Frnak McKenney fired this volley
in :

Someone mentioned "drum-fed". Is this the same as the "big rotating
honeycomb" I recall seeing at one time?

Yes. It had a drum that would hold about 50 (51 or 54, IIRC) bottles in
a staggered pattern three bottles high. The drum was rotated by a
ratcheting handle on the front of the machine that was only mechanically
attached to the drive after coins were inserted -- otherwise it just
moved freely.

Each bottle came around behind an aperture plate with its holes arranged
so that the bottles were presented 1-2-3 bottom to top as the drum was
indexed through three delivery positions. A bottle could not be
extracted through a hole unless it was perfectly aligned, so even though
you could see (and even grasp) the other two bottles on (say) the
'bottom' delivery, you couldn't pull out any but the one.

It was simple, almost foolproof, and rugged, but it lacked "loading
density". The same sized stack-fed machine of later years could hold 2-3
times as many drinks in the same footprint.

Coke also realized fairly soon after this machine was made that putting a
cold water fountain on the side of a cold drink machine was a dumb sales
tactic. G

LLoyd


LLoyd