With a little patience and a decent budget, plenty of original examples are available across a year. However, once those ‘entry level’ pieces have been acquired, it is the globes by the more obscure brands that come highest on the wish list. They can be much harder to find – and much more expensive.
Richard Edmonds (20% buyer’s premium inc VAT) in Chippenham, Wiltshire, has sold some very rare British petrol pump globes in recent years, including a lantern-shaped globe for Dominion that took £13,000 in October 2019. Dominion was launched in 1923 but was quickly swallowed up by Sealand Petroleum.
If that price had been impressive, then it paled next to the bidding for another Dominion globe offered by the auction house on October 31. The Deco-inspired Dominion Guaranteed globe dated to c.1937 and was in excellent condition, retaining all of its original blue, red and black decals.
This example had been stored in a garage loft in Yorkshire for many years ever since the garage changed fuel suppliers from Dominion to Shell in the 1950s. Estimated at £3000-5000, it sold at £23,000 – thought to be a record for a British petrol globe and akin to the sort of mighty sums paid for rarities made in the US.
