Thanks, Anita, for the interesting history, as well as the memories stirred ... who would have thought the very first vending machine would have been necessary to keep religious pilgrims honest in apportioning holy-water? The 1952 model candy machine linked as an example in the article ( https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CandiesVendingMachine1952.jpg ) is IDENTICAL to the one that sat in the alcove at the entrance-way to the Principal's Office in my high-school (Mineola, Texas) from which I purchased about a BAZILLION candy bars for a nickle apiece during the mid-60s. I have seen IDENTICAL machines (as I am sure anyone older than about 50-years-of-age has) in airports, rail-stations, bus-terminals and restaurants around the world, throughout the 70s-80s-90s ... up until about 2000 when the electronics versions seem to have supplanted them. It must have been an extraordinarily widely-distributed, well-built, and long-lived model! I'll bet most of the old-soldiers were still working when they were carted-off-to-the-crusher to be replaced by the new ones with flashy LED lights and dollar-bill-changers ;) Bob Skiles On 8/5/2015 12:19 PM, Anita Cohen-Williams wrote: > An excellent article on the history of vending machines: The History of > Vending Machines Goes Back to the 1st Century | Atlas Obscura > http://ow.ly/Qx6MB > > *Anita Cohen-Williams**, MySearchGuru* > Organic SEO and Social Media Management > http://mysearchguru.com > @anitasearchguru > <http://twitter.com/anitasearchguru> > <http://www.linkedin.com/in/mysearchguru> > <http://pinterest.com/cohwill/organic-seo/> > <http://plus.google.com/u/0/103021485494547867385> > Get a signature like this: Click here! > <http://ws-promos.appspot.com/r?rdata=eyJydXJsIjogImh0dHA6Ly93d3cud2lzZXN0YW1wLmNvbS9lbWFpbC1pbnN0YWxsP3dzX25jaWQ9NjcyMjk0MDA4JnV0bV9zb3VyY2U9ZXh0ZW5zaW9uJnV0bV9tZWRpdW09ZW1haWwmdXRtX2NhbXBhaWduPXByb21vXzU3MzI1Njg1NDg3Njk3OTIiLCAiZSI6ICI1NzMyNTY4NTQ4NzY5NzkyIn0=> >