The Surprising History of Vending Machines

[Music] if you say want to grab a snack in the middle of the night at a hotel somewhere in america the one thing that you know is going to be available is the vending machine vending machines are still quite common in america uh although in america of course they're limited mostly to pre-packaged foods nothing like japan which is famous for its vending machines where you can buy almost anything including underwear and live puppies they're about five million vending machines in japan roughly one for every 25 people and we've come to get used to vending machines being everywhere in modern society you might be surprised to find out that they have a longer history than you might have thought all the way back to antiquity it is a history that deserves to be remembered the first vending machine was described in the first century by prolific inventor and engineer hero of alexandria he described the machine in his work pneumatica which included a description of how it worked it was common in greek temples for adherents to wash before they came into the presence of the gods in a purification ritual the coin operated machine was simple a five drachma was deposited into a slot and dispensed a plate which was attached to a valve when depressed the valve opened dispensing holy water the pipe would tilt until the coin fell off and then returned to its original position closing the valve although the technology behind it was simple there were a lot of reasons why such machines could not proliferate coins in the ancient period and well into the medieval era were not meant to be perfectly round or even the same shape so hiro's machine could only identify a coin by weight and so was probably not very sensitive to coin denominations there also simply weren't that many coins in circulation for a coin operated machine to be very convenient fifteen hundred years later even simpler coin operated machines were used in english taverns they were small portable boxes that carried about a pound of tobacco when a coin was deposited it flipped a trigger that caused the lid to pop open and a customer could then scoop some tobacco out to fill his pipe they were kind of an honor box meaning that they had no mechanism to control the amount of product dispense and whether i'd on the honor of the patron not to take more than they were entitled to the lid of the box had to be closed by an employee to be reset and then carried to another customer in 1822 richard carlisle an agitator and supporter of freedom of the press designed a vending machine that would dispense books that had been banned such as thomas payne's the age of reason hoping that that would get around the law in the shop is the dial on which is written every publication for sale the purchaser enters and turns the hand of the dial to the publication he wants when on depositing the money the publication drops down before him officials still held him and his workers responsible and it isn't clear if the machine was actually automatic a patent for what might have been the first truly automatic vending machine was issued to a simeon denim of yorkshire england in 1857 for what he called a self-acting machine for the delivery of postage and receipt stamps it was intended to be a machine that in exchange for a penny would give you a stamp from a role inside the machine but it doesn't seem to progress beyond the idea phase he was granted a provisional patent but he never took out the full patent two more patents were granted a decade later one to a german inventor and another to a british machine that dispensed fortunes in 1883 percival everett received a patent for a postcard vendor which began to catch on one account said that in england all places are closed on sunday and the only way to get a postal card or stamped envelope is to have recourse to the supply box we should not be surprised to see this ingenious vendor before long supplying small objects of regular prices and dimensions the following year w.h freund got his own patent in the u.s for an automatic drawing device which could dispense liquid the growth of urban areas especially cities like new york and london pushed others to invent other devices and at the same time people were looking for ways that they could cheat or damage or otherwise misuse the machines when ever applied for his patent in the united states he said it worked well when not quote designly misused people had shoved in things like orange peels and paper and other rubbish that would jam the coin slots the breakthrough in practical vending came in 1888 with the introduction of thomas adams penny gum vending machines initially placed on platforms of new york city's rail stations in 1931 magazine said they were promptly dismissed as an amusing novelty while other histories that said that they were immediately successful adam's company soon released new machines that vended a five-cent package with five pieces of gum the early ones were easy targets for fraud could easily be tricked using a slug a piece of metal put in instead of a coin and could be opened with a hair pin or a bent wire adam's machines were successful enough to launch many more machines that dispensed gum peanuts or candy but also raised some social eyebrows as the machine sometimes dispensed two rather than one gumball they were seen by some social advocates as gambling and a threat to our children the machines were also inviting targets for theft penny scales which promised to weigh a user for a penny proliferated as well improvements in fraud prevention and better automatic mechanisms came quickly but the machines were still simple the industry caught on in europe as well in france 10 sentient chocolate machines and railroad stations helped raise money for the society of stores for the blind the 1890s saw an explosion of vending machine companies in 1890 scientific american wrote about an automatic photograph taking machine which it proposed to join penny scales and candy machines in paris vending machines hooked into the city's water supply and could provide nine quarts of steaming hot water for a coin in birmingham england they added coin slots to gas heating pipes which could be used to buy 25 cubic feet of gas for a penny in 1891 scientific american could say that there may be found in almost every city and village in the united states automatic vending machines this included perfume vending machines which could dispense a few drops onto waiting hands in europe some of the most popular vending machines provided alcohol all users had to do was put a glass under the spigot and for a few cents get a few ounces of beer or wine while others supposedly served hot drinks like coffee they even had a counter that allowed vendors to know when to fill the machines without opening them by 1893 the german company stalwark was selling chocolate cigars matches gum and soap and thousands of vending machines on the continent by 1908 some stalwart machines were making a thousand dollars a day some of these machines could reject coins that were too small an important advancement that users today are familiar with a newspaper and stamped envelope machine patented by charles goldsmith included a stop lever that automatically closed the coin slot when out of candy so it could not steal purchasers coins in 1895 a dutch publication said that one cannot enter a public place without seeing a weighing machine a chocolate machine and frequently a penny in the slot machine rendering some popular waltz at the cost of a copper or two the waltz was one form of a trade stimulator meant to draw a crowd another was the pulver company's addition of small figures that moved whenever someone bought gum from their machines it was a kind of golden age for defending machines both vendors appeared in belgium cigar machines in chicago and in the american wild west someone could even buy divorce papers from a machine in 1899 james martin of north dakota patented a machine that could bend several items of different prices and that rejected washers pieces of metal and steel disks in new york a water vetting machine provided a communal cup which invited concern from doctors and public health officials in 1908 the public cup vendor company of new york started placing water vending machines that provided a paper cup with the water for a penny that company eventually became the dixie cup company the nico lock company began installing small paylocks on toilets and in 1913 another company created a vending machine that accepted 50 cent pieces in exchange for gasoline perhaps the most ambitious vending machines were automated restaurants called auto mats the first opened in berlin in 1895 and were popular enough to inspire american businessmen to open their own the most popular operated by horne and hattert first opened in 1902 in philadelphia these were so popular that at one point there were 40 automats in new york city alone and they served about 350 000 people a day nationwide but they were actually never fully automatic with the main meal usually served by employees while drinks cake sandwiches and other foods could be purchased at the machines the other machines were of sometimes dubious reliability they had a distressing tendency to steal coins thanks to faulty or jammed mechanisms in one english machine a person incited a penny and got nine shillings worth of merchandise in 1928 samuel levrone was inspired to start his own vending machine company when he ran into a series of malfunctioning machines he said one weighing machine told me i weighed 205 pounds another told me i weighed 98. one chocolate machine gave me nothing not even my penny back out of a peanut machine i got six moldy objects that i wouldn't feed to a goat the early years were filled with significant innovation and big ideas most of which flopped with the public unreliable machines and the difficulties of keeping drinks cold and chocolate solid were too difficult to overcome in the days before widespread electricity and refrigeration the most successful and longest lasting vending machines before the 1920s were penny scales and gum gum didn't melt like chocolate was socially acceptable to chew in public and had a long shelf life as early as 1899 observers were concerned with the issue of slugs slugs could be almost anything but are usually metal and at least vaguely coin shaped the classic trick was to tie a string to a slug with a hole through it a user could get their gum and simply pull the coin back through the hole less common when reporters said that ingenious fishermen baited the coin with a coating of adhesive gum and fish for the contents of the till most vending machines had no ability to tell a coin from a slog as they relied solely on size or weight to trip their automatic mechanisms the difficulties of combating slugs doomed many of the more elaborate vending machine concepts and discouraged investment it was the 1920s and electricity that next revolutionized the industry in 1919 machines displayed at an electrical show could reliably vent a variety of items at different prices and most importantly could reject slugs the ability to sell staple items like canned foods toiletries and other small items at a consistent price without the need for a clerk would open a new market for machines by 1925 companies invented machines specifically for cigarettes for 15 cents the first concerted effort at selling goods for more than a nickel policeman william h rao invented his when a bootlegger he was escorting escaped while he waited at a busy cigarette counter rao was certain that if there had been a cigarette machine there the bootlegger would not have escaped he built his first machines by hand his force was made from a whiskey barrel by 1928 he had sold more than 2500 across the country the cigarettes are actually more expensive than what people could buy at a counter a surcharge for the convenience the same year an article in the new york times proclaimed the catch penny devices had developed earning powers that command the attention of wall street a penny scale manufacturer claimed that they were taking in 450 million pennies 4.5 million dollars a year machines became common in five and 10 cent stores and the introduction of machines that gave weights on a printed ticket drove their popularity businessmen dreamed of grocery stores filled with machines that could replace unimaginative employees who weren't buying into suggestive selling the head of the union cigar store said that of the salesman's work 60 is the work of an automation why not give this sort of work to and automation cigar stores filled their walls with cigarette machines that could even speak using wax cylinders cigarette sales dominated the vending industry for decades the 1930s and 40s brought better slug rejectors complicated roller systems that determine what the coin was and could spit it back out were invented and magnets were added that could catch or reject slugs meant to mimic coins in 1965 a machine to accept paper money was invented by john greenwich these machines originally use a kind of magnetic tape detector that could read the amount of iron in bills but some became obsolete when personal printing ink carried similar levels of iron today these kinds of readers often use a kind of low resolution camera that can recognize specific patterns machines changed what they were selling as well it proved difficult to create automated coffee machines with successful ones only appearing in 1946 some even used single-use pods some of the ones now used in home coffee machines electrically cooled soda vending machines appeared before world war ii but didn't introduce cans until 1961 the refreshing look of this new machine actually beckons customers to come over drop in a coin and enjoy a cold bottle of coke in the 1950s machines sold life insurance to plane passengers at airports in 1955 the infamous jack gilbert graham purchased life insurance for his mother from such a machine and then planted explosives on the plane in an attempt to collect the insurance 44 people died and graham was sentenced to death and executed coin operated televisions and arcades proliferated started in the 1950s frozen items appeared in the 80s accompanied by nearby microwaves in 1972 polyvan introduced a snack machine with a glass front which gave rise to possibly the most common version of machines seen today today japan holds the crown for the country most famous for vending machines the first vending machine in japan was invented in 1888 by tarwaya koshichi and sold tobacco in the 1950s the machines caught on in japan and the number of machines quadrupled between 1964 and 1970. now you can famously buy almost anything in japanese vending machines we might think that we're clever for all the things that we can sell in vending machines today but that's all put into a bit of historical perspective when you understand that the first vending machine invented dispensed holy water but still machines today can do all sorts of amazing things there are vending machines that can custom decorate a cupcake on demand ones that can knead the dough and bake a pizza to order or even vending machines that will sell you a car although not yet a flying car vending machines today can give you the correct change many of them can accept credit cards some cigarette vending machines in europe can scan your id before giving you access to your product we might not have moved to a world that some science fiction authors anticipated where everything is sold by a vending machine but we can certainly see that vending machines will continue to be part of the shopping experience well into the future i hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guy short snippets have forgotten history between 10 and 15 minutes long and if you did enjoy please go ahead and click that thumbs up button if you have any questions or comments or suggestions for future episodes please write those in the comment section i will be happy to personally respond be sure to follow the history guy on facebook instagram twitter and check out our merchandise on teespring.com and if you'd like more episodes on forgotten history all you need to do is subscribe [Music]

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 467,342

Keywords: history, the history guy, history guy, history of invention, vending, machine

Id: T6lxjx4ZzBM

Length: 14min 38sec (878 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 30 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Creator707]

Live puppies in vending machines??? Is that true? 😂