A conversation with ...
''Mr. COLUMBUS''
W
By Scott Carson
hen someone mentions the name
"Mr. Columbus," if you have been in
coin-op more than a week and a half,
you know it's Phil Cunningham they're talking
about. Phil's passion is coin-op, and his coin-op
passion is Columbus Vending. If it's got a star on
Phil with his favorite, a Columbus "Long Gate."
it, and it's not Texaco, Phil knows the machine.
Phil found his first machine in an antique
In the last 35 years , Phil has completely
store in 1975, while living in Pacific Palisades. Of
bought out seven vendors. This is how he has
course it was a Columbus - a Model A. It had been
been able to finance his Columbus "habit." Every
repainted and still had 90% of the "bow-tie" decal
time he would find a machine for his collection, he
on it. He said, "It really struck my fancy, and I over-
would justify buying it by selling 3 or 4 machines
paid for it. Seventy-five dollars is what I gave."
he got from vendors for resale. He says at one
While raising his chil-
point his garage, backyard, driveway, and
dren, he noticed that every
five storage units were full of about 5,000
time they came to visit the
machines. He says, "I guess I was a little
Von's store he managed,
obsessed."
they would beg for pennies
He says vendors in the 1930s and '40s
for the gumball machines
would pay $7.50 for machines full of gum,
at the front of the store.
use them for 30 years, and "be thrilled to
So he checked with the
death to sell them to me for $20."
vendor who serviced the
When driving on his numerous trea-
machines, who took him to
sure hunts, Phil would remove his Cali-
the "dump," a place in the
fornia license plates and replace them
back of his warehouse that
with West Virginia plates. "They thought
stored old machines until
you were made of gold if you were from
they were junked. He got
California, so I made sure I wasn't," he
three Acorns free from the
laughed. "I was able to pay a fair price for
man and he was hooked.
machines because they thought I was a
Phil explains that he
regular guy."
Phil's first machine.
had limited funds back
One of his best finds was buying out
then and so he hooked up with Tom Cantela of the
a Ford vendor in Texas. He bought his entire in-
Antique Jukebox Company in downtown Los An-
ventory of 1,500+ machines for $10 each. Phil ex-
geles. Tom needed a "grunt" to help on his trips,
plains that while the price seems great, the fact
so Phil went along . In the five years he helped
that he could buy so many at one time made the
Tom , Phil acquired upwards of 200 machines at
deal much sweeter.
prices he says "were ridiculous." For example,
Phil's best deal with Columbus machines?
while in Amarillo, Texas, in 1980, he remembers
"Art's Vending in Clear Lake, Iowa. Eight hundred
picking up 20 Columbus Model A machines with
Columbus machines. We became good friends
barrel locks for $10 apiece. "The guy actually felt
and he taught me a lot about the little idiosyncra-
sies of Columbus, like when a penny machine went
bad that he charged me so much, no kidding!"
to a nickel. Or where to place a nickel machine,
Even at that price, Phil had to borrow the money
back when a nickel would buy a loaf of bread dur-
from Tom.