Page 156 - Experience Magazine Winter 2023

GAS PUMP GLOBES ARE
DESIRABLE COLLECTIBLES
LIGHTING THE WAY

Picture this: You are driving your way. Those gas pump globes also
brand-new Model T along a long, afforded product identification for
dark stretch of highway. You pass a drivers at a distance, with over 1,000
speed limit sign and look down to brands utilizing the illuminated
check how fast you are going. You marketing tool. Each displayed
note that your speed is perfect – but the brand’s logos and colors –
your fuel level is low. You start to sometimes they were even crafted
panic. What happens if you run out into unique shapes like crowns or
of fuel on this dark, desolate road? other figures, such as the famous
How long would it take someone to Shell clam.
pass by? Would they stop and help Some of the earliest gas pump
you? After what feels like an eternity globes were called “one-piece
passes, a glowing orb appears in the baked” or “one-piece etched”
distance and relief begins to wash globes, depending on how they
over you. were constructed. The globes were
In the early 1900s, lighting on the generally made of milk glass with
open road wasn’t the best, and painted faces, or the glass was
when drivers were low on fuel, they etched or cast and then painted to
sought out glowing globes atop gas feature the gasoline brand it would
pumps; they became beacons of represent. Most of the earliest glass
light meant to keep drivers on their globe lenses were hand-painted,

156 BARRETT-JACKSON EXPERIENCE WINTER 2023