1950’s Lusse Bumper Car Restoration
It’s hard to imagine that there is anyone alive that hasn’t ridden a bumper car at one time or another. Still one of the most popular rides at amusement parks today, bumper cars date back to 1920, when the first bumper car ride was invented by Max and Harold Stoehrer of [...]

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What do you do when you have a couple of undesirable, enormous and basically worthless Vendo 144 soda machines? You turn them into restroom doors. These are photos of the restrooms that were in our retail store in Salem, NH. We took two Vendo 144 doors and restored them to like new condition and bolted [...]

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1950’s Esso Tiger Advertising Statue “Put a Tiger In Your Tank”
These pictures and video are of the Esso Tiger we restored a few years back and that still guards the Retroplanet.com world headquarters. The pictures show the ‘before’, ‘during’ and ‘after’ stages. At Vintage Vending we restored 3 of these over the years. This [...]

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Pictorial Decalcomanias, or Diner Signs
Although a little hard to read, the photo title reads “Dual Purpose Pictorial Decalcomanias”. In other words, decals. These images were transferred using heat to a non-porous surface, such as glass or ceramic. The process is an offset process, meaning the image is reversed when placed onto the surface. The first [...]

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“Ride the Champion” — Kiddie Horse Ride
Children’s coin-operated rides first appeared on the scene in the late 1940’s. At that time, cowboys were all the rage, and the most famous of all was Gene Autry. For every child aspiring to be a cowboy, there was the coin-operated ride named after Autry’s horse, “Champion”. We restored [...]

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Auto-Lite Spark Plug Automotive Parts Store Counter Display
This was a great little Auto-Lite spark plug counter display we restored. It looked a little rough on the outside, but inside the case was pretty clean. Most importantly, it had all the original spark plugs and the curved glass was not broken.

It was a pretty basic restoration: [...]

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