C.O.C.A. Times

ated stores that sold his tires until Sears, Western Auto,
and Montgomery Wards jumped in. His factory located
at 14th and Chestnut not only produced tires but they
produced several other products as well, including
these great trade stimulators. The A.J. Stephens factory
also did a lot of government work during the war mak-
ing duffle bags and aircraft parts. Montgomery Wards
would put a stop to all his success when they ordered
a million dollars worth of tires. Stephen's went out and
spent $600,000 on rubber and fabric only to have the
bottom fall out of rubber when it then went from 67
cents a pound to 8 cents a pound. The order was can-
celled and he lost almost a half million dollars.
The beer barrel and cigarette keg are two great looking
machines which would display well in anyone's col-
lection. I want to thank everyone again who took the
time to send me serial numbers and I would also like to
thank Tom Gustwiller for his help digging up the Ste-
phens flyers. The last time my wife and l stopped to
visit Tom and Bev they were kind enough to put us up
in the penthouse suite ... thank you!!! If you have any
serial numbers you would like to share please email me
at Johnny@kccoinop.com or call 816-835-3316.
There were quite a few of these machines sold, as the
serial numbers look to have reached just over 3,000.
I have located quite a few known serial numbers for
this article with a huge thanks going to all the C.O.C.A.
members who were willing to share their information.
• The cigarette kegs have a special numbering system
with a C starting before the serial. The lowest number
observed on a cigarette keg has been in the low 2,700
range so these look to have been produced towards
the end of production. It took two years to pry my first
Cigarette Keg out of a collector in South Dakota. I then
located another one in North Carolina and fonner "El
Presidente" was kind enough to let it come back home
to Kansas City. I just wonder how many more cigarette
kegs are lurking out there in collections today.
A.J. Stephens was born in Versailles, Missouri where
his father ran a local drugstore. He left home in 1903
at the young age of 12 to I ive with his uncle Wyan in
Kansas City. Three years later his family would move
to Independence, Missouri located just outside of Kan-
sas City and he moved back in with them at that time.
He would travel into the city by train where he worked
for the Missouri Pacific Railroad at the roundhouse in
the east bottoms. He also became life-long friends with
Harry Truman who also happened to be from Indepen-
dence, before Mr. Truman entered the office as presi-
dent.
A. J. Stephens started out building store fixtures and
then moved into manufacturing tires which became a
big business for him. At one time he had 256 associ-
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