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Fleer's Pepsin Gum

Frank H. Fleer & Co., Philadelphia, PA, c. 1898, 13". This is one of those early early early machines whose circa-date starts with "18," which I admit gives me a kick. It looks and feels that old, too.

It's a single-column machine with a simple plunger-activated mechanism that drops a something into the square opening in the lower left of the front. I say something because I'm not sure what that is. The yellow banner for five-cent packages on the front of the machine mentions "tablets" while the picture in the red circle shows a box. The opening in front could accommodate either but not a stick, but that's what Silent Salesmen Too says this vended. The mechanism and column in the machine look like the right size for tab gum although a thin box might also work. We know from other pre-1900 machines that tab gum existed by then and that machines were made specifically to vend it, as exemplified by Pulver and Adams among others. To me it seems that tab gum is the most likely form of product this was made to vend, and I'll stick with that until and unless I learn otherwise. If that happens, then I'll update this page to pass the new information along.

The other thing I don't get about this model also involves the reference to five-cent packages in the yellow banner on the front. The machine will vend one piece for a penny, but the machine describes six "tablets" for a nickel. Silent Salesmen Too describes the one-cent portion delivered by the machine "as an inducement to buy the nickel package of gum pictured on the front of the machine." That implies that the purpose of the machine was merely to get people to try the gum and fall in love with it, and then buy the nickel package from a human. I'm not sure Mr. Enes got that right, although he did his research and may have known something about this that I don't. I think it's more likely that the individual one-cent portion sold by the machine was an alternative to the five-cent package, in the same way that you can buy a single candy bar during checkout at Target if you didn't want the bigger package of the same thing in aisle 10. I assume that Fleer made money in both types of transactions.

Changing direction: I once spent some time in the booth of a dealer at the Chicagoland show who had one of these for sale. I was perusing other things in the booth and overheard a debate between the dealer and a show attendee about whether the front panel on that machine was original. The dealer said it was, the attendee said it wasn't. I later looked at the machine for about 10 seconds and the front looked to be in too-good condition for its age, but other than that impression I couldn't tell. I don't recall whether the debate was about the entire front panel or just the paint on the front panel---in other words, was it all newly fabricated or did someone repaint an original panel? I do recall thinking that it was a model that didn't interest me, but in retrospect I was probably so focused on the too-good condition of the front on that particular example---and my belief that the attendee was probably right---that I couldn't (or at least didn't) fairly judge the model overall.

A few years later the machine pictured above appeared in the April 2022 Morphy auction. I noticed it while perusing the catalog but didn't hone in on it. For some reason my interest in it grew over the next few weeks. It was ancient, in good shape, had a great overall look to it, and is a rare hard-to-find model. It wasn't new(ish)-looking like the one in the Chicagoland booth several years earlier---this one had patina! I decided that it wasn't my lead target for the auction---the single-column Adams Pepsin Tutti-Frutti Gum was---but I'd watch the bidding and jump in if it didn't exceed my max. The Fleer's was the lot immediately after the Adams, which posed a danger to me. I have a history of blanking out for the few lots that follow a successful bid, I guess because I'm doing a mental victory dance and writing down the hammer price and then running off to pee because all the tension before and during the bidding has caused my bladder to fill. In this case I recognized that the Fleer's followed the Adams right away and whether or not I won the Adams, I'd have to stay vigilant and flow right to the Fleers. Well, I did win the Adams and a minute later I did win the Fleer's, and then I stopped and went back to work. Okay, I peed first and then returned to work. Those two machines were the only two I bought at that auction, but they were enough.

The example above is 100% original.