The in basket: On New Year’s Day I asked if anyone out there in
readerland recalled a time when gas prices didn’t end in 9/10ths of
a cent.
The out basket: I got three replies, the first from 80-year-old
Samuel Stout of Central Kitsap, who says he recalls buying gas for
a whole number of cents when he was 12 years old in northern
Indiana. He said he drove quite a bit at that age. It wasn’t legal
but no one did much about it, he said.
The in basket: On New Year’s Day I asked if anyone out there in
readerland recalled a time when gas prices didn’t end in 9/10ths of
a cent.
The out basket: I got three replies, the first from 80-year-old
Samuel Stout of Central Kitsap, who says he recalls buying gas for
a whole number of cents when he was 12 years old in northern
Indiana. He said he drove quite a bit at that age. It wasn’t legal
but no one did much about it, he said.
He got that gas from one of the old-fashioned gas pumps that had a
glass dome on top. I’d seen photos of those pumps, but I’d never
known the purpose of the dome.
Samuel says you hand-pumped the gasoline into the glass enclosure
until you had the amount you wanted, then let it drain into your
gas tank. If you miscalculated and there wasn’t enough room in your
tank for what you’d pumped into the globe, you still paid for it
all, he said.
He doesn’t recall, however, when gas prices began ending in 9/10ths
of a cent, or what precipitated the change.
Earl Barth wrote, “I cannot vouch for the veracity of the
following, but I remember reading that 9/10th of a cent on a gallon
of gasoline was originally a tax to pay for the WWI war debt. To my
knowledge the tax has never been repealed.
“No, I do not recall a day when gas prices didn’t end in 9/10ths of
a cent,” he added. “However, I do remember a day when a gallon of
gasoline was $0.259.”
And Duane Smart of Seattle passed along this anecdote:
“It was probably in 1956 or 1957 during a time I lived in northwest
Wisconsin at a place called Amnicon Lake. There were two little
country stores there. Both sold gasoline. One grade only, regular.
I believe it was 32 cents a gallon and 9/10’s at one store, however
the other store sold it for 32 and 3/10’s. One day the store who
sold it with the 3/10’s had a service man out working on their pump
and when he finished the work, the price changed ending with
9/10’s. I was 12 or 13 years old at the time and that, to the best
of my knowledge, is the only time I ever saw gas end in anything
other than 9/10’s.
