Automatic Age

T he
14
a u t o m a t ic
A ge
AU TO M ATIC SALESMEN
Mechanical Merchandising Has Gone Far Since the Earliest Catchperl11^
Coin Machines Appeared
By EDWIN E. JUDD, Editor, The Industrial Digest
A penny’s worth of peanuts, a
postage stamp, a cigar, a hot roast
beef sandwich, a twenty-mile subway
ride, a locker for your parcels, your
photograph, advice as to whether to
marry the blonde or the brunette, or
a telephone call to London—all these
and many more commodities and ser­
vices may be placed at your disposal
through the simple act of pushing
one or more coins into a narrow slot.
The automatic coin-actuated de­
vice, to use the rather clumsy generic
title by which these types of ma­
chines are known, is well-nigh ubiqu­
itous. So much so that when one
starts to tot up the list in his mind
he is apt to forget the very ones he
has just been using. Dropping a
nickel in the slot before lifting the
receiver has become so customary an
act for all of us that we scarcely
think of it except at those trying
times when one’s pocket contains
only coins of other denominations
and there is no one at hand to ac­
commodate with change. To the New
Yorker the insertion of a nickel in
the slot of the subway turnstile be­
fore sending that clattering mechan­
ism into another revolution is equally
habitual.
But when one really gets to dig­
ging into the number of uses to which
these ingenious mechanisms are put,
their number is astonishing.
There are no less than 752 distinct
coin slot automatic selling machines
in use at the present time. From
them one can obtain almost anything
in the line of small size staple pack­
age merchandise, including cigarettes,
soap, cosmetics, handkerchiefs, tooth-
© International Arcade Museum
O n e of m a n y
the re ce n t
di»p|ayid
p ackage v e n d in g m a ch in e s “ ! , hicago.
V e n d in g M a c h in e S h o w in l _
brushes, pastes and other toilet1 eCj^
sites, candy, gum, matches and ^
not else. They have been adap*e
well to the sale of perishable
p
ranging from sandwiches and fm1
to the full menu of the Automat re
taurants. The automatic measU1'^
of milk and coffee into cups is an ®_c
story, but now comes an autom
soda fountain, which in return
the deposited coin provides the m
elaborate concoctions of the most
perienced “ soda jerker.”
Shoe Shines to Photos
In the line o f services we have ^
automatic shoe brush, which will ^
move the mud and impart renew
luster, although, so far as the w11 ^
is aware, the machine has not .
been able to provide a complete s
stitute for the brushes and slappj®
cloths of the bootblack. The quarte^
in the slot gas meter is a fantu
•
device and , in some sections
oi -f the
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