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Case Pepsin Gum

Case Mfg. Co. or Case Chicle Co, Rochester, NY?, c. 1905, 14". This is a simple 2-column tab gum machine housed in a very upscale package. If this mech were in a plain steel box then nobody would clamor for it, but it's not so people do. The base is nickel-plated steel.

Mr. Enes puts the date of this machine at 1905, and says that Case Mfg. Co. became the Case Chicle Co. that same year. So did they make this machine as the Case Mfg. Co. before they moved, or as the Case Chicle Co. after they moved? It's one of history's great mysteries: Who killed JFK? Who built the pyramids? Whatever happened to Amelia Earhart? How is it that 2 people as unlikeable as Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump could become the 2 major-party presidential candidates the same year? And now, is the Case Pepsin Gum a Case Mfg. Co. Pepsin Gum or is it a Case Chicle Co. Pepsin Gum? I don't want this to keep you up tonight....pondering....but it's a question that must someday be answered! Or not....we'll see. Another seed Mr. Enes planted is this: He doesn't explicitly say that Case was located in Rochester, but he implies it by saying he couldn't find Case Chicle Co. in the Rochester phone book after 1908. So, like Inspector Clouseau I put these clues together and concluded that the machine was made by Case, probably of Rochester, NY, and I'm willing to put that in writing! Which I did. I suggest you just say "Case" and don't fret the details.

This machine looks like it should have a clockwork mechanism, and I thought it did until I saw this one. It's obvious that it doesn't even in the picture in Silent Salesmen Too, 'cause it's got those tabs on the base, which are levers you push down to dispense the gum, but I guess I never paid much attention to that part of it. Your eyes kinda shoot to the globe and the mech inside, and in the back of your mind you know it's all resting on something, but it doesn't really register. I was also afraid that inspecting it too closely might incite desire, which scared me. No matter, seeing this live incited enough. It's just as well that it doesn't have a clockwork mech, 'cause those usually add to a machine's cost and this cost enough without it. Clockwork mechs can be temperamental, too, so....yeah, just as well it doesn't.

This example is 100% original, and may be the only known example that is. I bought it at the November 2017 Chicagoland show and was with a friend who knows much more about this model than I do. He said he knows of 5 examples. Three were found without globes, and globes were made for them. The other two have original globes, but one of those 2 has been replated. This is the other one of "the other two," and it has an original globe and its original finish. It also has a crack in that original globe, in back and at the top. Hey, no specimen's perfect, right? Well, this specimen is perfect, but other than that, I mean. You don't notice the crack unless you're looking at the machine from the rear, and since I display my machines with the front showing---weird, huh?---it's nearly invisible. It doesn't bother me as long as it remains stable. It's been stable for years, so as long as I don't bake it or plunge it into ice water I think hope pray it'll be fine. By the way, I didn't purposely exclude the crack from the pictures, I just tried to show 2 angles that would give you the best view of the model and its innards, and didn't even think about the crack as I was posing the machine. The crack's missingness was just a happy accident, I guess.

This is a gorgeous machine, and one that my heirs will probably sell from my estate someday.