Coin operated petrol pumps

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treefrog
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Coin operated petrol pumps

Post by treefrog »

Post copied & split from Re: Peter Wilson Sale: 18/07/19 Site Admin.


3E53E49C-AD9F-4EEA-87AC-EE27547A1D2F.jpeg

What did interest me in this sale was the Brecknell BMR Slot Automatic petrol sign from a petrol pump from the '20s... See below a machine it would have sat on... I guess unattended coin-op petrol machines would not be allowed in our world today.
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coppinpr
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Re: Coin operated petrol pumps

Post by coppinpr »

The BMR piece is very interesting. Is it common knowledge that they made a coin op petrol pump? I notice it dispensed Cleveland Petrol - that brings back memories. When I had my first car, Cleveland was the cheapest petrol around at 5/- a gallon or to quote their advertising "4 gallons for a £1". Petrol was so cheap we would drive from London to Brighton in the evening just for a drink in a pub! Long gone now for so many reasons :lol: Cleveland were big on the free gift collections. Anyone remember this one?
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pennymachines
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Re: Coin operated petrol pumps

Post by pennymachines »

treefrog wrote: Sat Jul 13, 2019 8:33 pm I guess unattended coin-op petrol machines would not be allowed in our world today.
Some of the pumps at my local Morrisons garage take card payments and I've used pumps in France that take banknotes.
coppinpr wrote: Sun Jul 14, 2019 7:36 am The BMR piece is very interesting. Is it common knowledge that they made a coin op petrol pump?
I wasn't aware of it. What date and newspaper was that clipping from TF?
The text is a bit puzzling. It describes it as a "French, Theo Sumura multiple pump... Importers Theo Co. Ltd., of Liverpool", but the sign proclaims it "'The Brecknell' Slot Automatic Petrol Brecknell Munro & Rogers Engineers Bristol".

So it was bought in 1929, just three years after William Bryan, together with Slack & Parr Ltd., filed patent GB280355 for a suspiciously similar-looking device. Slack & Parr Ltd., like Bryan, started as a Kegworth-based garage and had associations with Rolls Royce. This small, private engineering company celebrated their centenary in 2017 and describe their core business as "the design and manufacture of high precision geared metering pumps for man-made fibres and other industries; and Hydraulic flow dividers." It's interesting that Archie says of the pump, "the weights and measures men like it" because apparently, like the Speak Your Weight scale, Bryan's petrol pump fell foul of Customs & Excise. According to Melvyn Wright, "the Weights & Measures authority raised a number of objections to his petrol pump idea, but not before 1000 of them had been made and sold by Slack & Parr Ltd. of Kegworth!"
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brigham
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Re: Coin operated petrol pumps

Post by brigham »

The THEO Multiple isn't the coin-op pump shown. Two different pumps are described, the BMR being the coin-op one.

The THEO Multiple is something of an icon: It's the 'old pump' that looks like a lighthouse!
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Re: Coin operated petrol pumps

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$T2eC16Z,!zcE9s4g3JrtBRVwIoEw1Q~~60_58.jpg

A picture, as you can see, copied from the internet at some stage found lurking on my HD.
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Re: Coin operated petrol pumps

Post by treefrog »

Sorry it is confusing, but the article is from the early '80s. The garage in Handcross in the south was run by a Archie Quick. The French pump talked about was still in use well into the 1980s and is still there with the Esso top and pump arm and pipe work... though not now in use, and is a classic motorcycle garage. Archie invested in the BMR machine when it first came out in 1929.

I didn’t buy the sign as online bidding took it to £550 with commission, but a nice bit of coin op and motoring history...
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Re: Coin operated petrol pumps

Post by pennymachines »

Thanks for the clarification(s). I'm none the wiser as to what was meant by the "French Theo Sumura multiple pump", referred to as imported by Theo & Co. Ltd.
The Theo multiple pump, by all accounts was manufactured by Theo & Co. Ltd. in Liverpool and looked something like this.


TheoMultiplePump.jpg

Lots of great old petrol pumps here: http://www.petroliana.co.uk/History.asp

The American automotive industry was decades ahead of us, so no surprise that they were making coin-op pumps in 1913: Coin-Operated Gas Pumps
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Re: Coin operated petrol pumps

Post by pennymachines »

So here's the Bryan/Slack & Parr coin-op petrol pump fitting, from www.OldShopStuff.com, August 2017:
Alan Chandler wrote:Back at the Beaulieu Spring Autojumble this Spring, a fellow stall holder brought to me a coin operated attachment for a very early petrol pump. The unit was constructed with a cast iron body with a sophisticated mechanism requiring a one shilling coin to operate the mechanism.

No indication of which pump it would have been fitted to was shown, but the full manufacturers name and operating instructions were affixed with their address.

I contacted the company as they still existed, but although they were helpful, they had no information or drawings associated to the mechanism.

The unit was made about 100 years ago in the early days of the Slack & Parr Engineering Co.

So my research began to identify the correct pump this would have been manufactured to fit. Three factors limited the pump used. It required a continually wound pump to deliver the fuel, had to have a matching curvature on the door to match the mounting bracket of the coin attachment, and needed to be in common use in the mid 1910s. Only one choice was available, the Gilbert and Barker T8 (“Fat Lady” pump.)

I soon purchased a donor T8 requiring restoration to begin consideration of how to link the mechanism of the G&B pump to the coin mechanism. The unit could only fit in one place on the door to remain parallel to the pump thus giving me the exact mounting position. It then required the extension of the drive shaft and fitting of a second original gearbox, which I had in my spares collection, to connect the drive to the coin mechanism. I then made the male section of the connection as shown in the attached photos to bring the two units together.

Now complete the unit now with both doors closed and locked can be used “out of hours” with a one Shilling coin, yet during opening manned hours, the rear door can be opened, thus disconnecting the coin mechanism, and used as a normal T8 pump.

I restored the pump to match the distressed paintwork of the coin unit and added Shell artwork to complete the restoration.
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Re: Coin operated petrol pumps

Post by badpenny »

I've never understood the petrolelole'oleum industry. We pay so much in the UK for it, but have you noticed how it doesn't matter where they open a new filling station they always strike petrol? So much of it at times you sometimes see road tankers pulling in to carry it away.
Rip off UK!

BP !!GRUMP!!
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Re: Coin operated petrol pumps

Post by coppinpr »

its the same with water, if £2 will pay for clean water for a family in Syria for 6 months why do I have to pay so much in the UK dirtdog
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Re: Coin operated petrol pumps

Post by malcymal »

badpenny wrote: Mon Jul 15, 2019 12:20 pm I've never understood the petrolelole'oleum industry. We pay so much in the UK for it, but have you noticed how it doesn't matter where they open a new filling station they always strike petrol? So much of it at times you sometimes see road tankers pulling in to carry it away.
Rip off UK!

BP !!GRUMP!!
What makes my blood boil is that petrol stations (in particular Esso) can raise their prices one day by about 6p a litre, the next it goes down by 6p. It's almost as if somebody makes it up on the day, hits a random pence generator and changes the price. The idea of paying before you get your fuel is common in the states too; I've also had this at Asda. I've seen many a bilking too; other day dubious travelling fraternity flatbed with horse racing trap in back fills up with 60 quid of diesel and just brazenly drove off in broad daylight. I guess these machines of old where you had to pay up front were a good idea.
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Re: Coin operated petrol pumps

Post by coppinpr »

malcymal wrote: Tue Jul 16, 2019 8:06 am in particular Esso
Standard oil always were the biggest crooks in the oil industry. Back when 99% of their product was lamp oil their policy was to dump the unwanted petroleum (which was a by-product of the lamp oil) directly into rivers in the USA. They actually got an award from the government for "disposing of their waste responsibly", but then the US president was in the big three's pocket at the time.
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Re: Coin operated petrol pumps

Post by pennymachines »

Video of coin-operated self-service pump, UK

From the Advertiser, Adelaide, 31/03/53:
Penny-In-Slot' Petrol Pumps Spread To US
From Our Special Representative NEW YORK. March 30.
Self-service petrol stations are trying to break into America's billion dollar a year 'penny-in-the-slot' boom.
Last year, US car drivers helped themselves to 300m. gallons of petrol without one fire or accident.
The US version of the self service petrol station is not as completely automatic as the one proposed by Victoria's 'two bob in the pump' inventor. The motorist fills his own tank, but a cashier collects his money.
The petrol company that installed the first ones in 1946 says their cost is only half the outlay per pump for a conventional service station, a motorist gets away from the pump in two to three minutes compared with five to eight minutes when a serviceman has to do the job, staff is cut by two thirds, and cost is about 5d. a gallon cheaper.
So far there are less than 400 self-servers in the whole of the US — and 90 p.c. of those are in California.
Insurance Risk
Half of the States and most of the big cities, including New York, have banned them for the same reason as Victoria — the risk of fire. But insurance companies, which initially charged 50 p.c. higher rates on them, last year reduced them to the normal service station level. They said the risk appeared to be the same for both.
In San Diego, where 40 self-serve stations have been operating for five years, the fire chief found they may even be safer than conventional stations. Motorists are much more careful than garage attendants about the amount of petrol that spills over their tank.
When the legal difficulties are cleared up, the slotmachine makers are ready to get going with automatic pumps.
But they are only small change in the slot machine business. Last year, Americans poured £558m. into the 'silent salesmen' for 19 billion items — everything from
bubble gum and hot coffee to nylon stockings and life insurance.
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Re: Coin operated petrol pumps

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now this does not look safe
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Re: Coin operated petrol pumps

Post by john t peterson »

"Cox's Gas Trailer." Ah, the good old days when you didn't have to try and hide your explosive device. !OMFG!

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Re: Coin operated petrol pumps

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I like your President …. I like everyone who makes me look competent.
BP !!UHOH!!
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Re: Coin operated petrol pumps

Post by treefrog »

Another nice coin operated petrol pump sign sold today at auction: Jevons Automatic Petrol Service. Think it was about £650.
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