I remember the Good Humor Ice Cream Man wearing A coin changer like the one in the photo.

Me too! I remember gas at 32 cents when I first started driving and got my first credit card at age 18! I was on top of the world. They were practically giving diesel fuel away back then, now it's like liquid gold!

Thanks for the pic Jay.

Yep, I remember gas wars (remember those?!!!!) around here that had gas at $.26 a gallon. I remember when it went to $.55 a gallon in the mid '70's and I thought we were screwed. Dave

I think gas has always been cheaper in Missouri than surrounding states. I can remember around 23 cents a gallon, and dropping to 18 or 19 cents if there was a gas war.

In central NH in the mid 60's gas was 26 cents. As others posted, gas wars would bring prices down even lower, Though I don't remember coin changers on attendants by then; you ran to the cash register to get change

I got gas down in Texas for .15 cents a gallon in the early '60s.

And I also remember when I first started working at a SERVICE STATION, It was 18 cents and about half the people who came in, still bought it by the gallons, not the dollars worth.

As a kid, I can remember my brother buying gas at a Rocket station for 23˘. When I started driving in the late 1970's it was 55˘. That was when we had odd-even days for rationing and red & green flags out if the stations even had gas. I never had to wait in a gas line though. I worked at a pizza place. Next door was a service station with a garage. The mechanic would order pizza. With the complimentary pizza, we would send over our car keys and cash. He's come get our cars and put gas in them for us. At the end of the night, I'd go home with a tank full of gas!

: ^ )

Not only did you get personal service at the pumps you also got Plaid Stamps or S&H Green Stamps!

I remember working at a station as a teenager when gas was 30-50 cents a gallon, but most of all I remember one of our "regulars", a thirty-something divorcee who wore low-cut tops and always insisted on paying through the open sunroof on her beetle..


Talk about "personal service"!

I can remember when we lived on Hiway 60 east of Mansfield, Mo we sold Sinclair Gas and it was less than 20 cents a gallon. Some times a person would drive up to the pumps and as for a $1.00's worth of gas, and some of he young drivers would drive up and say give me 50 cents worth. We had the old oil bottles that were glass and the metal spouts on the top and bulk Kerosene. Those were the good old days. "Could you check my tires or wash my windshield? In those days you checked oil, washed windsheild's, check tires and greeted people like humans.

In the 40's and early 50's in NW In. It was 19.9. And in my driving days early 60's is was usually 29.9. There was a gas station in my area the was always 10 cents lower. When I was driving my Model T in mid 60's there was a gas war and the chain stations got down to 15 cents and the cheap station it was 7 cents.

When I started driving gas varied between 28 and about 33 cents a gallon. It was about the same as the price of a loaf of bread or gallon of milk. They’re still pretty close today.

I had a job at a 66 station when I would top off someone's oil I would take the spout out of the can and turn the "Empty" oil can in a funnel going into a 5 gal glass water bottle... that is what I would put in my Studebaker truck, It leaked more than it burned so I was happy to get the "Drippings"

My first car, a white 1962 ford station wagon would cost me 19 cents/gallon at the Ben Hur Gas station on Burbank and Kester in the San Fernando Valley, I was 17 years old!! (1967)

We tend to remember good things better than we remember the bad. While we reminisce about gas for 26˘ a gallon, don't forget what we were paid in those days.

Boy, that's for sure! I pumped gas at .29/gallon back in 1968.....but I was only making $1.65/hr. too!

I started driving in 1998. Gas was $0.99 and the price rarely ever changed. I think it dropped to $0.97 for a few weeks, but was back to $0.99 and wouldn't change for several months.

Now, it's not unusual to see a station change the price 3x in a single day.

I remember way back when I was little. Gasoline around San Jose Califunny was about 24 to 26 cents a gallon. By the time I started driving ('67) it had crept up to 29 cents for regular. About five years later the oil embargo shot prices up to over 60 cents for regular gas. People seemed to think the world was coming to the end.
When I was little, my grandparents had a ranch outside Modesto CA, and we would drive over there often. About halfway there, is the little town of Tracy. They were well known for the price wars on gasoline. So my dad always planned on getting to Tracy with a low tank, and filling up for the best savings. I remember it being 17 cents per gallon there many times, a couple times even a penny less. I also remember a few times we would pull within view of the stations and my dad would give out some expletive and I would see the price up close to what San Jose was.
It seems silly today. I won't cross the street to save a nickel on gas. When converted to gasoline purchased? At today's prices, a nickel per gallon savings for ten gallons barely gets you around the corner.

Back in the early 60's I worked in a gas station at a major intersection with a station on each corner. Gas wars drove the price down to .12-9/10. You couldn't put $2 worth of gas in a Volkswagen. Of course I was making $72 after taxes for a 60 hour week but I still miss those days!

You guys are all to young to start reminiscing yet. In my day, gas was 14cents a gallon and they insisted on pumping it for you.

We arrived in the USA in 1967 and decided to do a cross country in our 1967 Bug towing a small Coleman tent trailer. We left New York and picked up Route 66 in St Louis all the way to the Grand Canyon. Then we went north to visit Zion, Bryce and Salt Lake before heading back east thru Rocky Mountain NP. It was in Colorado where we paid the most for gas, $0.36 in west Co and the lowest in Loveland at $0.19.
Fun days, our little baby who travelled in the back of the Bug, celebrated her fiftieth birthday a week ago :-)

Wayne,

I must be about 4 years older than you. I started driving in '63. We too lived n San Jose. Near where we lived, at the corner of W. San Carlos and Buena Vista, was a Chevron station owned and operated by a guy named Sam. There was a rival station across San Carlos that he'd get in little mini-gas wars with. Sometimes He'd mark it down to $.17 or $.18 a gallon. I think he was probably loosing money, but he didn't care. It was a question of inflicting pain on the other guy.

Most of my friends knew Sam. You could get gas, oil, air water, a tune-up or a 6-pack from Sam. He'd even help you drink the 6-pack.

Henry P, I used to ride my bicycle all over that area. The old original Orchard Supply Hardware, Town and Country shopping center where I went to my very first antique car parts swap meet in 1967 (there were 14 sellers set up). Bascom Ave and Meridian going mostly North/South. Yeah, I think I even remember that gasoline station (wasn't one I stopped at more than a couple times though). Just a couple blocks South of W. San Carlos on Bascom Ave was an old movie theater. The first one I went to showing a silent movie ("Wings" 1927) complete with a theater organ. The special event had been publicized in the S J Mercury newspaper, so my parents and I went, beginning my nearly lifelong love of silent movies.

Between the San Jose, Modesto, and model T connections, someday we need to meet face to face. But, I don't know, I don't get down that way very often these days.

OT, but I hadn't thought of Tracy California in years Wayne. Bought a 57 oval window ragtop bug in Tracy

Wayne,

We have friends who recently moved to Grass Valley. I'm pretty sure we'll head that way at some point.

This reminds me of a story. In about 1974-5 at the time of gas shortages and prices were in the 44 cent range, our neighbor decided to install a large (maybe 500 gallon) gas tank on his property so that he would always have gasoline. This he did successfully but was unable to fill it because he could not get supply and all he wanted it for was his only car. When he finally did get gas he had the problem of old gas which remember was leaded at the time. Then gas stations, in a few years, switched to unleaded and had to stop using their underground leaded tanks. Then the EPA (I think) stepped in and told gas stations they could not leave their leaded tanks there to rust. So, my neighbor made a bad decision that day.

(Message edited by Varmint on November 21, 2017)

I've posted this before, never tire of it, reminds me of a much better and simpler time and place. My Maternal Grandparents had a one room Post Office, General Store, Express Office and sold gasoline, kerosene, and motor oil. We were lucky to get .14 for it, times were hard indeed. Kerosene was .05, people used it to start fires, in lamps, and etc. I am leaning against the front window, if you look close, you can see the sling to my always handy rifle across my chest. My Grandmother is on the left, my Grand Daddy sitting on the bannister. What I wouldn't give to go back to that day, time, and place.

I'm 67, I've purchased gasoline at 12.9 cents outside Ft. Worth Texas. And in 1967 working at a Pay-Less gas station in Newport News, Va I sold gas at 18.9 cents...never over 29.9 cents.