Raise your hand if you
have SMOKED A CIGAR in
the last week. MONTH?
YEAR ? I see only a couple
of hands. Most of you don't
smoke at all. But if you
lived one hundred years ago,
there would be only a couple
of men's hands raised who
DIDN'T smoke.
to work on making thousands
of different machine designs,
from crude mechanical con-
traptions to ingenious and artis-
tic achievements. Between the
late 1880's through 1917, the
cigar vender was the most pro-
duced and patented type of
coin-in-the-slot
machine.
Hundreds of thousands were
manufactured for sale, rental ,
profit-sharing and route opera-
tors. While in the beginning
they had to prove to the cus-
tomer that the freshness of its
cigars was equal to the local
tobacco store, the machine 's
Rubin •
convenience and novelty trans-
action had very strong appeal.
They impinged on the market held by licensed
retail tobacco stores and cigar stands but they all
lived in harmony while sales were brisk and grow-
mg.
Antique
Cigar
Venders:
All Sublime,
Some
Ridiculous
Cigars soared in popular-
ity in the 1870's and 80's. In
1890, the cigar industry
turned out 4 billion cigars,
all made by hand. At the
beginning of the 20th centu-
ry, 6.7 billion cigars were
by Ken
produced each year repre-
senting about 200,000 different brands. The aver-
age number of cigars smoked per capita was 75.
That's 75 cigars smoked for every man, woman,
and child per year! Yes, the men smoked them and
the women and children made them.
By the early 1890's, coin-op cigar machines had
flooded into retail locations, such as saloons, bar-
ber shops, general stores, drug stores, hotels, and
even cigar stores. Neither the machines nor their
locations were licensed or inspected. The young
coin-op cigar machine industry was made up of
small , local manufacturers and operators and exist-
ed under the radar of the Internal Revenue
Department. But again some unscrupulous cigar
sellers were revealed to be tax cheating by refilling
their machines with non-taxed cigars. The wrath of
the Internal Revenue Department was re-awakened
and they declared that all cigar machines must sell
directly from tax paid boxes and that the tax stamps
must be di splayed through a window or otherwise
be clearly in sight. This outlawed all previously
manufactured machines that did not show the tax
stamps on original cigar boxes (see, Catcher Cigar
Vender), and had to be removed from the pubic
scene. Most of them were destroyed by their own-
ers out of fear of being accused of wrong-doing.
In 1862, Congress imposed a tax on manufac-
tured cigars to help finance the Civil War and in
1865 required that all cigars sold in the U.S. be
packed in boxes to make them easier to count tax.
The factory number, tax district, number of cigars,
and such were mandated to be on every box in the
form of stickers, stamps, seals and label s.
Congress also passed laws in 1868 and '79 that a
distinct "caution notice" be pasted on every box
warning retailers of the illegality of refilling empty
cigar boxes with cigars on which the tax had not
been paid, as some were caught doing.
Enter coin-operated cigar vending machines in
the middle to late 1880's. The demand for cigars
was enormous and the appetite for coin-op
machines was too. The marriage was perfect and
they both thrived together. Individual inventors
and tinkerers were captivated by the prospect of
making a fortune from machines that sold cigars.
Using the power of American ingenuity they went
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