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Victor Stop and Shop

Victor Vending Corp., Chicago, IL, c. 1939, 12". The Stop and Shop was the third model made by Victor, after the Universal and then the Chief, which was a single-compartment Stop and Shop. Or, since the Chief preceded the Stop and Shop, the Stop and Shop should be thought of as a triple-compartment Chief. It's made of sheet metal, and the facing on the mechanisms is aluminum.

I don't own the machine pictured above, but I held it for a friend who bought it at the Chicagoland show and asked me to keep it while he figured out what to do with it. He told me it was the first one he'd ever seen live---or maybe it was the second, I don't remember now---and that got me to thinking that I hadn't recalled ever seeing one in my by-then 25+ years of collecting. Or if I had, I didn't remember, and it wouldn't have been more than one or two. Until that conversation I'd never considered this model to be rare, but maybe it is. Or maybe it isn't; maybe there's a stash of 120 of these in Montana, and since I've never been to Montana I'd never seen any of them. But my friend is also a long-time collector, and if neither of us have seen one that it's at least scarce. I don't know if he's ever been to Montana.

The example above has been restored in what I believe is its original paint scheme. Most restored machines overdo it, in my opinion, often bordering on garish. Whoever restored this one did it well; it looks more like NOS than restored. Good job, whoever you are.