1948 Auto-Pop Coin Vendor

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This 1948 Auto-Pop Coin Vendor was bought from Arnold Levin in Chicago, Illinois. It was one of two vendor type machines acquired from him. The other one was a 1936 Popmaticorn 5 cents Vendor located next to our Cretors Model D horse drawn concession wagon.

The Auto-Pop Vendor was made in St. Paul, Minnesota. This particular machine needed very little restoration since it was used for two weeks and then put away. Only two things needed to be done. One of the heating elements (infrared tube) needed to be replaced and the automatic popper and oil spray needed cleaning and adjusting. The heating tubes are still used in photo-copy office machines.

All one must do is insert 10 cents, place the bag inside the chute compartment, wait until the bag is full of dry popped corn, spray with oil and you salt it to his or her preference. The main reason these automatic vendors are seldom found in use is the large amount of service labor required to keep them running.

The original design used slit and stretched metal to separate the popped kernels from the unpopped. This error in design causes many unpopped kernels to be discharged with the popped kernels.