The practice dates to the 1920s in most areas and by the 1940s, it was everywhere. There are 2 reasons.
In the 1920s, gas was averaging 10-12 cents per gallon. It was difficult to raise prices by 1 cent, because that would represent a 10% increase, which was a lot of money. Gas station owners and oil companies needed a finer pricing method that would allow smaller incremental movements either up or down. So they started the fractions.
In the 1930s there were various state and federal taxes imposed on gasoline sales. Again, because 1 cent would have been a HUGE tax back then, they needed to tax in fractional cent increments. Some of these taxes are still on the books in fractional increments.
Obviously, the practice is completely obsolete today, but it goes to show once you set a "standard" way of doing things, like railroad tracks being 4 feet 8 and 1/2 inches apart, no matter how odd or obsolete the logic was to derive it, it persists forever.
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Today's Featured Article - The Day Mom Drove the 8N - by Brian Browning. My Dad was wanting to put in a garden but couldn't operate the 8N and handle the old horse drawn plow he had found and rigged up to use with the tractor. Well, he decided to go get Mom out of the house and have her drive the tractor while he walked behind the plow. You got to understand that while my Mom is a hard worker who will always help whenever she can... she had never operated farm machinery before that day. Dad got her out there, explained how the clutch was the same as in our o
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