Dave Gill, you are right with your analysis, in my opinion...

Dave Richey, there were "universally agreed upon criteria"... But, to know what they were? One has/had to have been in the Hobby for decades...

As Loyd noted: "Survivor Pumps" were pumps made before 1952, that survived the scrap drives of WWII and Korea...

Rusty Pumps were known as: "pumps in the wild" in the Hobby; from the late 1940s up until a few years ago...

Hobbyists who actually worked at Stations anytime from the 1930s to the late 1970s. Know/knew that NO Oil Company Owned/Leased Station would allow rusty pumps to be presented to the Buying Public... I know of Stations that lost their "Ownership/Lease/Product Line" because they didn't keep their Station up to the Standards that were set up by the controlling Oil Company (I worked at one of those Stations in the mid 1960s)...

There is a new influx of blood in the Petro Hobby; as there also, is a great exodus of that same "new blood" that found out it wasn't as easy to flip items as the "nose pickers' on the small screen made/makes it seem...

I must admit, I do enjoy many of the different "in the wild", looks. Living for awhile in the Barstow/Mojave area.. There is/was an abundance of such pumps, still in their natural habitat... And it always was a joy to discover such a pump while we were exploring the desert...

Here is a link to a thread Don Sherwood(oltoydoc) did back in 2013: http://www.oldgas.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=458220


Looking for Tide Water/ Tide Water-Associated/ Tidewater items