flt well with the times and must have enjoyed some
degre e of success based upon the number of surviv-
ing examples found in today's collections.
It wou ld be tempting to assume that the idea of
rotating columns of merchandise, used so frequently
~ -"
in later machines, originated with this
design, but a vendor with six user-
selectable columns was patented in
1 888, by Henry Gates, of Brooklyn,
New York. Gates' patent suggests
that his intent was to sell sweets
rather than matches, but the idea
would later be found in selective ven-
________ _, dors by the Advance Machine and Oak
accomplished by mounting the columns on a turnta-
ble supported by "friction reducing balls" - today
known as ball-bearings.
Marcus Anthony was well prepared to address the
mechanical and design complexities called for by
such an intricate machine. His first patent, flied in
1 890, was for an "automatic feed and return
mechanism for phonographs." This mechanical sys-
tem demonstrated his ability to solve mechanically
complex issues. Vending machine patents
from 1 904 and 1 905 also show his
,:J
ability to work with clockwork vending
devices. In the Knapsack vendor, one
problem he had to solve was that of
how to keep the stack of match safes
from jamming as the stack dropped
down after the lowest had been sold.
To prevent t he stack from tipping as it
fell, he designed a specially shaped
cam that allowed the lowest tin to be
slowly dispensed and then rapidly re-
tract the pusher so that the remaining
Original cam
tins would fall as a unit. While this
mechanism
looked good on paper, it must not
have been completely reliable because a year and a
half after fil ing the main Knapsack patent applica-
tion , he amended it with a simpler design to accom-
plish the same motions. This amendment was
granted its own patent on the same day as the
complete machine.
Robust in design and manufacture, attrac-
tive and vending a needed product for a
competitive price, this machine should have
been successful. An unknown, but very
sm all, number of these machines are known
to have survived, raising a question of how
successful they were.
Manufacturing Companies years later.
(For more infor-
mation about the 1 91 6, four-column Advance match vendor, see
"BM Davis of Chicago, " C.O.C.A . Times 4( 2 ):4-6, 2004.)
The Knapsack Vendor
One early and rarely seen machine combined many
of these mechanical elements and sold matches in
metal match safes, ready for the buyer to use and
reuse: The Knapsack vendor.
Patented in 1907, by Marcus
0. Anthony of New York, New
York and assigned to the
United Machine & Supply Com-
pany of that city, this elegant
octagonal machine contained
many elements that made it a
mechanical marvel. Driven by
a clock work
motor, this
vendor dis-
pensed tin
match safes in the
shape of knapsacks
similar to those used during the Civil
War. (This similarity has lead even
some experts to place their age to that
time, but this is incorrect.) The match
safes were housed in six columns within the
glass enclosure and vended by a pusher
driven by the clockwork mechanism and released by
the insertion of a penny. The pusher would deliver
the lowest box from the column and when the col-
umn was emptied of its contents, the group of col-
umns would rotate to the next full one until the ma-
chine was completely emptied. This process was
The End of Match Vendors
Ultimately, convenient, safe, portable matchbooks
made by Diamond Match and others, made matches
so common (and often free, thanks to advertisers)
that the demand for match boxes and the machines
that sold them wained, disappearing rapidly after
WWI. The very factors than made the machines
possible, lead to their obsolescence, but at least in
the case of the Knapsack vendor, we can get a
glimpse of t heir former glory.
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