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Pansy Gum

Pansy Gum, c. 1905, 11 ¹/₂". This is one of three models referred to as a "Pansy Gum," the other two being here and here. This one's the rarest of the three. The only other one I can recall seeing was at the Stan Harris auction in 1995, and I think it was replated. I may have seen others in collections but if so then it was one of, like, 450 other spectacular machines and I don't remember it.

The elaborate scrollwork on this is consistent with its 1905 birthdate and it makes the machine. There's a coin slot on each side of the machine so you selected which column to vend from by which side you inserted your coin. Once that was done, you pulled down on the transverse rod and a piece of....whatever....would fall into the front tray. Like the other Pansy Gums, the package that dropped out the bottom included gum, fortune, and a love letter all for a penny.

The one pictured above is 100% original. I bought it at the November 2021 Chicagoland show and was the first to see it as it was placed on the table. I spent a few minutes looking at it---loving it but wondering if I was willing to pay the price---and as I looked I could feel and hear a line forming behind me. The decision at a lower price would have been quick but that wasn't in the cards; the price was the price and it was up to me whether to pay it or pass. My options boiled down specifically to: 1) Buying it at that price and perhaps possibly maybe overpaying based on the somewhat-depressed 2021 market for most high-end machines, or 2) Passing on it and getting to keep my money to spend on something else later, but then not owning this one and probably never getting another chance to own one like it. Sometimes opportunities like this occur once in a lifetime and you have to decide in short order if the money or the opportunity is more important. I've heard many collectors say that the machines they regret the most were the ones they didn't buy, not the ones they bought for too much. I know firsthand that's true, and I thought about that as I paid the seller.