. I remember giving away Green Stamps away at my Shell station in the early 70s.

I wrote an article for "CTO" a few years about promotions and I didn't come close to showing or explaining all the promotions that the companies did at that time. It got so big that the Berkeley Oil Co. of California gave away a new Studebaker every month. You should see the pictures of the clouds around the station when this was done.

What you show that is on the face is not what brought the customer into the stations, large banners hanging all over the place was the way they got you into the station. I have many NOS banners that were used by Marathon to get you to into the station, giving away space glasses, Olympics place mats, bowls, cups, measuring cups, I could go on forever.

This was all during a crazy period and many guys who opened stations lost everything they had because the customers were not regulars, they went where the give-a-ways were best. I know as I was one of them that lost everything in less than 2 1/2 years.

I regretfully remember those days.

Jack Sim

I agree. I took some pictures with the good camera and will probably blow it up to a 20 x 30 to hang above the pump. I would really love to know where this pump sat most of its life . But doubt I will ever find that out.

wow! What a crazy time it sounds like. Unfortunately I'm a little too young for that era. Thank you for sharing I love hearing about the olden days.Sorry to hear about how it affected you.

This is sad. While many were investing whatever they had in pumps, signs and globes, I invested in literature. Over a 30 year period I have invested over $40,000 in literature, but at age 81, I have 41 file drawers filled with original gas pump literature and I wonder what my wife will do with all of it when I am gone.

You mention we should take photos to preserve the history of a pump, I agree but there seems to be no interest in original literature. I am already working with the Muskegon, Michigan History Museum, donating one original piece of literature from the Bennett Pump Company, and since the guys in Ft. Wayne already acquired and donated all the Tokheim literature that was in the building when Tokheim went bankrupt to the ABC Museum, Tokehim is taken care of.

On the bright side I remember something my ex-wife said once: "When you go, I am going to throw all the stuff you bought in the hole with you, maybe you can sell where you are going since you can't sell it here."

Jack Sim

Well as car collectors as far as I am concerned that without the literature on the items we collect then we loose out on vital history on what we are collecting. It is great you are donating to the education and preservation of the history of these pumps. I do feel bad restoring this pump as it is only original once. You wife's comment is classic.

This is the picture to show what it looks like before restoration.Still a little hesitant.