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True Blue

Automatic Sales Co., Lansing, MI, c. 1906, 12 ¹/₂". This is an early 2-column dome machine, with a glass globe and nickel-plated cast iron base. Unlike the Wilbur's Chocolate vendor, this one is nicely bottom-weighted and is unlikely to tip over in a stiff breeze. An earlier version of the True Blue had a push-rod that made it easy for the customer to push it off the back of the counter, so there appears to have been design flaws with both the Wilbur's and the True Blue that encouraged short life spans. You can see the early push-rod version in Silent Salesmen Too, page 19. The version pictured above is the improved version, with a lever on the side rather than a push rod in front.

Two thin columns go through the machine's lid, one to the left of the finial (which, by the way, is the bow on the total package) and one to the right. Put a penny into the column corresponding to the stack you want to dispense from, and then push down on the lever on the right side of the base. Unlike the Wilbur's, which has a sudden spring-loaded release that flings the package forward, the mechanism on the True Blue is smooth and pushes the product out gently toward the front, where it falls softly out the front of the machine. The True Blue has a far more civilized operation than the Wilbur's.

This model came with at least two other decals, both of which are pictured in Silent Salesmen Too: Owl Vending Machines (page 88) and Pix Sweetmeat Gum (page 125). Automatic Sales Co. made the machines for all three lines, and they appear to be identical except for the decal.

This is a desirable model---as are all dome vendors---and is considered rare. The example above is 100% original. I owned another example (shown below) that I'd bought at the Chicagoland show in 1999, and that one was all original except for having been replated. I'd come to appreciate originality by then, so its replated status wasn't ideal but it was done so well and had such a nice satin finish that it looked more like a mint original finish than it did new plating. Still, I considered it a placeholder until I could someday find an original example that I liked more. That someday came 25 years later when I bought the one pictured above at the October 2024 Morphy auction.

I tell this story and show the replated machine to illustrate two things:

• It's really really hard to find an original example of this model in great condition. I had chances over the years to buy one that wasn't nice enough and that I didn't like as much as the one I had, but this is the first one I considered to be an upgrade.

• This hobby is not rational. Most collectors are not rational. Seeing the replated example and the all-original example together and knowing what I paid for them, it's hard to justify the more recent all-original purchase on the basis of any ^cost/_benefit consideration. I spent a lot to get a stronger (yet imperfect) decal and an original finish that looks hardly any different from the replated finish, and how smart was that? But my plan for 25 years was to find a great all-original example as an upgrade, and after being thwarted for so long I simply wasn't going to abandon that plan when its finish was so close and within my power to attain. It was an auction and I did have my limit---I learned that lesson years ago---but my final bid was below the limit I'd set for myself so in that sense it was rational.

  I don't regret buying it, but the 100% rational move would have been to say "nah, I'm good," abandon the upgrade plan, and live with the one I had---which I still liked a lot. That said, I've never fooled myself into thinking this hobby is a rational use of my money so the preceding paragraph may be interesting philosophically but is largely moot in practice.