Wall vendors - who made them?

American, British, French or German? We want to know about it.
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pennymachines
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Wall vendors - who made them?

Post by pennymachines »

I'm trying to collate the (numerous) British manufacturers of wall-mounted product vendors. Situated outside shops and public interiors, selling cigarettes, sweets, gum and other low-value items, wall vendors get rather overlooked, with our focus on gaming machines. I know several Forum members know more about them than I do, so hopefully they'll contribute to our knowledge here. In particular it would be good to identify particular machines with specific manufacturers.

Here's what I have so far (usually thanks to the odd attached manufacturer's name plate):

Automatic Chewing Sweet Sales Ltd.
Beechnut Chewing Gum

Automatic Vending Machine (Wales) Co., Pencoed Isaf, Llanelli, Dyfed, SA14 9T
From PK Gum to Woodbine cigarettes, these machines have very distinctive metal cast lettering.

Autonomis
(mentioned here in relation to YZ Gum vendor - I know nothing...)

Breknell Munro & Rogers/Breknell Dolman & Rogers, 64 Lawrence St., Bristol
Nestle Chocolates
Cigarettes
Pascall sweets
Cadbury's Chocolates
datadiffusion wrote:So, the machines I’ve owned of this type usually state the manufacturer as one ‘BARBER WESTON LIMITED’; the WESTON in the title is in fact Weston-super-Mare which is where I live. The factory was a wartime sheet metal / forming type of place, owned by a Mr. Barber, the machines side of the business must have been fairly large though, as they also did conversion work for the Post Office (AFAIK these were real old Victorian era stamp machines which were effectively gutted other than the fancy casings?). However, in a book which you can google freely (as in it’s been scanned in totally and hosted by Google, long being out of copyright) the machines barely get a mention. The site, which for bandit fans couldn’t have been too far from Brenco’s factory, is one where very little happened apart from the helicopter manufacturer, Westland, downsizing then going completely, now the land in question is rapidly being turned into hundreds of houses and a bypass-to-the-bypass apart from the odd bits that have been listed as part of the original airport. It has to be said these machines (or again the later ones I’ve seen, with the long coin plate) have an interesting approach to coin security, using proper coin mechanisms made by an external manufacturer, mechs that have carried on in production in one way or another to this day for simple applications such as hairdryer and salon timers etc… The multi coin units seem very sophisticated (and fiddly) compared to many.

I don’t know for sure, but I think manufacturing wound up in the late 70’s; by then, they were making wheelchairs and I believe both the brand (which wasn’t Barber) and the manufacturing of these chairs moved up North at some point, I think the wheelchair company itself has only recently ceased trading though. As for the Cadburys machines, I think I’ve also seen them in slightly different configurations for Nestle [large plastic window at the top] and maybe even Bubblegum machines which I assume had different, and fixed rather than variable column guides. It seems that they carried on being made in Bristol by BDR who also made machines for the Post Office and a large amount of Tobacco machines for the Bristol based firm of W.D. & H.O. Wills, later rolled into Imperial Tobacco. I’m only assuming this though, because what *seem* to be the newer machines that I’ve seen have this BDR badge… Or perhaps it was the other way around – but I’m not convinced easily! I imagine these machines carried on being made until the early 1980s, and in service until the mid 1980s going by some of the pricing (I’ve never seen anything more than 20p) at which point I assume the UK changed almost overnight to multiple product, multi coin vending.
British Automatic Company, 14 Appold St., London EC
In addition to their range of floor-standing vendors, they produced a few wall mounted machines

Caledonian Automatic Scale Co. Ltd. 'Wistoft', 30 Bernard Street, Leith, Edinburgh
Cigarettes

Clement Garrett
Cigarettes

Harper Automatic Machine Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Automatic Works, Stafford Road, Waddon, Croydon, Surrey
Cigarettes

National Automatic Machines Ltd. 99, Cobbold Road, London NW10
Wrigleys Gum
Cigarettes

Patent Monument Cigarette Box Co.
Cigarettes

Turner Automatic Machines Ltd., Clayton, Manchester and Birmingham
Sweets & cigarettes

YZ Vending, 27 Hastings Road, Bromley, Kent, BR2 8NA
YZ Gum

And here's a list from the Cash Box trade paper (1963 & 1965) of British vending machine manufacturers who were in business at the time.

ALDEBERT ENGINEERING CO. LTD.
Aldebert Works,
Aldebert Terrace,
London, S.W. 8.
(Cigarette & Confectionery Machines)

AUTOBARS CO. LTD.
4-6, High Street,
Brentford,
Middlesex.
(Change-Givers, Hot & Cold Drink Machines)

AUTOMAT LTD.
173, Elmers End Road,
Beckenham, Kent.
(All Types)

BIRMINGHAM AUTO VENDERS LTD.
24, Station Road,
Erdington, Birmingham 23.
(All Types)

BRECKNELL, DOLMAN & ROGERS LTD.
Pennywell Road,
Bristol 5.
(Cigarette & Confectionery Machines)

BRITISH AUTOMATIC CO. LTD.
14, Appold Street,
London, E.C. 2.
(All Types)

BURT. J. (CHISWICK) LTD.
93, High Road,
Chiswick W. 4.
(Cigarette Machines)

CHADBURNS (LIVERPOOL) LTD.
Vender Sales Division,
Park Lane Works,
Netherton,
Bootle 10, Lancashire
(Cold Drink Machines)

DEAN BROS. (ENGINEERS) LTD.
Haydn Road,
Nottingham.
(Confectionery & Match Machines)

DITCHBURN VENDING MACHINES LTD.
Dock Road,
Lytham,
Lancashire.
(Hot & Cold Drink Machines)

ELECTRIC SHOP DEVELOPMENTS LTD.
22, High Street,
Fulham, S.W. 6.
(Universal Venders)

FISHER & LUDLOW LTD.
Vending Division,
Bordesley Works,
Clyde Street,
Birmingham 12.
(All Types)

GLOSTER EQUIPMENT LTD.
Hucclecote,
Gloucester.
(All Types)

THE RANK ORGANISATION
Kershaw Division,
200, Harehills Lane,
Leeds 8.
(All Types)

NATIONAL AUTOMATIC MACHINES LTD.
54/56, Minerva Road,
Park Royal,
London, N.W. 10.
(All Types)

PHOTO-ME STUDIOS LTD.
Lyon Road,
Hersham Factory Estate,
Hersham,
Surrey.
(Photographic Machines)

ROLLASON AEROCESSORIES LTD.
Croydon Airport,
Surrey.
(Hot & Cold Drink Machines)

SANKEY, JOSEPH & SONS LTD.
Vendo Division,
Hadley Castle Works,
Wellington,
Shropshire.
(All Types)

W. M. STILL & SONS LTD.
29-31, Greville Street,
London, E.C. 1.
(Hot & Cold Drink Machines)
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dickywink
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Re: Wall vendors - who made them?

Post by dickywink »

HI PM
I hope all is good, and I think I may be able to help here ... I see you have already mentioned Ditchburn in the vending list...

I was recently contacted by Stuart at rosecottagevintage.co.uk, regarding a bundle of vending flyers that he had. Stuart restores the mechanical wall vendors that you described in your post and thought that I would be interested in the more electrical type vendors as I have an original Ditchburn 60s Coffee and Tea Vending machine.

I gladly accepted these with the hope that I could scan them and then upload them to a separate section of the Ditchburn website for other vending machines. Sadly my day job for the last few months has taken me to other parts of the world so this task is still pending (like many others in my backlog of site updates). I will get to do it eventually but not for the next few months.

Stuart mentions this project on his website https://rosecottagevintage.co.uk/histor ... edge-base/

As we do all this coin op history stuff on the basis to share with each other, and give information to future generations, I am happy to send this bundle of joy to you so you can scan them for your archive... There are a lot of company names on these flyers that are not on your list the flyers are from the '60s to '80s etc.

Pm me your address and I will get them in the post to you.

all the best ... Dicky
pennymachines
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Re: Wall vendors - who made them?

Post by pennymachines »

OK, thanks Dicky - that sounds great. PM sent.
pennymachines
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Re: Wall vendors - who made them?

Post by pennymachines »

Papers received yesterday - thanks Dicky. I'll return them once scanned to Resources.
Posting under your name - first one here
!!THUMBSX2!!
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dickywink
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Re: Wall vendors - who made them?

Post by dickywink »

Brilliant !THUMBS!

all the best .. Dicky
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