More recently, in the last couple of years, there was a series of advertising regulars offered in large quantities that had questionable characteristics. Upon initial inspection, the dispensers appeared to be legitimate and the screen printing replicated art and printing from some of the rarer ad regulars. It was suggested by experts who examined the dispensers that parts of the dispenser or perhaps even the entire dispenser, which should date to the 1950s, had been manufactured decades later. The printing appeared to have been replicated using pictures from books. The regulars were given to a highly reputable collector for inspection to compare with known examples that are authentic. He concluded that there were too many inconsistencies with the group and returned them to the potential seller. To date, it’s not known what happened to the group, but some did make their way into collections before the revelation could be shared.
PEZ dispensers are sold in more than eighty countries worldwide.
Another example to be cautious of involved several dispensers that were sold from various eBay sellers who were located in Hong Kong. Around 2010, several dispensers appeared on the auction site on a regular basis, and all appeared to have the exact same markings or mold characteristics. The questionable dispensers were always the same group consisting of Indian chiefs, one-eyed monsters, ponies and Mimic the Monkey. It’s difficult at best, even for an experienced person, to distinguish dispensers from this group. The finish, mold lines and texture of the stems were similar but different enough to cause concern. Upon further, detailed examination and collectors sharing information, it was concluded that these dispensers were likely remanufactured.
Eduard Haas III first invented PEZ candy as an alternative to smoking in 1927.
None of this is meant to discourage collectors or scare away those who may be interested in starting to collect. It’s provided to help bring an awareness of potential pitfalls and things to look for along the way. It’s unfortunate; money, as they say, is the root of all evil and the motivation by some to take advantage of others. Taking time to learn about this hobby and meeting the good people involved are the best ways to avoid being taken advantage of. As we have seen, some of the prices for certain dispensers or color variations can be well into the hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars each. If you are ready to spend that much to add to your collection, take time to educate yourself and be confident in your purchase.
Chapter 12
Mom, Can I Have a Quarter?
Throughout the later part of the 1950s and for the following two decades, vending machines were a key part of the PEZ business and played an important part in expansion of the brand both in Europe and the United States. The PEZ vending machine first appeared in Europe in the late 1950s. The machines were slender, wall-mounted units, approximately thirty inches tall and ten inches wide. They were made extremely well, with the heaviest-gauge metal and few moving external parts. The machines were most always located outdoors, so they were made to withstand the elements as well as potential vandals.
The boxes were painted bright yellow and featured colorful graphics on the front and two sides. The side art almost always featured the familiar brick font PEZ Candy logo along with a list of potential products the machine could offer. The front art usually featured the PEZ lady, cheerfully smiling, arm outstretched, offering a familiar piece of candy from a classic PEZ regular, along with colorful graphic renderings of the candy packages being offered.
The vending choices always included PEZ but often also included other candy or gum items such as Chiclets (gum), TOMBY (a caramel candy distributed exclusively by PEZ-Unimint in Germany) or Doppel PEZ, which was a double pack of candy. The machines typically offered a choice of four different products. A coin was deposited into the machine, and the choice of candy was determined by pushing the metal knob directly under the picture of your selection. PEZ briefly offered several different types of chewing gum called kaugummi that were available exclusively as vending machine choices. In addition, there was Pezi riesendoppelstük (PEZ giant double stick), PEZ gum fruit (four pieces of stick chewing gum offered in a bright yellow wrapper with a colorful fruit rendering depicting a lemon, cherry, orange and grapes) and PEZ Gum (four stück, or sticks, of spearmint-flavored gum in a silver and pale blue foil wrapper). The right side of the PEZ Gum wrapper had a dark blue band with white stars and red and white horizontal stripes—very patriotic looking for a product that was never sold in the United States.
By 1961, PEZ Unimint GmbH Munich (the acronym GmbH written after the name of the company in Germany designates the company is privately owned; the letters stand for Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung, which, when translated, means a “company with limited liability”) had announced the placement of forty thousand PEZ vending machines in western Germany. The majority of these machines were found in train stations or on train platforms. The slender design of the machine allowed them to be hung on the exposed vertical steel beams used to construct the building without being obtrusive. Other machines were simply mounted to the side of a building, usually in a place that would find large numbers of people congregating or passing by, such as fairs or amusement parks.
A vintage European vending machine, circa 1950s.
These machines were used well into the 1980s and some into the mid-1990s. During a trip to Austria around 2007, I spotted a yellow PEZ vending machine still mounted to a building in Prater Park, which is a large amusement park in Vienna. The machine, with Peter PEZ clown graphics, was more recent but appeared to have been abandoned, a memory of what once was.
Most of these machines were made to operate on schillings. When the conversion to the Euro happened in the early 2000s, any machines that remained would have required conversion. By then, most were out of service, stolen, scrapped or had simply faded away as a memory of a bygone era.
Smaller European machines can be found but are far more rare. There is a small white version approximately eighteen inches square. It consists of a single red knob and one vending choice of a traubenzucker candy roll. The bottom right corner has a small window into which a product card could be inserted. This particular version featured a smiling dark-haired woman, with what appears to be a soccer (football) stadium in the background and in large letters “TRAUBENZUCKER.” No picture or actual product can be seen. The machine says “PEZ Traubenzucker Autofahrer Sortiment.” The instructions, roughly translated from German, state that the user should insert one deutsche mark and turn the red handle. Presumably, this machine was mounted on a stand in a location convenient for drivers to access. The Traubenzucker candy translates to “glucose,” which was considered an energy source or presumably a pick-me-up for weary drivers. Another small vending machine was a slender version of the typical yellow machines described above. This machine was designed to sell PEZi kaugummi (PEZ gum) exclusively. The art rendering featured a smiling blond-haired boy wearing a striped shirt and pink cap with both arms raised above his head holding the “PEZI” gum pack.
A “PEZhead“ is someone who collects PEZ dispensers. Are you a PEZhead?
All of these machines have gotten to be quite collectible. There are a wide variety of variations, styles and artwork. Some unusual models only had three slots; others had as many as six. Later models like the six-slot machine were used to vend dispensers and were no longer exclusive to just candy. Condition plays a big part in value; currently, the preference among collectors is for unrestored models in nice condition. Restored models do come up for sale on a regular basis, as reproduction stickers and graphics have been made available by those who restore the machines. A word of caution when considering purchasing a restored machine: not all restored machines are actual PEZ machines. Machines of similar style were also used to vend such things as feminine hygiene products or condoms. These machines have been stripped down, repainted and had PEZ graphics applied. The other factor to consider is shipping. Since these machines were exclusive to Europe, getting them to the United States can be quite costly. For something compact in
size, the machines are quite heavy, and in some instances, the internal working has been removed and shipped separately to meet the weight requirements of some package carriers.
In the 1960s, vending machines were part of the U.S. business. Instead of the compact wall-mounted version of their European counterparts, U.S. machines were much larger and freestanding. The U.S. machines were always set up to vend dispensers and candy. There were three different machines; the first, model #602, was a red framed version with a white center and small chrome legs with a large, centrally located window with eight vending options. Real dispenser examples were placed against a geometric background consisting of alternating red and blue triangle shapes. The sign featured a smiling boy and girl rendered in childlike artwork, one holding a dispenser and the other a single candy pack. The message said, “It’s fun to eat delicious PEZ candy from the PEZ pop out dispenser. Ideal ‘take-home’ for the youngsters.” It is thought this was a stock machine that could be utilized to sell a wide variety of novelties and was not exclusive to PEZ. These machines were distributed by Vendible Sales at 20 Main Street, Belleville, New Jersey, and are the scarcest of the three U.S. machines.
A vending machine advertisement for the model #602, circa 1960s.
The other two machines were both solid red except for the chrome legs and colorful signage. The second red machine is noticeably taller and slightly thinner than its counterpart. It consisted of a large rectangular box sitting on top of a chrome angle iron frame that served as legs. A narrow viewing window featured actual product examples and consisted of four possible vending options just above four chrome gumball machine–style turn handles. The large metal sign in portrait format that occupied the top two-thirds of the machine featured an art rendering of a little brown-haired PEZ Girl carrying three oversized PEZ dispensers—a lion, clown and monkey—along with several packs of PEZ candy. The text read, “It’s fun to eat PEZ from PEZ pop-out candy dispensers.” A yellow circular callout indicated the price was twenty-five cents. This was a model L-220 machine that could hold 220 vending units. The machine was made by Vendor Equipment Company Inc. at 19 Meriden Road, Edison, New Jersey.
The third machine was manufactured by Bloomfield Manufacturing. An agreement was signed and a vending machine was developed and patented for the exclusive purpose of vending PEZ dispensers. Patent number 3,432,074 was awarded on March 11, 1969, with credit to Angus M. Brown as the inventor. This machine is noticeably shorter in stance and slightly wider than its counterpart. It has the same red paint job and narrow viewing window, same four chrome gumball machine–style turn handles and chrome angle iron legs. The most noticeable difference lies with the landscape-format sign that occupies the top half of the machine. The artwork boldly features the PEZ logo front and center with the stylized words “pop-out” candy. The lower left corner shows a hand holding a regular with a series of candy tablets shooting across the sign in an arching pattern toward a series of Disney dispensers that are arranged in a vertical column format. At the top right corner of the sign to the bottom right corner is Mickey Mouse followed by Donald Duck, Pluto, Lil Bad Wolf, Practical Pig and Pinocchio. A round callout on the top left says, “from the PEZ family of candy dispensers.” This machine could hold 160 vending units. The Bloomfield machine is the more common, perhaps because it is the most recent of the two, although both are difficult to find.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Several years ago, a large lot of original paperwork was auctioned pertaining to the Bloomfield machines. It mainly consisted of some technical drawings and legal documents related to the patent applications. The seller included a 1960s brochure booklet from Bloomfield highlighting some of its manufacturing capabilities. The man pictured inside the brochure happened to be the individual selling the paperwork. During our correspondence, he shared the reason why the PEZ vending machines were painted red. He said Bloomfield also manufactured the metal canisters for fire extinguishers, and it was required they be painted red. Since Bloomfield had an abundance of red paint on hand, the vending machines were also painted red.
Bloomfield manufactured the machines; Vendible Sales & Service of New Jersey, which was the largest vending company in the United States at the time, distributed them, along with the model #602 machines, across forty-six states. Later, Inter-County Industries of Reading, Pennsylvania, would be the “exclusive domestic distributor for PEZ vending merchandise.” It would now distribute both the Bloomfield and Vendor machines. An April 27, 1968 article in Billboard magazine announced that Inter-County Industries would be at the National Vendors Association Vendorama show in St. Charles, Illinois. President Larry Wurman and Vice-President Ed Tiefer would be showing two expanded PEZ vending machine models, saying they had been asked by vendors to expand the capacity of the vending units. Inter-County had an assortment of twenty-five different vendible PEZ packages.
On June 14, 2000, the Chicago Cubs were the first Major League Baseball team to host PEZ dispenser day at the ballpark.
The majority of these machines were placed in the front vestibules of supermarkets, five-and-ten stores and discount stores like Kmart. The machines competed against other novelties such as toy rings, rub-on tattoos and rubber balls. The price of a dispenser and two rolls of candy was twenty-five cents. Once a selection was made, the dispenser dropped to the retrieval tray in a small cardboard box.
Early boxes were plain in design, consisting of a white background with the name of the character printed in dark blue on each side of the box. The ends were stamped in black ink with the name of the character and the item number. Later boxes would feature bright colors, artwork and premium offers for display stands or other similar offers. The vending boxes are scarce and quite collectible. Several finds of old stock have been made in the last couple of decades. None of the finds has been large enough to saturate the collector market or lower the price of that particular dispenser.
Today, these vending machines are very difficult to find. Their size and sheer weight make them quite obtrusive. Presumably, most were either scrapped or simply discarded because they took up so much storage space. Some stores had the signs removed or used them for other purposes. One machine on display in the Visitor Center had been used until the early ’90s. The sign had been reversed, and a poorly rendered “surprise toy” message was painted on the reverse side of the original sign. An observant collector recognized the machine, tracked down the owner and offered to buy the machine. That find led to two other PEZ machines.
Chapter 13
From Sugar to Shipping
PEZ has manufactured candy from the factory in Orange, Connecticut, continuously since the facility started operations in early 1975. When the factory was opened, the equipment was brought over from Europe and remained in use until the mid-2000s. Around 2006, PEZ invested heavily in new, more state-of-the-art equipment that would dramatically increase productivity.
The start of the candy-making process begins with sugar. White, granulated table-grade sugar is delivered by tanker truck approximately twice a week and pumped into a large silo. The silo holds approximately 70,000 pounds of sugar; on average, the company uses about 100,000 pounds of sugar per week to make PEZ Candy. The sugar is moved inside by conveyor, where it’s milled into smaller pieces and becomes powdery, like confectioner’s sugar. There are three reasons the sugar is milled:
• It’s cheaper if done on site versus purchasing the finished product.
• An even, more consistent color is attained throughout the batch.
• Most importantly, the tablets compress much easier and better using a powder as opposed to a granular sugar.
The sugar is then lifted by a series of trays into the air and dropped into a large stainless steel mixing bowl that holds six hundred pounds of sugar per batch. The bowl is mounted on a dolly that sits on top of a large scale that is computer controlled. When the correct amount of sugar has been deposited, the conveyor shuts off and a worker will remove the bowl and push it to the mixing st
ation. A new bowl is put into place, and the process begins again.
The sugar silo at the Orange, Connecticut factory holds seventy thousand pounds of granulated sugar.
The stainless steel mixing bowl sits on a computer-monitored scale and holds six hundred pounds of confectioner’s sugar.
The next step is the mixer. There are two; each is nearly fifteen feet tall, and both operate almost continually. The operator will lock in the bowl and begin to add the flavor and the color. A light mist of liquid corn syrup and flavorings is carefully weighed and added to the sugar, where they will mix for fifty minutes. Compressed air is used to circulate the candy. Each mixer is equipped with a series of air hoses that blow the mixture around to circulate the ingredients. Even though a mist of liquid corn syrup is introduced during the mixing process, so little is added overall that when the mix is complete, it’s still considered a dry mix. At this point, a batch of candy mix has been created that is now ready to be pressed into the familiar brick-shaped candy tablets.
The mixing bowl and its contents are placed on a rotator that flip the bowl, releasing the contents into a “tote.” Two bowls are placed into one tote, each weighing 1,200 pounds. The tote is then transported to the tablet press and lifted into place. Once the tote is in place on top of the press, gravity goes to work to feed the sugar mixture into the machine. Each tote will yield approximately 800,000 individual tablets of PEZ candy.
When running at full capacity, each candy press is capable of making nearly half a million candy tablets in one hour. Generally, production doesn’t run at that pace. What ends up being created on an average day is approximately twelve million tablets over the course of two shifts. This process repeats itself five days a week, Monday through Friday. Twelve million tablets a day are made, and there are twelve tablets per roll of candy; that equates to an average of five million rolls of candy each week.
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