The first two photos show people gathered around a Mills 47-N, manufactured between 1939 and 1945. These machines are located in workplaces for the use of the employees. In the first instance, there are bus drivers taking a break, and the second photo appears to be taken inside a beauty salon. (Note the vintage Coca-Cola advertising on the wall behind the soda machine.)

The next two photos are of the Mills 47-A, manufactured between 1938 and 1940. The first location appears to be a school and the second is most likely an office break area. From the looks on the faces of the people in the pictures, it appears that the Coca-Cola Company was able to find an abundance of willing subjects to be photographed using their Mills vending machines for promotional advertising.

The Vendo 39 and 59 machines were actually made by Westinghouse. Vendo purchased the Westinghouse Standard machines from them and then added their own coin-operated lids and inner mechanisms.

The V-39 was manufactured from the late 1930s to the early 1940s. Dimensions are 34” high x 34 ½” wide x 27 ¼” deep and it held 39 bottles. The V-59 was manufactured from 1948 through 1951. Dimensions are 37” high x 34 ½” wide x 27” deep and it had a 59 bottle capacity. A drawback of these machines is that they were only able to vend a single flavor at a time. Also the V-39 could fit only 8-ounce bottles and the V-59 could only accommodate 6 1/2-ounce bottles.

This is a photo of a repairman that is servicing the V-59. He is holding what appears to be the refrigeration unit. The next photo shows a full bottle drum inside the V-59.

This item is not for sale. We show restored items in this blog to encourage discussion, prompt questions and further the hobby of collecting and restoration. We also enjoy sharing the photos of the many items we have restored over the years.

We have some great vintage photos of Vendos that we wanted to share with you. The photos vary in subject from production lines to staged publicity shots, but we thought they were interesting and that you might enjoy them. The following two photos were taken in a Vendo soda machine factory.

And then we have the assorted “chatting around the Vendo 83” photos. These illustrate the Vendo 83 in different environments such as the workplace and a grocery store.

The next two photos are of models posing with a bottle of Coca-Cola and a Vendo 83. Those are followed by a man dressed as a Vendo soda machine serviceman beside and open Vendo 83. He is pointing to the loading instructions inside the door of the machine.

This last photo is interesting in that it shows a Vendo 83 embossed in Spanish. Rather than “Drink Coca-Cola”, it says “Tome Coca-Cola” and instead of “Ice Cold”, it says “Bien Helada”. Vendo evidently built this machine for the booming Coca-Cola market in Mexico. We hope you enjoy all of these vintage Vendo 83 photos and we will continue to post more like these in the future.

Dimensions: 63”H x 32 1/2”W x 18”D
Vending capacity: 83
Precools: 75
Weight: 450 lbs.
Manufactured: 1946 to 1957

Manufactured by:
The Vendo Company

The three Mills Coca-Cola vending machines shown in this photo are representative of some of the model 47 series that consisted of the model designations 47-A, 47-B and 47-N. These machines are either 47-As or 47Bs. The A and B versions look very similar to each other, while the 47-N was promoted as a new and improved version of these former models with a slightly different appearance and greater vending capacity.

The Mills model 47-A was built from 1938 to 1940 and the 47-B version was manufactured from 1941 to 1945 and was an improved version of the A model. Typically these machines were painted in the distinctive Mills color scheme of two-tone red and green. They had the capacity to vend 60 bottles and pre-cool 42. These are both very collectible soda machines.

Dimensions: 62”H x 36”W x 23”D

Manufactured by:
Mills Industries, Inc.
4100 Fullerton Ave.
Chicago, Illinois

These items are not for sale. We show restored items in this blog to encourage discussion, prompt questions and further the hobby of collecting and restoration. We also enjoy sharing the photos of the many items we have restored over the years.

This brochure illustrates the Lyon 500 Coca-Cola cup vending machine. It was built in the early 1950s by the Worthington Pump & Machinery Corp. It was marketed by Lyon Industries of New York City, who partnered with Worthington in order to sell and distribute soda vending machines.

The Model 500, with its unique art deco styling, could vend 500 cups of pre-mixed Coca-Cola. It was a relatively small machine, at 60 inches high, and collectors today regard it as a rare machine.

Manufactured by:

Worthington Pump & Machinery Corp.
Harrison, New Jersey

The machine featured in these photos is a Mills 47-N. It was manufactured from 1939 to 1945 and has a 104-bottle vending capacity. It has the distinctive cathedral top and two-tone (red and green) paint. This machine was made by the Mills Novelty Company of Chicago, Illinois, the largest manufacturer of coin-operated machines until they closed in 1953.

This is a Vendo Model 123, or Junior. The cabinets were manufactured by Westinghouse and purchased by Vendo, who added the coin-operated top. They are referred to as “spin top” vendors because of how the coin-operated top vends. After the coin is inserted, the top is turned to access the next available bottle of Coca-Cola. This machine can vend 23 bottles and precool 9. They were produced from the late 1930s into the early 1940s. The earlier coolers were ice cooled, but later versions were refrigerated with electricity.

The brochure illustrates the other spin top models available in the Vendo series. They range in size from the 23-bottle Junior to a 59-bottle Master.

Dimensions: 42 5/8”H x 28”W x 17 1/8”D

Manufactured by:

The Vendo Company
Kansas City, Missouri

This item is not for sale. We show restored items in this blog to encourage discussion, prompt questions and further the hobby of collecting and restoration. We also enjoy sharing the photos of the many items we have restored over the years.

We have already written a blog on the very rare Vendo Decapper soda machine, but I came across this photo and wanted to post it. It shows a production line full of Decapper soda machines. This is a rare photo, given that very few of these machines were manufactured and very few survived.

To learn more about this machine check out our previous blog: http://www.vintagevending.com/vendo-coca-cola-bottle-decapper

I love these photos. These appear to be promotional photos distributed by the Vendorlator/VMC Manufacturing Company and they’re most likely from the 1950’s.

Photo number one is of the VMC 88, which is basically the same thing as two VMC 44’s built side-by-side. Although it’s rare, it’s not the most desirable machine. Yet it does have a great embossed Pepsi logo.

Photo number two is of the classic VMC Pepsi 81. Besides the Jacob’s 56 Light-Up, it’s probably the most sought-after and collectible Pepsi soda machine that was made.

Photo number three is of a VMC Pepsi 302. As we have said in the past, the model number of a machine indicates how many bottles it is capable of holding. This machine is a monster, especially for its time. Look how small the young lady looks standing next to it. This machine is not the least bit desirable to collectors. However, the plastic Pepsi disc on the front of the machine is pretty cool and does light up.

The last photo is of a VMC 72 Coca-Cola machine. It has been said that this machine has the largest embossed logo of any other Coca-Cola vending machine ever produced. I also believe it was the smallest dual chute machine ever manufactured.

To learn more about the Vendorlator Manufacturing Company check out our previous blog.
http://www.vintagevending.com/the-vendorlator-manufacturing-co-a-soda-machine-company

This is a Glasco GBV-50 Starlet Soda Machine we restored. It was restored to original condition, but without the Glasco logo and we painted the cap catcher black, rather than red. We have replicated the classic Coca-Cola “fishtail” logo used from 1958 to 1965. Please note we are no longer in the restoration business.

Glasco actually began as the Glascock Brothers Manufacturing Company, a company that was founded in 1892 to build washing machines. In 1929 they produced their first Coca-Cola cooler. It was a cooler that held 72 bottles of Coke that was cooled with ice. It had space below to hold 3 additional cases of soda. The Standard, as it was called, was the first mass-produced Coca-Cola cooler. Because of this, Glascock is often referred to as the “grandfather” of all Coca-Cola vending machines. The company name was changed to the Glasco Corporation in the 1930s. Through the early 1960s, Glasco only made soda vending machines for the Coca-Cola Company. The Universal Match Company acquired Glasco in the 1960s.

The GBV-50 was a very significant vending machine for the Glasco Corporation. It marked their re-entry into the bottle vending business after dedicating several years to producing vendors that dispensed pre-mixed Coca-Cola into cups. The Glasco 50 was manufactured from the late 1950s to the early 1960s.

We’d also like to share these 1960 brochures we have for the Glasco GBV-50 Starlet. The Glasco 50 was built for dispensing bottles of Coca-Cola. This machine operated manually by opening the lid and sliding the bottle to the opening in order to remove it. The bottle was released once the coin was deposited into the coin box. This is a slider-style chest cooler that had the capacity to dispense 50 bottles and pre-cool 25. It was a dry cooler that used a compressor to cool the drinks. It was intended to hold a fair amount of product without taking up a lot of floor space as you can see in the brochure page. It was touted as being both compact and counter-high. It was also promoted as a soda vendor that could hold up to five different products. The slider had 5 rows that could each be filled with a different drink selection. It could hold regular or king-size bottles.

A very similar looking slider vendor had been introduced a few years earlier by the Ideal Dispenser Company. Where Glasco manufactured soda vendors exclusively for Coca-Cola, Ideal made machines for all the other soda manufacturers except Coca-Cola, with an exception. Ideal manufactured an Ideal 55 slider embossed with “Drink Coca-Cola in Bottles” in the late 1950s. It was the only machine they made for Coca-Cola, and therefore, is very rare. The Coca-Cola coolers were not embossed, while the Ideal 55B coolers were.

Dimensions: 37”W x 20”D x 41”H
Weight: 230 lbs.

Manufactured by:
Glasco
Muncie, Indiana

This item is not for sale. We show restored items in this blog to encourage discussion, prompt questions and further the hobby of collecting and restoration. We also enjoy sharing the photos of the many items we have restored over the years.

We blogged recently about a Coca-Cola VMC 27 we restored and that blog can be read here: http://www.vintagevending.com/the-vendorlator-27.

We have since come across these original ads for the machine and wanted to share them. One of the ads shows the Kay Display base we reference in the first blog. The Vendorlator 27 is a neat little machine and can still be found in nice shape, given they were almost always kept inside because of its smaller size.

Also known as the “Spin Top”, the Vendo 23 vended 23 bottles and pre-cooled 7. Introduced in 1949, it was a smaller cooler, made specifically to fit into smaller spaces. It was intended as an alternative to the bulkier upright vendors available at the time.

Behind the large pullout door there was storage for empties or additional bottles of Coca-Cola. It had an all-steel construction with a baked enamel finish and featured automatic defrost.

This machine was designed to accept 5 cents, 6 cents, or 10 cents and was unable to make change. The vending was done manually, by rotating the handle and lifting the lid to remove a soda.

Dimensions: 20”D x 24”W x 36”H
Weight: 156 lbs.

Manufactured by:
The Vendo Company
Kansas City, Missouri

Pictured here is an assortment of vintage sales and promotional literature for different models of the Westinghouse WC-42T. There are also two mailers die cut to resemble the shape of the machines.

Today the WC-42T soda vending machine is the most commonly found and popular of the Westinghouse upright machines. Although it is the smallest of the Westinghouse upright vendors, it is heavy for its size. The WC-42Ts were manufactured from the early to mid-1950s. The earlier models were painted solid red and had “Ice Cold” embossed on the door and “Here’s a Coke For You” embossed on the sides. We believe this is the only upright soda vending machine to have had this side embossing.

Beginning in 1956 when Coca-Cola changed its paint schemes, the new 42s were painted in a two-tone scheme. The body of the machine was red with a white top. In addition, the door embossing was eliminated and the Coke slogan on the side was no longer embossed but painted.

All models of the 42 have the distinctive Westinghouse “ribs”, or horizontal embossing added purely for aesthetic purposes. The WC-42T vends 42 bottles and has space to pre-cool 10. It is a single selection machine that was designed to vend 6 ½ ounce bottles of Coca-Cola. We have never restored one.

The VMC 27 is the smallest soda machine made by Vendorlator. It is only 27 inches high and dispenses 27 6.5 ounce bottles. It had space to pre-cool 10 bottles. It is one of the smallest Coca-Cola soda machines ever made. It’s called the “Tabletop” because it could be placed on a counter. There were a variety of stands made for it, including a pipe stand made by Vendorlator and an all-wood stand made by Kay Display Products.

These machines were made between 1948 and 1951. Pictured here is a VMC 27 that we restored.

Dimensions: 19”D x 24”W x 27”H (without stand)
Weight: 100 lbs.

Manufactured by:
The Vendorlator Manufacturing Co.
4000 Railroad Avenue
Fresno, California

This item is not for sale. We show restored items in this blog to encourage discussion, prompt questions and further the hobby of collecting and restoration. We also enjoy sharing the photos of the many items we have restored over the years.

The Vendo 81D may be one of the most sought-after soda machines, also called “drink boxes”, among collectors. It was introduced in 1955 and was made exclusively for the Coca-Cola Company by Vendo. If you find a similar machine embossed with another soda brand such as Royal Crown, Pepsi or 7-Up, then it is not a Vendo 81-D, but rather a VMC-81 made by the Vendorlator Company. They are very similar machines, but made by different companies.

The V-81D pop machine is very similar to its predecessors; both the 81A and 81B, but has a much larger coin door. The V-81D is a “white-top” model, like the V-81B, whereas the V-81A is solid red with a white Coca-Cola logo. And the embossing is larger and positioned more to the right than on the V-81A. The V-81D was manufactured from 1955 to 1958.

The internal workings of the V-81D are still very much like those in the earlier models. It vends 6 to 12 ounce bottles of soda. It has nine shelves and dispenses 81 bottles. There’s space to pre-cool 17 bottles. A fluorescent light illuminates the bottle door allowing you to view the various selections. The larger coin door on the V-81D accommodated a coin mechanism with a coin changer, unlike the small door machines. One feature that makes this machine so popular is the gravity-fed slant-shelf design. This allows you to vend a variety of flavors and sizes of bottles.

We have restored many of these over the years. Follow this link to Retroplanet.com and our Blog About the Vendo 81, 44 and 39 Service Manuals in the PDF Library. There you can download a copy of a Vendo 81 Soda Machine Manual.

Dimensions: 58”H x 27”W x 16”D
Weight: 286 lbs.

View the video of this Coca-Cola Vendo 81D Soda Machine

This item is not for sale. We show restored items in this blog to encourage discussion, prompt questions and further the hobby of collecting and restoration. We also enjoy sharing the photos of the many items we have restored over the years.

The VMC 27 was made for Coca-Cola from 1948 to 1951. This tabletop vending machine had a unique mailbox-type shape that attracted customers, so these were very popular among storeowners. There was an optional stand made by Kay Products for this machine that had additional storage space below. The VMC 27 was capable of vending 27 cold soft drinks, and pre-cooled 10. This machine was a friendlier size for use in Mom and Pop establishments where space was at a premium. These places wouldn’t have had any use for the gargantuan Vendorlator Master and Jumbo models that were made during the war for use in factories. (The Master could vend 84 bottles and pre-cool 80 and the Jumbo could vend 124 bottles and cool 104!) Unfortunately for the 27, the Coca-Cola Company wanted something that could vend more drinks than these were able. In the early 1950’s Vendorlator made the upright Dual 27 for Coca-Cola that was an improvement with the capacity to vend 27 and pre-cool 27 more. As the competition between the soft drink manufacturers grew, Coke felt the 27 still wasn’t big enough. The answer was the VMC 33 that could vend 33 bottles and cool 27. These replaced the model 27 product line and were manufactured from the early to mid-1950’s. And the vendors got larger still, with very popular models like the VMC 81 that was made for dispensing Royal Crown, Pepsi-Cola, 7Up and Dr. Pepper. These classic machines were produced from the mid- to late-1950’s and are very collectible today.

In 1956, Vendorlator merged with its former rival, the Vendo Company of Kansas City, Missouri. Prior to the merger, Vendo worked almost exclusively with the Coca-Cola Company, so the combination of the two companies made them the primary supplier of vendors to the soft drink market. Within two years, the companies were completely consolidated and operating out of the Fresno location. In 1988 Vendo became a subsidiary of the Sanden Corporation of Japan. Vendo moved its headquarters to Dallas, Texas in 2005 and the name changed to SandenVendo America Inc. They still operate today as a manufacturer of vending machines, in addition to commercial freezers, and automotive air-conditioning systems.

The Vendorlator Manufacturing Company
4000 Railroad Avenue
Fresno, California

The VMC 72 is a considered a small machine to have dual bottle chutes. It may be the smallest ever made. Typically the dual chute design appeared only on the larger soda machines. The VMC 72 has a very large Coca-Cola logo that manufacturers believed would attract more customers. It has the same coin door design as on the VMC 3D-33. The VMC 72 was manufactured from the early to mid-1950s. It vends 72 bottles and pre-cools 6. These photos are of a VMC 72 Coca-Cola machine that we restored.

Dimensions: 15”D x 25”W x 58”H

Manufactured by:
The Vendorlator Manufacturing Co.
4000 Railroad Avenue
Fresno, California

Embossed VMC 72

Coin Door on VMC 72

VMC 72 Coin Mechanism

Inside of VMC 72

Vending Rack Compressor

This item is not for sale. We show restored items in this blog to encourage discussion, prompt questions and further the hobby of collecting and restoration. We also enjoy sharing the photos of the many items we have restored over the years.

The Vendo V-83 Coca-Cola Vending Machine

The V-83 has the distinction of being Vendo’s first coin-operated, upright soda vending machine to be mass-produced. Like all other Vendos, it was made exclusively for the Coca-Cola Company and was produced from 1946 to 1955. There were more of this model machine made among upright Vendos, than any other machine up until 1960.

The vending couldn’t have been simpler; just insert a nickel and lift the dispenser door to lift out your Coke. It is a single-selection machine that vends 83 bottles and has space to pre-cool 75. The 6.5-ounce bottles were loaded into individual compartments in a honeycomb-shaped drum. By lifting the door to remove a Coke, the drum was rotated to the next available bottle.
This Vendo 1947 V-83 brochure states that demand is so high for this machine, that they may have difficulty filling orders for them in the following year—so you had better put your order in early! Not so true anymore, as this is such a heavy machine, that it’s not all that popular with collectors. In addition, it can only hold the original 6.5-ounce bottles.

Dimensions: 63”H x 32 1/2”W x 18”D
Weight: 450 lbs.

Manufactured by:
The Vendo Company
Kansas City, Missouri

Coca-Cola Vending Machine Conversion Kits

Beginning in the 1950’s, the trend among soda machines was to offer vendors with multiple flavor selections. What was to be done with all of the single-selection soda dispensing machines already in use? The Selectivend Corporation came up with a solution. They introduced conversion kits for the more popular Coca-Cola Vendo machines. The conversion kits could be installed, changing a single-selection machine to a multivendor, able to dispense up to twelve different flavors.

Some of the models that kits were available for include the Vendo V39, V144, V216 and the V83. This idea may have been innovative, but it never really caught on, as the conversions were pretty involved, and once done, the machines were most likely very troublesome.

Maybe you have some feedback about this blog. We’d love to hear from you.