C.O.C.A. Times

em went back to the Square design but started chrom-
ing the flaps-all versions are correct
All Model 33 's were bulk vendors- But at some point
(presumably in the late 1930's) Northwestern saw the
need for a gum ball version, and the 33 's sister ma-
chine the 33 Ball Gum vendor was launched. I further
support the 33G dating to the late 30's as there are no
factory painted versions of this machine; they were all
finished in porcelain, and lack the Art Deco design of
the original 33 Peanut machines.
All the early machines were painted and all with the
frosted (sometimes called stippled) 5# globe.
The castings on these machines are different than the
later porcelain machines- the grooves are finer, and
there is a triangle design just under the flap. And the
lids on the earliest 33 Peanuts were round- no 'bump
out' in the front as commonly seen on the later Porce-
lain versions. And although the Model 33 Peanut was
released in 1933, my best guess by researching early
Northwestern advertisements is that the porcelain 33P
machines came out in the late 30's, as did the smooth
5# globes.
Northwestern 33 Gumball Machines
(in order of scarcity)
Over all the years the decal remained the same and all
factory 33 's were penny machines. I have seen and
had Nickel machines but these all appeared to be ven-
dor adaptations as opposed to factory made machines
and again NW's advertisements seem to support this,
and I've never seen an original 5c Model 33 Peanut
decal.
Red
(maybe 98%) Same 'tomato soup'
red as found on the 33Ps
Blue (less than 100) Many Blue 33G's were
sold with yellow lids and yellow painted
flaps , they're even shown this way in
many of NW's advertisements. There are
also wide variations of the Blue porcelai
colors
Yellow (less than 50)
White (less than 50-and very hard to find
in pristine condition-some with Black
lids)
Tan
(maybe 6 known-at one point I owned
4.5)
Black (1 known) and this seems odd as there
are Black lids around
There are also 33 peanuts that sit on top of a "Penny
Drop" base. These were later Factory made add-ons
to increase the use of the machines essentially making
them gambling devices. I have original ads showing
these for sale for a whopping $3.95. Few have sur-
vived, but they add $1500-2000+ to the value ofa 33P.
Most of these Penny Drop Bases are painted green,
but l have seen Red, Yellow and Black versions as
well, all are made of Aluminum.
Apparently if you were a large enough NW dealer
they would make "private labeled" flaps with your
company name on them. There are l O or so different
Private label 33 P flaps. The most commonly seen one
is "M.C. Prine" from Baraboo Wisconsin who origi-
nally ran painted 33P machines, then switched to all
Black and all Orange 33P machines. It appears that
he was the only dealer to use the orange machines,
and most of these have brown veining in the porce-
lain, (possibly all from 1 run) mostly noticeable in the
decorative grooves on the sides. Other private labeled
flaps include "Peanut Sales Co.", "DEW", and "R.S.
Burch" to name a few. But even the factory North-
western flap changed over time-the earliest had a
square design in it, where later they have a slanted top
design- but both say Northwestern Morris Ill. - these
were both made in aluminum. Later still, Northwest-
And the question you should be asking yourself
right now is "Hey did Mr. Northwestern forget to
list Green?" I did not - no 33 gumballs were factory
produced in Green Porcelain- it makes no sense to
me either! Just about every other Northwestern model
of this era came in a Green Porcelain finish-why not
the 330??
Honestly it also makes no sense to me that Northwest-
ern made a completely different machine to be the 33
Gumball. Logic would tell us that they could have just
as easily adapted the mechanism of their wildly suc-
cessful 33 Peanut machine to vend gumballs as they
did on later model 39's and 40's- maybe they came to
their senses.
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