There were vending machines for every conceivable foodstuff and everyday essential from between the 1930s and 1960s.
1. Buying flight insurance used to be so much easier. Here’s a machine selling air insurance at Newark Airport.
2. Just 25 cents a book, such a bargain.
3. Why pick apples when you can get them from a vending machine?
4. Not too certain what Ark Pie is, but I want some.
5. This machine actually sold already lit cigarettes for a penny.
6. Let’s hope this machine is selling hot dogs.
7. A coin operated perfume dispenser.
8. Only 10 quarters for flight insurance? That seems like a bargain.
9. Enjoy your music with this 45 rpm record vending machine.
10. Get all your grocery shopping done without having to talk to a single soul.
11. Forget your bikini? That's what this vending machine is for.
12. For the fishermen on the go.
13. Why bring lunch when you can have vending machine soup!?
14. That’s actually Harpo Marx surprising someone on Candid Camera from inside a Coca-Cola vending machine.
15. A vending machine selling Calpis, a Japanese beverage.
16. Lemonade vending machines in Moscow.
17. Instant books!
18. Pantyhose on-the-go in France.
19. A machine dispensing handy lightbulbs.
20. Not the most exciting vending machine — dispensing lumps of coal in France — but still useful once upon a time.
21. Cream cheese and jelly sandwich anyone? Two sandwich vending machines from circa 1945.
22. A vending machine for bouquets of flowers in Berlin.
23. You can have your tea however you like it. As long as you like it with milk and sugar.
24. A Macy’s vending machine that sold men’s shorts for only 97 cents!
25. A German “Feinkost” vending machine mounted on a shop’s wall, circa 1955.
26. Warm lunch vending machine at Zandvoort in the Netherlands.
27. Milk vending machine in U.K. from circa 1960.
28. Milk vending machine in London.
29. Coal machine distributor in England.
30. A new refrigerated vending machine called the “5 Star Microdine Hot Meal Service”.
