Page 37 - JOAMay2021

Service station in Atlanta,
Georgia in the 1920s

AROUND THE STATION
AROUND THE STATION

An Adventure in Collecting Gas Station Literature

by the late Collector and Author Jack Sim

Jack Sim was born in Philadelphia, PA on July Revving the Collecting Engine
16, 1935, to John and Helen Sim. He served his Right after the flood, I purchased my first gas pump, a
country in the United States Army and spent most of St. Louis visible. Shortly after that, I had the opportunity
to acquire the contents of a bulk manufacturing plant,
his life as an author of books on the restoration of
including 100 gas pumps. The VW literature was sold to
antique gas pumps and air meters. He was always help in the purchase.
willing to share his knowledge about collecting. He While I was taking items from the plant, the owner
was the author of Ultimate Gas Pump ID and showed me a service manual and said one of these came
with every pump he purchased. When he wouldn’t give it
Pocket Guide Identification: Identification and
to me, I decided to see what they were all about.
Price Guide, An Illustrated Guide to Gas Pumps: About three months after I bought the 100 pumps, my
Identification and Price Guide, The Gas Pump wife, Cindy, and I went to our first petro swap meet –
Bible, and was a regular contributor to Check the Iowa Gas, the second meet ever held in Des Moines,
Iowa. At that show and every swap meet after that, I
Oil magazine. Jack passed away in December of
would walk up and down every row asking the vendors,
2020. This article was compiled by Aaron Hop from “Do you have any gas pump or air meter literature?” Over
pieces published initially in Check the Oil magazine. the years, many vendors would see me coming and say
“yes” or “no” even before I asked them. I was buying
very collector of gas and oil memorabilia has a path everything I could find—sales brochures, service manuals,
that led them into the hobby. My collecting
Einterests probably started when I was about nine
years old. I was not collecting petro stuff, just collecting
in general. It was during WWII that I started a scrapbook
of pictures from Life magazines. They were all war
pictures; I still have this scrapbook, and it is probably the
only thing my mother didn’t throw away when I was in
the Army.
At about age 14, I started collecting pictures of old
cars – I loved those old cars. After college and marriage,
I purchased a Model T Ford that started me collecting
anything I could find about the Model T. I sold that
literature when I sold the T.
My Shell service station started repairing VWs, so I
started collecting VW literature. Besides the literature, I
also owned three split-window VWs. I also still have an
This Standard Oil Red over 4,000 item collection of VW toys and memorabilia.
Crown gasoline pump Eventually, I built kit cars using VWs in the 1980s, but
features a milkglass pump when a flood left 11 feet of water in my building, it was
globe in the shape of a crown time to move on. Examples of the various pumps added to the collection over the years

May 2021 35