Gas price flashback: 25 cents a gallon By Julie French
Ashland Daily Tidings - April 4, 2008
The cheapest gallon of gas in town is going
for 25 cents with a catch.
Gary Mallicoat, the owner of the Exit 14 Shell
station off of Interstate 5, is offering one gallon of gas
in exchange for quarters dated 1964 or before. He is also
accepting dimes, half dollars and dollar coins.
He ran the same special as the owner of the
Major Quality Discount gas station in Ashland in 1976, when
gas prices jumped higher than $1 for the first time during
the oil embargo.
He still has the original Daily Tidings news
clipping from that first promotion.
"It was sitting on the wall, and I said,
'Gosh, we ought to do that again,'" he said.
In the two weeks he has been running the deal,
Mallicoat has collected $40 in quarters.
"Right now, this is a better deal than
the coin shops," he said.
The value of pre-1965 silver coins is hovering
around $3, according to Mike Drager, owner of Ashland Money
and Metals.