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Magna Vender

National Mfg. Co., c. 1934, 14 ¹/₂". I've always liked this model because of the great machine age, art deco look. This is made entirely of aluminum, except for the globe and some of the steel hardware buried deep in the machine's innards. It's made to vend bulk product, and I don't think gumballs would work well in this machine.

I'm a sucker for art deco---what can I say? This is the second one of these I've had. The first had been buffed to a mirror-like finish before I bought it, and it had a repro decal, but it was a great-looking example of the Magna and I regretted selling it shortly after I did. So I decided to look for another, but one that was unbuffed and had an original decal. Five years later I found this one in the parking lot of the Chicagoland show. I didn't know it'd take so long, but almost all Magna's have been polished, have no decal or a repro decal, or both. This is one of the few machines that I think looks great buffed, and even the repro decal doesn't bother me, but all-original is always better if you can find it.

These aren't real uncommon, although I'd bet that your next door neighbor doesn't have one. When I first started collecting I saw these at shows and was enamored with them because of the overall look and (especially) the multifaceted globe. But the price was too steep---they were selling for about $325 to $350 and I thought that was too much to spend on just one machine when I could buy 2 or 3 other types of machine for the same money. I waited several years before my machine budget increased to the point that I felt comfortable spending that much money on a single machine.

This example is 100% original, with a MAGNA VENDER decal that's 95% intact. The top decal---DON'T USE WHITE PENNIES---was an unexpected bonus that I don't recall ever seeing before.

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