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United Vending Co.

Made by Hance Mfg. Co. (Westerville, OH) for the United Vending Co. of Grand Rapids, MI, c. 1915, 16". This is a version of the Hance Peanut that was made for the United Vending Company. If you compare this to the Hance Peanut you'll see differences in the lid shape, the handle, and the shape of the base among other smaller differences. This isn't exactly a Hance Peanut that's been stamped with the United Vending Company's name, but the similarities are so striking that I think of them as different versions of the same model rather than different models. There's more below to back up that claim. Like the Hance Peanut, this is a great, hulking cast iron bulk vendor with tons of presence. My 1915 estimate of the patent date is taken from the Hance Peanut; I don't know a date for the United Vending model but I'm assuming they're operating under the same patent.

I bought this from a collector-friend at the November 2018 Chicagoland show. It was Saturday morning, I was leaving for the airport, and I stopped by this guy's booth to say goodbye. He wasn't there, so I headed toward the door. About 4 booths later I saw him walking my way so stopped to tell him I was leaving, and he said "Didja see the Hance in the booth? It just came in this morning." I stared at him stupidly for a few seconds and then said "Ummmm, no...let's go look" as half my mind was thinking of course I wanna see it and the other half was thinking how long till my flight leaves? This was the machine, as you've probably guessed by now. I inspected it for about one minute and saw that it was priced quite fairly. As I was standing there thinking, he said (with a smile) "It's a good price," and I said "Yeah, I know; I'm not questioning the price, I'm thinking about how I'd get it home. I'm heading to the airport from here and I don't have time to stop by a packing place." He said he'd ship it and I said thanks, that I hadn't wanted to ask because I know it's a hassle but it's the only way I could buy it. He said he didn't like packing but would do it for me. I thanked him again, paid him for the machine and more-than-enough to cover shipping, and told him there was no hurry because I wouldn't be back to Indiana until just before Christmas and it didn't need to get there before I did. He said that's good to know....and I left.

On the plane I thought wait a minute, if he's gonna ship it then why not ship it to Boston instead of Indiana? I thought I had a perfect spot for it, and when I got back to Boston I confirmed that it would indeed be perfect. I sent him my Boston address and 10 or 12 days later this huge box was waiting for me when I got home from work, and this was it. Only when I was unpacking it did I notice "United Vending Co." embossed on the machine's bottom and at that moment everything clicked into place. You can see the embossment here, even though I'll betcha can't read it. Here's what it says:

I find two things a little unusual about this machine. The first is the WARD that's embossed into the handle. I have no idea what it means. The handle itself is hard to pull, and I'll bet a fair number of these machines were propelled toward the buyer and ended up on the floor with all the goodies scattered amongst shards of broken glass. The second unusual thing is the protrusion that extends down from the bottom edge of the machine in the rear, which prevents the circumference of the bottom from resting on a shelf or counter. See what I mean here? I could not figure this out until I saw this picture on a Facebook post,^* and it clicked that mine---and it pains me to say this---seems to be missing the legs. On most machines with legs like this, the legs are a separate piece that's attached to the machine's bottom---they're not cast into the base as a permanent part of it. If the base is designed to have those legs then it makes perfect sense that it would have some mechanism to lock the legs into position so they can't rotate, say, 15 degrees and look off-kilter. I'm surprised that Hance would have designed this so it has to have the legs installed in order to sit properly, but even with that dumbass move from a company that knew vending and whose quality was top-notch, it's the most likely explanation I can come up with.

I believe the example above is 100% original except for the coin door in back or the paint on that coin door. I have no reason to suspect the coin door itself isn't original except that the paint looks newer and blacker and shinier. It could be an original door with newer paint, but I'm erring on the side of repro just to be safe.