When was the first vending machine invented?

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Chocolate, stamps, and cigarettes were all common in 19th century vending machines. But the first vending machine was centuries older.

Bruce Wilson Jr.

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Jul 8,

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Slide a penny into a vending machine in the early 20th century and you could buy stamps, gum, cigarettes, or candy. But history&#;s first vending machine was centuries older. Nationaal Archief

If you had to guess, you might wager that history&#;s first vending machine debuted in the 19th century. You might also guess that the earliest vending machines sold gum or candy. But you&#;d lose that bet.

When was the first vending machine invented? And what did the first vending machine dispense?

The first vending machine was centuries older than electricity, dating all the way back to the 1st century CE.

When was the first vending machine invented?

Ancient inventors changed history when they came up with innovations like paper, concrete, and the water wheel. These inventions allowed the Egyptians to write some of the oldest historical records, helped the Romans build the aqueducts, and powered machines in ancient China.

And the first vending machine also dates back to the ancient period.

Hero of Alexandria was a Greek inventor who lived in Roman Egypt. And Hero invented dozens of automated devices that were centuries ahead of their time. Hero&#;s aeolipile, which used steam power to turn a sphere, ranks as history&#;s first recorded steam engine.

Hero of Alexandria designed dozens of automated devices, including this automaton, which featured a miniature Bacchus dispensing wine and milk. Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana

In fact, Hero wrote an entire book called Pneumatica that described 80 mechanical devices powered by air, steam, and hydraulic forces. One of those devices used hidden tubes to dispense wine and milk.

The same mechanics powered the first vending machine.

What did the first vending machine dispense?

Hero of Alexandria crafted a vending machine that used simple mechanics. Customers would insert a coin in a box. The coin would hit a metal lever, depressing it. A string tied to the lever would lift up a plug and dispense the customer&#;s item.

Hero of Alexandria designed an automated dispenser for liquids &#; and it&#;s the oldest vending machine in history.

But what was in the first vending machine? Not chips or candy bars. Instead, Hero created a vending machine to dispense holy water.

At Greek temples, worshippers had been taking more holy water than their coins bought. So Hero came up with a unique system to give a precise amount of liquid.

Hero&#;s vending machine could also dispense other liquids, like wine.

What did the first modern vending machines dispense?

Vending machines didn&#;t change much from the 1st century until the 19th century. But in the s, vending machines started popping up everywhere.

Before the 19th century, only a small handful of machines dispensed goods. In Tudor-era English taverns, you could drop a coin into a machine to buy tobacco. Booksellers used a vending machine to sell banned books.

In the s, a German company began selling chocolate from ornate vending machines, eventually rolling out 15,000 machines. Wikimedia Commons

By the second half of the 19th century, fully automatic vending machines hit the scene. These commercial vending machines dispensed postcards, gum, and chocolate using a similar mechanism to Hero&#;s ancient design.

Some machines operated on the honor system, with a coin allowing buyers to open a drawer and take a single item. These newspaper-style vending machines only worked if no one took more than their share.

Wooden vending machines appeared in New York in the s, when a chewing gum company started selling tutti-frutti from vending machines installed at elevated subway platforms.

Vending machines first came to the U.S. in , when the Thomas Adams Gum Company installed gum-selling machines at New York City subway stations. Soon, vending machines dispensed tickets, cigarettes, and other small goods.

In the early 20th century, the automat took vending machines to a new level. These restaurants dispensed food through vending machines. Diners would slide coins into the machine and open a window to receive their food.

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At automats, diners could buy pie, meatloaf, and other dishes from windows. Behind the scenes, a kitchen full of staff prepared the food and filled empty slots in the machine. New York Public Library

Today, you can buy almost anything from a vending machine. In Europe, vending machines dispense hot pizza, while a vending machine in China sells live crabs. Australia&#;s beaches have flip flop vending machines, while machines in Los Angeles sell caviar. In the s, car dealers even tried out a car vending machine.

From its humble beginnings as a holy water dispensing tool, the vending machine has come a long way.

The future of shopping is in automated retail. Paradoxically, Amazon, a company that killed many physical stores, is jumping on the bandwagon, with Amazon Go promising a new kind of corner store. Even so, vending machines will likely remain the face of automated commerce long into the future.

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Vending machines birthed automated commerce. Over the years, we&#;ve seen vending machines selling simple items such as cigarettes to making and serving hot pizza. However coffee vending machines and other modern vending machines are a long way from the functionality of the first vending machine. What did the first vending machine dispense? In this post, we will take you through the history of vending machines and explore what they&#;ve been able to vend over the years.

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First Mention of a Vending Machine

If you&#;ve ever taken a geometry class, you likely have calculated the area of a triangle using the formula ½ (a + b + c). This formula you probably don't recall ever using is called Hero&#;s formula or Heron&#;s formula. The individual who gifted the world this formula was the Hero of Alexandria, a mathematician who was active in Alexandria, Egypt, during the Roman era. Interestingly, this mathematician also developed the first known vending machine.

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The Hero of Alexandria developed the first known vending machine that dispensed holy water in first-century Roman Egypt. The "automated machine" accepted coins and offered holy water in exchange. A customer would begin their purchase by dropping a coin in these coin-operated machines. The coin fell on a pan affixed to a lever, which would then open a valve to let water flow out. The coin's weight facilitated this process as it would tilt the lever with the coin sliding on the pan until it fell off. When the coin fell off, a counterweight would restore the lever to equilibrium, seal the valve, and holy water would stop pouring.

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Newspapers Vending Machines or Were They?

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In the s, coin-operated vending machines dispensing cigarettes and newspapers began to appear in Taverns in England. The machines dispensed tobacco in the black box machines. Under the watchful gaze of the landlord, users could insert a penny - yes even underaged buyers - into these uncomplicated contraptions to open the box, enabling them to fill their pipe before securely closing it once more.

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By the s, the idea had already taken hold, and Richard Carlile, an English bookseller, developed a vending machine in to disseminate works banned under England&#;s seditious libel laws. Publishing or distributing works that might encourage citizens to hate the government was an offense. Richard Carlile developed not a newspaper dispensing machine, but a book vending machine to circumvent these laws.

Richard Carlile&#;s book machine allowed customers to buy banned works without interacting with him or his employees. Customers would turn a dial to the book title they wanted and insert a coin. The requested publication would then drop down in front of the customer. 

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The machine was not fully automatic as book vending machines are today. It was in front of Carlile&#;s shop, and one of his assistants would put the requested book title into the machine. The idea was that since the buyer did not know who exactly provided the book, Carlile and his assistants could avoid prosecution. The scheme did not go as planned as one of Carlile&#;s employees eventually faced prosecution for disseminating &#;blasphemous&#; works.

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What Did the Very First Vending Machines Dispense in Modern Times

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The first fully automatic vending machine was a stamp dispensing machine. The British government granted Simon Denham Patent No. 706 for the machine in . Upon coin insertion, the machine would cut a stamp from a roll and deliver it automatically to the customer. While the machine was mechanically sound, it did not see commercial success as it was never mass-produced.

In the years that followed, automated vending machines took off in England. They were typically installed in post offices, subway stations, and inns, selling envelopes, postcards, and stationery. 

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Naturally, as automatic vending machines became popular, entrepreneurs started looking for ways to scale the business. An inventor and entrepreneur named Percival Everitt would play a critical role in commercializing vending machines. In , Everitt and his business partner, John Sandeman, started selling postcards in London for a penny each using a cast-iron vending machine. They would later develop a more sophisticated version of the machine and place more than 100 of them around London.

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While the postcard machines were a great success, Everitt&#;s next business move would usher in a new era of vending machines as a scalable business. In , Everitt established the Sweatmeat Automatic Delivery Company (SADC). SADC operated vending machines dispensing items such as chocolate, chewing gums, cigarettes, matches, and perfumes, among other products. With 1,500 machines in London alone, the company snowballed and started opening branches in other cities. By , Sweatmeat had at least one machine in all of the more than 7,000 railway stations across Britain on top of the machines it operated in hotels, shops, and other public establishments.

Britain exported its fully automated vending machines to other countries, including the United States. Most of the first coin-operated vending machines in the United States were British-made or modeled after British brands. Everitt was one of the first major players in the industry in the United States. He started in New York City by registering the Automatic Selling Machine Company to vend postcards.

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An American entrepreneur, Thomas Adams, came across Everitt&#;s machines in New York and immediately spotted a business opportunity. He secured the American patent rights to the machines and adapted them to vend chewing gum. Adams, Sons, and Company became the catalyst for the improvement of designs of dime-operated vending machines and their rapid expansion in the United States. was the year vending machines were first gamified by Pulver Manufacturing Company. They introduced miniature figurines that would come dance and waver whenever someone purchased a chewing gum.

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What Are Vending Machines Selling Today

The vending machine industry has grown to become a formidable sector. Grand View Research estimated the size of the global retail vending market at 51.91 billion in . The industry is growing steadily, with new types of vending machines hitting the market every year. Today, you can find smart vending machines using credit card scanners and selling:

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With custom vending machines, you can sell any small product using a vending machine. That said, the most popular vending machines in the world are snacks and drinks vending machines.

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