Gumball Vending Machine

When I was a kid in the late seventies and early eighties these machines were a common sight. Today they have become a rarity. Actually I was amazed to stumble upon one of these things. I thought there were none in use anymore.

These things remind me of my childhood. There was a machine just like this one beside the walkway on the way from school back to my home. After school we would often stop and turn the handle again and again, hoping that by pure chance something would drop down into the chamber. But it almost never happened. But sometimes you got lucky and something would drop. Especially small things like German roasted almonds (Can you imagine that? A machine that had food stored inside without any protection like wrappings, plastic bags or something similar? Unthinkable today! Back then it was totally normal).

That was the fun thing about those vending machines back in the day. Most of them were purely mechanical designs and featured no electronics. They worked but had their flaws. There were a lot of tricks to overcome almost every machine (even the ones used in telephone booths). Try to "rob" a vending machine these days! Back then it really was "child's play". ;-)