Images from the 1920s to 1960s showing strange vending machines you may not have known existed

Almost anything imaginable can now be purchased from vending machines, but the trend of automated purchases is nothing new, as these old photos demonstrate. Vending machines are defined as self-contained automatic machines that dispense goods (like candy or soft drinks) or provide services (like a weighing scale) when coins are inserted. The earliest known reference to a vending machine is in the work of Hero of Alexandria, an engineer and mathematician in first-century Roman Egypt. His machine accepted a coin and then dispensed holy water. When the coin was deposited, it fell upon a pan attached to a lever

A machine selling air insurance at Newark Airport.

The first fully automatic vending machine, a stamp dispenser made by Simon Denham, was granted British Patent No. 706 in 1867. The first coin-operated vending machines, which dispensed tobacco, were operated in English taverns as early as 1615. Richard Carlile, an English bookseller, invented a newspaper dispensing machine for the distribution of banned works in 1822. The first modern coin-operated vending machines were introduced in London, England, in the early 1880s. Percival Everitt's machine, invented in 1883, quickly became a common feature at railway stations and post offices, dispensing envelopes, postcards, and notepaper. The Sweetmeat Automatic Delivery Company was established in 1887 in England.

In 1893, Stollwerck, a German chocolate manufacturer, was selling its chocolate in 15,000 vending machines. It set up separate companies in various territories to manufacture vending machines to sell not just chocolate, but cigarettes, matches, chewing gum and soap products.

The first vending machine in the U.S. was built in 1888 by the Thomas Adams Gum Company, selling gum on New York City train platforms.

The idea of adding games to these machines as a further incentive to buy came in 1897 when the Pulver Manufacturing Company added small figures, which would move around whenever somebody bought some gum from their machines. This idea spawned a whole new type of mechanical device known as the “trade stimulators”.

Book-o-mat.

Fresh Ark Pie.

This machine actually sold lit cigarettes for a penny.

A coin operated perfume dispenser.

A vending machine for airline trip insurance.

A music record vending machine.

A whole supermarket as a vending machine.

Amazing worms for the fishermen on the go.

Lemonade vending machines in Moscow.

Reader’s Digest vending machine.

Pantyhose on-the-go in France.

A machine dispensing lightbulbs.

A sandwich vending machine. 1940s.

A Macy’s vending machine that sold men’s shorts for only 97 cents.

Warm lunch vending machine at Zandvoort in the Netherlands.

Milk vending machine in London.

Coal machine distributor in England.

A fruit vending machine in London Tube. 1920s.

A woman buys fruit from a coin operated machine at Paddington Station in London. 1920s.

The Maiwarm Company, of Chicago, perfected the market a soda vending machine which works automatically and required no soda squirter.

A man uses the cafeteria vending machine called ‘Automat’. 1940s.

A coffee machine from 1947.

This sandwich dispenser was shown for the first time at the Chicago Exhibit. 1950s.

A woman demonstrates a multi functional vending machine that dispenses both cold drinks including Coca Cola, Canada Dry and orange juice along with hot soup.

Three women enjoy soup from a Campbell’s Soup vending machine in their office. 1950s.

A vending machine that allowed customers to buy stamps without having to queue.

A woman purchases a pair of nylon stockings from a machine.

Vending machines were already able to refrigerate and heat liquids but the ice cream vending machine ensured items were kept frozen. 1952.

This couple have a choice of sandwiches, hot soup or hot chocolate, coffee, cold drinks, fresh milk and chilled fruit from a series of automated vendors. 1959.