Featured in Country Living Magazine

Country Living Magazine contacted us a few months ago to talk about vending machines.  They publish a series called "Hunt, Treasures for a More Collected Life" and wanted to feature one of our vintage machines.  It was fun to help them pick out their perfect machine!  We sent pictures of a wide variety of machines and they chose the Northwestern 33.  If you pick up a copy of the Aug-Sept issue you can see the machine the machine they chose and read a little history about vending machines :-)

Every vending machine has a hidden story and a lifetime of adventures that it experienced. As a collector, it is fun to have an attachment to a machine by knowing some of the history of that particular unit.  Many times, when customers ask, we can let them know what area of the country it came from and in certain situations may know a little more about it.  For example, many years ago I bought a batch of machines that had special stickers inside with a tag from Oregon.  I purchased them from a friend in West Virgina and asked him the history behind them.  I'm so glad I did because over the course of 20 years, those machines led to this unbelievable chain of events:

-A vending company from Oregon purchased them new in the 80's and put his special tags on them

-They sold them and shipped to a vendor in Tennessee 

-The Tennessee vendor went out of business and a government agency took ownership

-My friend bought them at a tax sale and took them to his place in West Virginia

-He sold them to us and I brought them to Indiana

-I sold them to a different company who was also in Oregon

-A few years later, he sold his business and we purchased a semi load of his excess equipment. They happened to be in there and came back home to Indiana

-We then sold them to a vendor in Oklahoma

-Several years later, the Oklahoma vendor lost a large account and sold us a few pallets of machines.  When I unwrapped the pallets, I literally laughed out loud because some of those EXACT machines came back home, AGAIN, to Indiana

Those machines adventured throughout OR, TN, WV, IN, OR, IN, OK, and then "back home again in Indiana"!!!!!   It shows you never know what story might be attached to a particular machine.  If that kind of stuff is fun for you to hear about, too, feel free to ask when you purchase your machine :-)

I was happy with the machine Country Living chose because that one came out of my private collection and there was a memory and special story behind it for me.  Ten years ago, on a lazy summer Saturday, my wife and I enjoyed a nice lunch at our favorite restaurant in a small lake country resort town in Indiana. On the way home we noticed an antique store opened in an old train depot so we stopped to check it out.  Next to their vintage cash register was that Northwestern 33 gum vendor.  It looked so cute in that setting and I had to have it!  The price was $200 and I talked them down to $175.  After that, it sat on my shelf and often reminded me of that pleasant summer afternoon together.  

I do not know the history of the machine before I bought it but it was already special to me and there couldn't be a more perfect chapter with Country Living choosing it and adding to its special story!