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I've been a car guy all my life. Went to my first Hershey show in 1973 and haven't missed one since. Started to see some restored gas pumps in the mid 80's and their lights, bright colors and stainless trim just fascinated me. A close friend gave me a tall 39 Tokheim in 1993 and two months later my wife spotted one at a yard sale. I still have both of those pumps and am pretty sure she regrets that moment because I became hooked and have probably had more than 200 pumps since then. I know that's small potatoes by many members standards but I'm so hooked I actually go through withdraw symptoms if I don't add a pump to my 100 plus permanent collect every couple of months.

Please use For Sale forums to sell

Please - NO offers to Buy or Sell in this forum category

Statements such as, "I'm thinking about selling this." are considered an offer to sell.
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In 2002 I happened to see a set of Humble gas pump salt and pepper shakers in an antique mall. This was a very short time after my Grandmother had passed away. When I was a young boy my Grandmother had given me a set of Cities Service shakers that she had received. Seeing that Humble set reminded me of my Grandmother and the bug bit me that very day. I've been collecting shakers ever since.

Last edited by SandPCollector; Sun Dec 16 2018 08:16 PM. Reason: Grammar

Regards, Jim

I collect gas pump salt and pepper shakers
and the plastic coin banks made by AVSCO.
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I’ve always been interested in Mobil products as my father was an avid collector. Finally picked one up of my own!

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2 things “sparked my interest” in collecting. The first was the childhood memories of my uncle’s Esso station in the small east Texas town of Roxton and the second was the first pump I restored...a Martin and Schwartz 80 found in Sulphur Springs Texas (both pictured).

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Im 38 yo always have been into classic cars. Have a 1967 mustang and 1964 Chevelle. My dad too took me to swapmeets as a kid. My grandfather owned a towing business and a gas station. " Love that smell". Two years ago I moved to Utah and purchased a home with an added shop/garage in back. Was at antique show and a large sign caught my eye had too have it and ever sense been spending way too much time and money but I've come to love traveling the country meeting lots of new people in this hobby. It's been a blast.

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I have responded to this question before ... ;-) hope my response now is at least similar :-D

Around 1996 a guy who was really big in Ford -56 here in Sweden, brought severl of his cars , Sunliner, Crown Vic with glass top etc, to a large car show, called "Power Big Meet"...
He also brought a "gas pump wall" and two pumps to display his cars... that looked great! I also saw some miniature "walls" used to display model cars around that time and that triggered me to buy my first two pumps, a couple of cans and signs and to start planning for my own full size wall... would love to have a complete station but my place is too small for that...

Anyway - my home town station was a Swedish Brand called Koppartrans, bu already then that stuff was far too expensive. I decided to go for Mobil - love the Pegasus and also drive Mustangs so I like the horses.

You know how it is, beginnig is soft and from there it rapidly goes "bezerk". Nowadays my collecting has slowed down a bit and I go more for the good stuff and have sold off some of my earlier buys...

Here's the wall - You've all seen it before as I have been around here since 1997. :-) Also a few examples of Swedish pumps and signs... Pumps are from the Ljungmans brand and very common here. Esso aso had Gilbarcos, but other brands are very uncommon. Ljungmans were bought out by Wayne and s still around as "Dresser-Wayne" Started in the early 20's...

Have a great eve, everyone!
Claes

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Last edited by fast66; Fri Mar 01 2019 11:44 AM.
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Great stories on here! I'm 48 years old, but have enough fond memories of growing up under the shadow of the greatest generation.

Few things for me:
1) Grandpa was hardcore car guy. He used to modify the cars to run bootleg liquor between NY and NJ during Prohibition (but never drove the cars because THAT would be illegal). Man crawled under cars until he was 90 years old. I got a lot of his old tools and even more of his habits.
2) The times these gas pumps and memorabilia came from where a "better time" then we live in now. America was something to behold, and the "greatest generation" instilled their pride and ingenuity in everything we see from that era.
3) design-wise, these are works of art. From the early 1900s to the art deco phase and post-war period, it's all just so much better than the cookie-cutter, unoriginal things we see today. To this day, I still shave with a 1940s era safety razor....just because

Most of the cars I build or modify are from this period, most recently a 1950 Ford F1 (all original out of Wyoming with 47k miles on it's Flathead 6). Is it "better than what's avaialble today? No. Does it have infinitely more character? Heck yeah

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Originally Posted by Done4
It started here at my granfathers gas station. That's him by the tanker, my Uncle is by the pump. When I was a kid I lived here growing up. My mom would know where I was all of the time. When I was a teenager it was cars and hot rods in our garage and then started to keep oil cans and old tin tackers. I've been on the dark side for a long time but really slowed down on collecting over the past few years not so much because of prices but more to lack of space. Still love this stuff today as much as when I was a kid.


Les, awesome picture and story!!!! Were is that building? Is it still there?

For me, sad to say in a way, but it was American Pickers that showed me that this existed as a hobby. It is my love of 19th century America that drives me to love this stuff and to collect.
It's prices (which have easily doubled in my 8 yrs in the hobby) and people wanting to retire on every piece they sell that has slowed my love for it all.

grnpa's-gas-station_retch.jpg

Steve Coppens
Always interested in Sunoco items!
Really want a Sunoco National pump ad glass!!
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Originally Posted by Steven C.
[quote=Done4] It is my love of 19th century America that drives me to love this stuff and to collect.


Oops!! eek was just looking through some old stuff, meant of course to say 20th century!!


Steve Coppens
Always interested in Sunoco items!
Really want a Sunoco National pump ad glass!!
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For me, it was a ripple effect of one interest leading to another and another until it became what it is today. Every little boy loves cars, I was no different. Friends and I would stay up late at night staring at the ceiling talking about the cars we would own when we became of driving age and all the modifications that would follow. Interior, exterior, engine, you name it we had it planned out long before we would ever take the wheel. At 16, I bought my first car and started to unravel all those ideas I had planned for so many years with what little I could afford on a 16 year old’s salary. One of these modifications included taking off the front license plate as it obscured the look of the front end....or at least it did in my opinion. That license plate sat in my room for quite some time until eventually finding its way onto two nails on my wall.

With my second car, bought out of state not too long after, came a plate from MO that had a cool look to it and, shortly after, joined my first plate on the wall. I couldn’t just have two, so I started looking for more plates, new and old, to join the collection. I’d always been around antique stores, flea markets and the like since I could walk so the opportunities to add to the collection were plentiful. As the collection grew, it started to become more ecelectic. Emblems, hub caps, hood ornaments, plate toppers, jewels, and, still my favorite to this day, porcelain license plates.

I can’t really recall the first item(s) I bought that started the petroliana “addiction”, but it was a natural transition with what I had already began collecting. Common oil cans joined road maps, matchbooks, other smalls and, eventually, signs. My eyes were now opened to a whole new world of beautiful antiques that had everything to do with the life blood/force behind the history of the automotive industry. I had always been one to dive deep into history books, combine that with cars and, needless to say, I was hooked. I soon had as much history of my favorite companies written down as I had items on my shelves, and I loved every second of it.

The final addition to this new found love was a memory sparked by the collection of a fellow collector. A grandmother of mine was a world traveler in her day and had saved different coins and bills to give to me as a child. I was always fascinated by the many different languages these people from around the world had spoke, their words appearing like script from another world. I would sit and wonder how another human being could speak, think, and dream in another language, completely different from our own, and how that, in turn, had resulted in a culture completely unique from the one we know. Upon seeing photos of this collection, composed of some of the most unique and unusual oil cans from around the world, the memories from my childhood came flooding back and a new layer to my love for petroliana had sprouted.

I really appreciate the idea behind this thread, it’s really enjoyable to hear the stories behind everyone’s beginnings. I’ve never given this much thought to what began this journey for me, let alone wrote it down, and I must say it was a nice trip down memory lane. This is the kinda stuff that keeps me coming back, thank you OG 👍


Last edited by RedHat; Wed Mar 06 2019 06:44 AM. Reason: Grammar

Looking for Michelin items + NJ oil company related items (Mohawk, Guardian, Whiz, etc) + animal-related petroliana + Gargoyle/Shell/Sinclair items
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Thanks Steve, it is still there as far as I know. It has been everything but another gas station since it was sold. It's located between Racine and Kenosha Wisconsin on highway 32. We still have friends and family there and make a point of going by it when there but it has been a couple of years since we last have been there.


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New member Brian here. My interest started as a teenager when I got interested in what my grandfather did for a living, and the collecting started after he passed.

My grandfather began working for Union Oil of Ca. in southern California in 1931, driving a truck. He worked his way up to Northwest Territory Manager in Seattle by 1951. In 1952, he left Union at the request of a friend to take over McKale's Corp. (a Union independent distributor). After the death of Mr. McKale, my grandfather left to work for another business associate, H. Earl Clack, Jr. When Husky Oil merged with that company in 1954, creating Husky Hi-Power, Inc., they kept my grandfather on as President. He then moved over to the parent company, and finally retired in 1970 as Exec. VP, Marketing & Refining at Denver, CO.

I remember seeing various Union and Husky Oil things around my grandparents house when we visited (book ends, letter openers, etc.). After my grandfather passed (my grandmother had preceded him), I expressed an interest in those things so it all wound up with me. Later, my uncle also gave me some things he had. Over the years I've slowly added to my collection of Union Oil and Husky items, mostly small stuff due to budgetary and space restrictions. I never spent any time talking to my grandfather about his past, so perhaps the collecting is my way of "connecting" with him.

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