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Victor Esquire / Model V

Victor Vending Corp., Chicago, IL, c. 1940, 15". Silent Salesmen Too says that the Victor Esquire was the direct descendant of the Victor Challenger, differing from that model only in the baseplate that has four legs on the Challenger and none on the Esquire. The next model in the series is the Victor V, which according to Silent Salesmen Too differed from the Esquire only in name. Based on that information, the decal is the only thing that makes the machine pictured above left an Esquire rather than a Model V.

The early Model V---and presumably the Esquire---was made of cast iron and was typically available with a painted or porcelainized finish. Later versions were aluminum. Of these options, the aluminum version is fairly common, the painted cast iron version is considerably less common, and the porcelainized version is quite scarce. That's my opinion, anyway, since I've seen only 2 or 3 porcelainized examples. The lid is painted steel, the same as on all early Victors except the Universal.

The examples pictured above are 100% original except for (I believe) the paint and feet on the cast iron baseplate on the Esquire. This is the only Esquire decal I've ever seen. An interesting feature of this example is that not only is the body finished in red porcelain, the black faceplate to the mechanism is also porcelainized. This model was constructed with high quality! The machine pictured on the right is chromed cast iron, and this is the only chromed example I can ever recall seeing. Although the Esquire decal makes the red machine an Esquire, the Topper decal on the chrome machine doesn't make it a Topper.