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Renn's / Autovend

11 ³/₄". I don't know much about this model. It's not listed in Silent Salesmen Too and when I bought the one pictured above it was only the second example to surface among known collectors. I've never seen the first example to be found, but I've talked to its owner and know that he doesn't know any more about the origin of his machine than I know about the origin of mine. For lack of a better name I called this a Renn's because that's the name on the decal, but I didn't know whether they made the machine or the gum or both.

In the early 2000's a third example appeared on ebay, and that one had a partial decal with the name of a company called "Autovend" somewhere on it. As with Renn's, I don't know if Autovend made the gum or the machine or both.

Some differences exist between the Renn's and the Autovend examples. Firstly, the Autovend had no obvious way to hold the lid and globe in place, whereas the Renn's has external globe rods that hold the lid to the base, with the globe sandwiched in between. The guy who bought the Autovend told me later that the globe had been puttied to the base and lid so that it was permanently attached---or it was until the guy unputtied the connections. Secondly, the turn handle on the Autovend is 4-pronged instead of completely round. And lastly, the Autovend had an awesome old patina instead of having been buffed to within an inch of its life (and then clear-coated!) by a dealer who didn't know that the first rule of good stewardship is do no harm.

The example above is made of brass and looks to have been inspired by Millard. The penny drops through a turn handle in the lid, falls through the machine into the mechanism below the product compartment, and then the customer turns the handle on the lid to get the goods. But it's bigger than a Millard, and collectors who've seen it agree that it's not a Millard. Bill Enes saw the first (and at the time, only) example to surface, and he thought it wasn't a Millard. I also don't think it's a Millard, but don't ask me to articulate why 'cause I can't, it's just a gut impression that I can't put into words.

So what is it? I don't know. For now it's a mystery machine.

The example above is 100% original except for maybe the globe rods. I never doubted them until I saw the Autovend without rods, and then looked closely at the globe rod set-up for the Renn's. The cuts through the metal are a little crude, the fit of the rod head to the top of the lid is not flush, and the rods are external to the globe. This design and its execution are unusual enough to make me question whether the external rods were part of the original design or were added by a vendor. The design and execution of the rod setup are cruder than I'd expect them to be as part of an original design, but if they were added by a vendor then I'd say he did a quite good job.

I bought the machine at the November 2000 Chicagoland show. I brought it home and put it on a shelf and watched to see if it would darken with age or if the clear-coat applied by the previous owner to the newly-buffed surfaces would prevent that. Over the next 3 years it darkened, but did it verrrrrry slowly and kinda blotchily, so I stripped off the clear-coat hoping that would hasten the process. It did, and it's darkened more quickly (but still not quickly) and more evenly over the years since then. By the time I die it might be almost as nice as it was before its encounter with the buffing wheel. Here is a picture of the machine dated 2003, presumably shortly before or after (but probably after) I stripped the clear-coat, and you can see that it's noticably darker and prettier now. The difference between the 2 pictures is about 15 years, which shows that it's not a quick process. I'll keep waiting....and watching.