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Specialty No. 2 Perfection

Specialty Mfg. Co., c. 1910s (I think), 13 ¹/₂". It's hard to believe this is the same company that made the Krema Match Vendor, but it is. These two models alone show that Specialty valued diversity long before it became a corporate fad.

This is a 2-column vendor with a beautifully cast front and base. Based on the machine's size, shape, ornate castings, and construction materials, I've always thought of this as a cousin of the Northwestern Sellem although I don't know which came first. The Perfection held 28 boxes of safety matches, had fire-breathing dragons on the front, and (like the Sellem) was available painted or nickel-plated. Also like the Sellem, the front of the body, the base, and the lid of the Perfection are made of cast iron, while the sides and back are made of sheet metal. One big difference between the Perfection and the Sellem is that the Sellem dispensed boxes alternatively out of the right and left sides, while the Perfection drops them into the middle of the machine. The smaller base on the Specialty and the lack of a protruding slide makes the Specialty a little sleeker than the Sellem, not that the Sellem is exactly boxy.

According to Silent Salesmen Too, the Perfection No. 1 Advertiser had a placard on the front for advertising, while the Perfection No. 4 had a detachable cigar cutter and a match holder. Bill Enes implies that he didn't have a clue about the Perfection No. 3, and neither do I.

Two examples are pictured above, one of them nickel-plated and the other one painted. Both are 100% original except for two repairs on the plated machine. One is an ancient patch of corrosion on the lower left side (as you look at the machine), which you can see here. It was nicely done a lifetime ago by a vendor and is now an inextricable part of the machine's history and character; I don't consider it a 'flaw.' The other repair is that one side of the lock has been epoxied into place on the inside of the front plate, which I did when I noticed that one of the 2 rivets holding the lock had broken. The lock still worked and kept the front plate on, but it caused added stress on the remaining rivet and it seemed like a good idea to mitigate that. The third picture shows the tiger-striping in the plating on the side of the painted example, which I included because it's cool.