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Take an empty 2 litre bottle of pop and fill it with lukewarm water.
Then put about a good 1/2 cup of salt in and mix it up real well. Go
find a fairly deserted pop machine late at night, and make a
funnel with a rolled up newspaper. Then stick the
funnel in the slot where you deposit your money, and slowly start
pouring the salt water into the coin slot (get a brave friend to do this).

The water will run down the METAL and into the coin box. In the coin
box, there are two little “switches”. One gives out pop when it is
activated, and the other gives out change. When the water runs down in
between them, the water conducts electricity and short circuits them.
The pop machine will then start to randomly shoot out pop and money.

Illegal or not, that practice provided too good an opportunity for any number of youngsters to pass up. In June 1994, three youngsters arrested and charged for salting in Macomb County, Michigan, had 154 cans of pop in their possession, the results of an evening-long spree. They were representative of what was going on elsewhere.

Each case of such vandalism was estimated to cost about $600 in loss of money and product, damage to the select panel and coin mechanisms,

sales downtime, and the cost of repair. Those “free sodas” were proving to be expensive.

The vending machine companies fought back the only way they could: They improved the technology. Salting was eliminated by moving the coin
slot to a different part of the machine, perforating the coin channel so that salt water wouldn’t flow through it, and mounting the bill validator above the coin channel to block access to it. Older machines were retrofitted with diverters that directed fluids away from the coin channel but allowed coins to travel their usual smooth path into the coin box.

Bathing the coin slot of a vending machine with a salt water benediction to gain freebies is now a thing of the past. Very few machines that could be influenced by such a baptism are still around, making this a pointless exercise in futility. It’s still one that will get you in trouble with the law, though, as one out-of-date crook found out back in 2007:

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Officer Terry Simerl reported that vandal(s) attempted to pour a saltwater solution into the coin mechanisms of a pair of vending machines with the false belief it would cause a short in the machines, forcing them to spew out money or product.

But according to www.snopes.com, an authority of such urban legends, the prospective thieves had little hope for success.

Unfortunately for the two local businesses, and prospectively for the would-be-thieves, they did not do their homework prior to trying the old technique. Simerl stated the vandal(s) is facing felony charges due to the amount of damage the saltwater did to the coin changer at the car wash and the soda vending machine.

Besides the risk of being caught and charged with theft, those who engage in salting may put themselves in other forms of jeopardy. On 21 August 1995, ten-year-old Shawn Ramanauskas was electrocuted by a candy machine in Alabama. The family’s attorneys argued the unit had been improperly connected to an ungrounded electrical outlet and that other guests had complained two days prior to the fatality that they were getting painful shocks from that cluster of vending machines. Given that the purpose of salting is to short circuit a machine’s electricals, an improperly grounded unit could prove deadly to a kid looking to scam some free product with the help of a saline solution. (There’s no reason to suppose Shawn Ramanauskas was engaged in such a practice, as his death came as a result of an unit’s being plugged into an ungrounded, wrongly polarized outlet that was rigged by a handyman. But such an accident does point up the potential dangers salters could encounter.)

Barbara “intent to swill” Mikkelson

Holleran, Joan. “Vending Dynamics.”

Beverage Industry. 1 May 1996 (p. 40).

McDonald, B. “Vendor Vandalism Sparks a Salt Water Solution.”

Beverage World. 1 February 1991 (p. 57).

Poovey, Bill. “Alabama Supreme Court Reduces Award in Vending Machine Case.”

The Associated Press. 5 March 1999.

Schabath, Gene. “Thieves Wade Into State Pop Machines.”

The Detroit News. 15 June 1994 (p. A1).

Memphis Democrat. “Vandals Hit Vending Machines with Out-Dated Scheme.”

3 May 2007.

Mini Soda Machine

There's little more frightening than watching a purchased bag of Sunchips get caught in a vending machine, and no greater joy than when three bags of Sunchips fall for the price of one.

We've all been there.

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While vending machines have made great technological strides, they essentially still operate with the same basic contraption. The earliest known version offered the most extraordinary of snacks: water, well holy water, to be exact. As Kerry Segrave, author of Vending Machines: A Social History, found, the first vending machine was invented by Heron of Alexandria in first-century Roman Egypt because worshipers were taking more than their fair share of holy water at temple. The machine didn't have a Coke logo on it, but it did accept coins, and when deposited they hit a pan and pushed against a lever that let the blessed stuff flow out. Once the coin fell off, however, the valve shut and you'd have to move along. It was innovative and clunky at the same time, paving the way for much-needed improvements.

Soda Machine Coin Mechanism

Subsequent advances came in fits and starts: In 1822, English bookseller Richard Carlile created a newspaper vending machine that sold banned works like Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason (for which he was arrested). In 1883, Percival Everitt built a postcard version widely featured in train stations around London. America finally joined the party in 1888 when Adams Gum Company vended Tutti-Frutti gum. The planet's newest, boxiest salesperson was getting popular.

As vending machines began to proliferate over the next half century — selling everything from candy to stamps to bulk peanuts to hot and cold beverages — an unforeseen issue plagued manufacturers. Long used to buying things from other human beings, the public found it difficult taking these rectangular clerks seriously, and often tried to cheat them.

'Even at that early a point in vending machine history, the public had come to see the silent salesman as fair game to beat,' writes Segrave. The coin slots couldn't always distinguish between real coins and anything that was remotely shaped and weighted like a coin, and so chislers would insert metal, wood, and even ice slugs to trick the machines and abscond with the goods. But the coin-detecting technology soon improved, and laws followed suit banning the manufacture and use of such impostors.

After conquering many vending machine barriers — including offering multiple items, dollar bill slots, and the hardest of challenges: dispensing hot coffee — we reached the platonic ideal of the modern vending machine in the '80s and '90s. It's the one you picture in your head when hearing the words, the one down the dark hall in countless hotels that people that people look for before they find the fire exits.

Today vending machines comprise a $30-billion industry and are no longer simply mini-general stores dropping 100 Grand bars and rolls of Lifesavers. In China, pressing a vending machine button can procure a live crab; in Singapore, a luxury car; and throughout the U.S., Art-o-mats will get you an original work of art (as long as it fits in a vending machine). Manufacturers seem intent on offering everything you can get everywhere else; the dominant trend finds vending machines no longer content to just give you food, they want to cook for you, too.

Get some fries with your fries from Beyondte Electronics, a Chinese company that builds machines which flash-fry fries in hot oil at the touch of a button (sounds safe), and then drops them off with the dipping sauce of your choice. If you prefer pizza and don't have the patience for a 30-minute wait, Let's Pizza will automatically shape the dough onto a plate, spread the sauce with a spinny thing, deposit cheese and toppings, and then bake it in an infrared oven. Is it good? Who cares if it's good? It comes from a machine and people seem to be forgiving when the wait is 90 seconds.

'Humans have always had a strong preference for immediate versus delayed gratification. In fact, this is probably true for all vertebrates,' says Professor Bradley M. Appelhans of the Rush University Medical Center, who invented a device that makes you wait a whopping 25 seconds for junk food like chips and candy in vending machines, but dispenses healthier items instantly. 'However, only recently, have humans had the technology and resources to deliver immediate gratification so readily.'

His device ultimately created a five percent proportional change in healthy purchases, rooted in the familiar irritation that is waiting. 'Having to wait for something makes it less desirable at the point of decision. Knowing this in advance can affect one's choice,' Appelhans says. 'Additionally..the ability to change your mind during the delivery delay provides an additional opportunity to reflect on what you're about to eat.' Reflecting on what you're about to eat is anathema to much of the food scene, let alone vending machines.

No matter the novelty, it can never escape the shadow of the vending machine from which it was purchased, so the crab becomes a vending machine crab, the car a vending machine car, and the artwork a piece of vending machine art. It creates an amusing context in which people are either embarrassed to say where they bought the item, or really excited to let you know.

Coin Operated Soda Vending Machine

While the pandemic has slowed people's ability to impulse buy, and we're inadvertently finding more time to appreciate slow cooking, the culture of instant gratification — for good and ill — will persist through anything nature throws at us. Buying a quick treat from a robot box should always have a nostalgic place in the culinary world, somewhere in the corner of a hallway.

This story was originally published onFood52.com: The 2,000-Year-Old History of Vending Machines

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