The Penny Machine Picture Book: The Golden Age 1875-1930

IMPORTANT NOTE: This is a reprint of a rare booklet originally published in the 1990's to promote the Costa-Haskell Collection -this is therefore NOT a glossy coffee table book and the photos are NOT of best quality however the book DOES contain images and information of some machines which have not been featured in any other contemporary publication.-the Author

Here they are, pictures of dozens of very early, very rare, and highly collectable coin-operated machines from Europe and the United States, complete with rarity guide.Coin freed devices were the late nineteenth century precursors of a technological revolution which has since inundated the world and brought about huge changes to the structure and organization of society.Consequently they are very important primary staging posts for an understanding of our contemporary culture. For example many of today's important industries were introduced to the public by means of these devices.Automatic machines were first introduced on a mass scale during the last two decades of the nineteenth century, initially in England and within a short space of time to Western Europe and North America.The pictorial emphasis of this current work is upon the very early period considered by many to be the golden age of the penny machine!