Gladly paying twice the price 

I thought it was gonna be something worth half a cent

First thing I thought of, but it was obviously wrong, was the Totem Pole in Seattle. The original one burned down and the city bought a new one. After they paid for it, they waited... and it never came. They followed up and the tribe informed them they received payment for the original (it had been stolen from the tribe, and they took the payment as back pay for the stolen one). But if they wanted a second one, they'd have to pay again. They did, in fact, pay again and they got the new Totem Pole which is in the city still today.

I lived through it. Tom. Tom, WE WERE NOT HAPPY! NOT AT ALL! WE WERE TICKED OFF! You words threw me off. (P.S. Once he mentioned gas at about 5:00, I got it.)

Geez, I lived through the oil crisis in New Zealand, and our government dealt with it by handing out coloured stickers to everyone that dictated what day of the week you couldn't drive. Forcing everyone to give up one day between Monday and Friday meant there was enough fuel to go around for everyone.

I was convinced it was because the US doesn't add VAT to the price and since it was during an oil crisis the government put a huge tax on it to prevent large consumption. That tax would then be twice (100%) what the price of the fuel was. And everyone needs fuel, you know? Anyway, the answer was far more entertaining than I had anticipated. Such hilarious workarounds that are used, and then you have Julian's note of how Australia did it.

It wasn't twice the advertised price, it was twice the metered price. I was working my first job at the time and it was at a gas station. Our roadside sign "advertised" the sale price of $1.08 while the metered price at the gas pump was 54¢. This was only allowed for a short time until new pumps were designed and available. This was in 1979-1980 in southern California.

I was yelling "gas" because I lived it. And a lot of stations did put up a piece of paper with the 1 on it.

I was totally confused! I'm a Yank & I was wracking my brains trying to figure it out. Then, when Tom revealed the answer, I realised 1981 was one of the few points in my adult life that I didn't own a car, so I missed the whole thing. I remember seeing the signboards and being surprised at the price, though.

I was in my 30s at the time and had just moved to California. I don't remember any of those pumps. Maybe I just read the sign and understood it, did the math in my head, and paid it. I do remember a period where you could only buy gas on an odd day of the month if the last digit of the car's license plate was odd, and similarly for even days/license. If the last day of the month was odd, everybody could buy gas.

Wow! When I heard this question (and my name) on Friday, it came as a total surprise, since I submitted it a few weeks ago and never got any notification that they would be using it. And thanks to David or whoever for greatly improving the wording.

Where does Tom and the other guests get the questions from? They're always so unique and interesting

Hilariously, just before everyone started guessing at petrol etc the video was cut off by an advert for BP.

I was initially thinking of a charity car wash, where the local community was happy to pay twice what the local high schoolers were charging to wash their car, because the money was going to a good cause. The problem, of course, was that the cars were dirty, the scarcity was there was no other car wash in town, and the solution was helping high schoolers fundraise for their senior trip to Washington, D.C. But as soon as Tom said it was a commodity, not a service, my idea completely fell apart.

In Poland petrol price recently passed 10 PLN and I've seen printed out 1's next to the displays. It was a kinda surreal moment.

I remember in South Africa in the 80s when the petrol price breached 1 Rand per litre. The price was displayed in cents per litre, so stickers with “× 2" were stuck next to the prices.

This reminds me when I heard somewhere, that there were a few gas stations, here in Florida, that (when the price of gas was going up quickly, 2020's? sometime) had a deal where the customer could pay now for twice the price of a fill up of gas, (locking in the current price) and receive their next fill with out paying. Since it was already paid for. I never use the service and I'm not sure how it worked out. I haven't seen if offered lately.

I knew it was something to do with gas but didn't think about the old mechanical tickers.

Always a good day when a new episode of Lateral comes out!

In Canada in the early 2000s when gasoline first went over $1.00 per litre, the two-digit gas station signs just advertised the pennies. So an advertised price of $.03/l was actually $1.03/l.

My first thought was Cabbage Patch Kids, but gasoline was my second. I was too young to drive in the 70s and early 80s, but I remember the gas lines. I thought that gasoline jumped past a dollar/gallon in the 70s, but maybe the price was held under a dollar by price controls and rationing before Reagan replaced Carter. (This may have started under Ford, but I had just turned 7 when Jimmy Carter took office and don't have many memories of the Ford Administration.) Under Jimmy Carter, there were lines of cars stretching for many blocks to get gas. My father waited in lines for hours to get gas for our car. At one point, they tried to limit sales to a 1/2 tank and limit sales to odd or even days. If your license plate ended with an odd number, you could only buy gas on odd days (and vice-versa). But Ronald Reagan eliminated those shortages and long lines by eliminating the price control. Gas prices shot up, but the lines disappeared. But before long, those prices fell back under a dollar as the increased prices made more wells profitable, and increased exploration for new sources, leading to increased supplies of gasoline. While my father complained about gas prices, I know he preferred paying more but not having to wait in lines for 3 or more hours to buy gas. I still remember the last time I ever bought gas that cost less than $1/gallon. It was in 1996 or 1997. I was going to school in Virginia and was at a gas station in Roanoke. I remember looking at the price and thinking it looked wrong before I realized the price was less than $1. I hadn't seen that in years because I am from the Bronx, and NYC always had higher prices for gas than much of the rest of the county. I haven't seen a station with a price under $1 since.

Tom said they 'changed out the gear box' but really all they did it set the gas price setting on the pump to say $0.52/gal when gas cost $1.04/gal.

It's more the displayed price than the advertised price...

I was wondering if this had something to do with the "Baked Bean Wars" in the UK, where supermarket chains discounted baked beans as a loss leader, down to 2 pence, 1 pence, ZERO PENCE, then NEGATIVE TWO PENCE per can (only one can per customer), as in, if you take a cans of beans, they also give you 2 pence. If the price of beans was 0.5 pence, and you were only allowed to buy one... then you'd need to pay double that (1 pence) to get the beans... and gladly so.

I think the question was a little misleading. Nobody "gladly" paid for gas when the prices skyrocketed. They begrudgingly did so. The wording made me think it was for charity or something.

Some of these pumps are still in use (normally rural areas)

Straight away my mind went to the metric system, and McDonald's . Was sure that was the correct answer until about halfway, lol.

My fiest thought was that something was advertised at a negative price 😂

There was a gas station near me when I was growing up that put the price of his fuel in units per liter, rather than units per gallon.

In the UK the problem was that the extra price made the mechanical cost counter turn too fast and they were burning out and seizing up so they set them to register half price and added a "X 2" after the readout.

Finally one I got really early on! I knew it was the gas crisis, and the half gallon clicked to me because that is how they sell racing fuel out of the pumps, is at half gallon rate because it is octane 102 rated fuel, sold in pumps for octane 98 rated fuel

Great skills at work

I’ve actually seen this in the US in 2022. An older gas station was not able to display the current price, so they used a work around like this.

I got it when Tom gave the hint around 6:20.

I’m just trying to imagine that petrol was less than $1USD for FOUR LITRES in my lifetime!!

my guess before watching the video: for some reason the price came out negative after some taxes/discounts, so paying double the price meant they actually earned money 🧐

That's why UK pumps switched from gallons to litres.

I was just getting out of high school at the time. The gas stations where I lived at the time (near NASA in Houston) took a slightly different approach: For a very brief time, until they could get new pumps, they sold gasoline by the liter!

I was thinking during covid oil prices went negative. Tom said 2x very specifically so 2x a negative is a bigger negative thereby a better deal.

Nice to see young George Lucas on the show!

I remember paying $0.97 per gallon in 1998. In California...

Tom's comment at 5:30 clicked on the answer for me.

I think there are some gaps in the story. If the petrol was advertised at 1.02$/gal. and the pumps set at 51 cents per half gal., once you have pumped two half gal., the price would show as 0.51x2=1.02. It's weird to think that pumps were build to be able to be set to measure by half gal. but not with extra digit for over one dollar. The problem with using a magic marker, or a piece of paper to change the display on the pump, it would not change the system inside that totaled the price. It was cosmetic, but then you had to use a calculator to get the price.

I'm sure we did the same in the UK, probably in the 70s, presumably when petrol went above £1 per gallon (we still sold it by the (imperial, not US) gallon back then). The mechanical pumps then in use could be set to show the total cost at any price below £1/gallon, so when the price went over that filling stations were allowed, for a limited period, to set the price at 50+ pence per gallon and the customer paid double the displayed total cost. Some pumps were later retrofitted with mechanisms that would work with the higher prices, but a lot had to be replaced.

I lived in Oz when they broke the 1 dollar barrier and the cardboard signs were pretty funny...

oh to be as optimistic as those fuel pump designers who thought "this machine will never need to pump gas that costs more than a dollar!"

I first thought this might be about the Hoover promotion of buy a vacuum cleaner and get a free plane ticket that might have cost more by itself.

First thing I thought of was New York City apartments under rent control. If the maximum price was $500, the landlord would charge $500 for the apartment, and a "key price" of $500 for the key. As soon as they mentioned gasoline, I remembered all the hand-painted signs saying "Price per 1/2 gallon".

Since I lived during that time I got it at 5:14 Also at 8:03 many stations in America did that. Actually, it was easier to have the pump say 3.9 cents and add one dollar of each gallon.

I'm thinking gas by the 1/2 gallon due to machines not being setup for gas at $1 or more per gallon

My first thought, though it would be much earlier, was that it would be during the phasing out of the half penny. So, say, a newspaper advertising itself as a half a cent, but there are so few half cent coins left that most people just use a penny, and its such a small difference that no one cares. Different type of quirkiness to money i suppose :-P

I'm still waiting for the price to back under $1 a gallon.🤑

My guess was someone advertised something for 0.5 cents instead of 0.5 dollars so people gladly paid a whole penny. As for what, I was guessing forever stamps :P

Over a dollar? Oh man that makes me sad. I live in southern California and the cheapest grade fuel at the cheapest place around here (usually Arco gas stations) just hit over $6/gal. And just across the street at the Mobil station the highest grade is at $7/gal. I need to get an electric car as soon as possible.

My first thought is smething like the second half was given to charity.

This is what gas pumps were like then: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ZUetmdJZJvg.html .... The price per gallon that was configured to be displayed on the pumps that are referred to in the question only had digit place counters for cents, so the workaround is to sell it at $0.50 per half gallon rather than $1.00 per gallon. (Gas is priced is the US by 1/10 cent, i.e. "$X.ABC" rather than "$X.AB", so the older gas pumps had only three digits, i.e. "ABC¢" or "$0.ABC".) They either changed how the pump measured dispensed gasoline (to half gallons), or they just set the displayed price to half and the gas attendant that took your money doubled it when you payed. Note that the pump in the linked video has been updated to have a dollar place and three cents places.

Awesome surprise to see Julian on Lateral, although supposing the format of his content being so similar to Tom Scott I suppose in some sense it was inevitable their paths would intersect.

It could be something that's free. So there's no problem and no needed workaround, easy question /s

Initial thoughts: there's gov subsidies, grants, deductions, etc. Limited supply inflated the price. Or, the something before a specific date was exempt of some taxes and regulations, or had grandparent right.

I was thinking 1 pant leg $7.99. So to buy a pair you had to pay twice that.

As an American, at the start, I was convinced that Tom was talking about Ticketmaster, which would routinely charge 100% of the ticket price, or more, in "convenience" fees.

I was thinking they changed the guage for the cost and amount round. so instead of dollars per gallon, it was gallons per dollar. But, that doesn't make sense, because the gallon is larger than the dollar, until the cost of fuel goes over $3.79/gallon

It's because there was Flappy Bird on the phone! Wait, no, it's the 80's...

1980s... America.. happily paying double the actual price. Was i the only one that thought "cocaine"? ;)

I figured instantly that this was fuel related, because that's the first thing I think of Americans regularly buying, especially in the 80's and 90's. Petrol and Coffee are the two essentials I think of when I think American top purchases.

First thought… shoes or mittens sold by the single…

But does “gladly” still fit? No one was glad gas prices were so high

Will the same repeat for prices over $9.99 per gallon?

I'd do this if the listed price was $34.50

Correction - there was nothing "gladly" about it!

Only 1 dollar for gas? Americans are so blessed!

Okay. Listen up young people. In the early eighties, there was no such thing as a gas pump with a "screen". Hard to fathom, isn't it?

not at the end but guessing they put in 20 $ either way and didnt notice they are getting less.

But if they put a sigh that it's the price per half-gallon then the people paid the advertised price, or am i missing someting?

The should have just changed the amount from gallons to litres like everyone else (American gallons are smaller than proper gallons).

That was 1979, not the 1980s.

I thought this might be baseball caps. Some wearers are part of an exclusive club because you have to pay twice the price for the backward facing ones. 😉

I thought it might be to do with New Coke and people were happy to pay twice the price to get the original Coke

They did this one already didn't they? Or something very similar.

Guess from 1:35 -- the 80s had the oil crisis and rationing, I think (or was it the 70s?). Were people buying gas rations on the black market?

Just checked online for the UK price for a gallon of petrol in 1981. It was £1.60. That was over $3.20 at the 1981 £ to $ exchange rate (source: retrowow)

Thought they were buying phones way early on. Buying one phone if nobody has one is kind of useless, so they'd be paying twice the ammount for two phones to have like, one at home and one to take around or to work or something.

That "Until the price went back down" at the end hurts

Since this is America, which is famous for having advertised prices to not include taxes, I thought the sales taxes got extremely high.

My thought was that there was something that went to negative price for some reason, so paying double would actually have gained you money.

Milk and bread should be on that list of things Americans buy.

without reading other comics, and after watching 1 minute.. im guessing Beanie babies.

Another option would be doing what the brits did. change from pay per gallon to pay per litre.

I remember in only the past decade when the gas stations had to start changing their signs to allow for that fourth digit. (100.9) Although many of the Americans I talked to would initially be shocked that we were complaining about paying half what they did. Until I informed them that our prices were per litre and not gallon.

I don't think they were _happily_ paying the price? They were probably pretty upset about gas prices skyrocketing.

The meme I keep thinking of. No thanks buddy I'm American

I expected her to start talking about 2 and 4 dimensional coins

Oil crisis and paying for American made gas is my guess.

@3:05 "Most Americans would have bought this sometime during their life" ...guns?

An instance of shrinkflation.

The other way they got around it is they couldn't charge more than a dollar, but they could calibrate the pump to measure by the half-gallon. So the big sign would say $1.02 a gallon, but the pump was counting 51cents the half-gallon.

aaah... digital thinkers

Half a galon; proving once again that Americans will measure in anything but metric.