On The Road to Collectibles...Antique Gas Pumps are the Rage

By E.A. Barrera

Automobiles and everything to do with them have long been a passion of the American people, so it should come as little surprise that there is an entire industry devoted to the collecting and trading of vintage automobiles, their parts, and anything related to the car that evokes memories of an innocent, simpler time.

With gasoline prices hovering around $3.00 per gallon these days, pretty much everything to do with the cars and the pricey liquid that fuels them is worth more now than when Henry Ford rolled out the first Model-T. Back then you could fill the entire tank up for less than what one gallon of gas costs today. But it’s not just the currently expensive fuel being poured into our automobiles that has sparked an interest in cars and gasoline lately.

The pump stations holding the fuel - with their sleek steel cylinders and advertising art work from the early days of the 20th Century - have also become of interest to collectors around the country.

Jerry Schlumpberger, who owns “Bodyworks by Jerry” at 453 Main Street in Ramona doesn’t just love cars and all the things related to them because it earns him and his family their living. He says he’s had a life long passion for cars and has always appreciated the art he sees in both vintage automobiles, as well as everything related to them…including the gas pumps.

During the last 17 years, Jerry has become an aficionado of the gas pump. He looks at their style and design and sees art - the art of the American road long celebrated in everything from Jack Keroac’s 1957 novel On The Road to the men in the clean, red striped uniforms singing the theme to Milton Berle’s “Texaco Hour” every Sunday during the early days of television.

“I’ve been restoring them for years. I have an interest in cars since I was in kindergarten and I’ve always liked antiques. There is a neat, art-deco engineering to them that you never see today,” said Jerry.

Schlumpberger recently purchased two 1920’s era gasoline pumps he’d been after for years. “They went for $4,700 and had been sitting on a property off of Highway 78 near the Golden Eagle Ranch. At one time they were used in the only service station between Ramona and Julian during the 1930s and 40s. They are made of steel and completely self contained. You could plant them in front of a store and start selling gas. They offered two types - regular leaded and premium leaded,” noted Jerry.

The industry devoted to vintage gas pumps is surprisingly large. On one web site alone — www.gaspumps.biz — over a dozen books and catalogues on gasoline pumps and other forms of “service station” memorabilia can be found. Even that term itself - the “service station” evokes another era, where a person could drive up in their brand new, post war Oldsmobile and have four attendants run out to fill the tank, check the oil, check the tire pressure and clean the windshields.

“An older lady owned the tanks the first time I saw them years ago. She stored them on a property at 12th and H Streets here in town. At the time I couldn’t afford to buy them. But I kept my eye on them and when they came up for sale again, I was able to grab’em,” said Jerry.

Jerry said he’s always on the look out for vintage gasoline pumps and at one point owned 90 of them - which he kept in an empty hay barn his in-laws owned. Now he stores the antiques on the property where his shop exists. He says his wife Sharon and his three kids Alex, Jessica and Jerrett, all enjoy the collectibles as much as him. He restored the two pumps he recently purchased — wiring them so they’d light up and stand as decorations. His oldest son Alex has even gotten the bug himself — restoring an old tractor.

“My oldest son, who’s 18, restored a tractor and my youngest boy, who’s only six, only enjoys playing with car and tractor toys. I guess it runs in the family,” said Jerry with a chuckle.