Automatic Age

12
A u t o m a t ic
A
ge
April, 1931
Trailing Down The
Exhibit Line
An annual feature of A u to m a tic A ge is to present a brief write
up of each exhibit at the national trade convention in the form of
a ramble among the booths. This list may very profitably be kept
for permanent reference by our readers. Complete address of the
firms is not given, but we will be glad to furnish this information
to anyone upon request. The reporter found some difficulty in get­
ting the names of persons in attendance at certain of the booths, so
the pardon of those firms where names are not mentioned is gra­
ciously requested. Naturally, we try to be impartial in presenting
this feature and tell the good news about each exhibit. If anything
is overlooked, it is due to human frailty rather than any intention
to omit news worth telling. General opinion seemed to be favorably
impressed with the 1931 exhibit at Cleveland, the only criticism
at all heard being that the passageway between booths was rather
narrow. But of course that could not be remedied due to the layout
of the mezzanine floor of the hotel. A trip through the exhibit
hall was a real education in automatics. In number and variety
amusement machines would carry off the honors and it was easy
to recognize the miniature trend among these devices; there were
fewer amusement machines of elaborate design and size this year
than at the 1930 convention. A casual observer walking down ex­
hibit hall would also immediately recognize that penny scales were
an important part of the coin machine industry. Here again he
would see that the trade had gone miniature. But the student of
automatics would naturally look most carefully to see the trends
and accomplishments in merchandising machines. The exhibit hall
this year no doubt presented the finest arrangement and display
of merchandising machines that has ever been brought together.
Remarks gathered at random from visitors would indicate that the
quality and variety of machines to sell merchandise was the most
impressive thing about the whole show. This means that the manu­
facturers are beginning to anticipate a remarkable trend toward
selling by machine. Selling candy bars by machine of course has
already made significant progress, and machines of all types and of
elaborate design were exhibited for dispensing candy bars of all
kinds upon the deposit of a coin. Many believe that vending ma­
chines will in a few short years become the largest single channel
of distribution for candy bars, and exhibits at the show would in-
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