Artomat - New uses for old machines

[Kilroy]

Here's a thought.  Take old cigarette machines, and convert them to  dispensers of art.
A very interesting site indeed.


http://www.artomat.org/home.html

[halehouse]

They are pretty neat. There is one on location near me at the Workhouse Arts Center (Former DC Prison grounds here in VA).

[dodge2500]

Are there any home use coversions for old cigarette machines??? Candy maybe? i just got a few and I am debating if I should restore them or not. Anyone have any ideas?

[johnieG]

Finally, someone is using their forebrain with these old vendors, if fact, the conversion is a type of "Artwork" in itself...meeza lika! 

[davethebirdman]

Cigarette Machines (National's) are real hard to convert to candy because they are column vend rather than tray vend.
So you'd need to find something that is the same size as the pack. There are a ccouple of people on the site that have done it.

When I looked to convert the three I've had I found it in the too difficult box.

Good luck..

Dave..

[Roadman]

Very interesting way to repurpose these machines. I'm sure there are plenty of old "cig" machines around. They were everywhere when I was growing up in the 70's and 80's.  I'm trying to figure out what the artwork looks like size-wise. is the art a little 2" x 2" card or are these folded down?

[Kilroy]

One example  mentioned was a booklet of photos. Another a carved box. I imagine a larger print might be folded to fit.
Each peice of artwork is unique, so it's not like knob 1 is a print of Dogs Playing poker.

[mznb1u]

The Art-o-Mat machines are cool.

Some of you (MI guys especially) may remember that there was a guy who had about 30 of the old National Candy and Cig machines that he was trying to sell on CL a few years back.  He was going through a divorce and his business was also going down the tubes.  He would not sell them one off but rather wanted someone to buy the entire lot.  I believe he wanted $650 for the lot.  Most of them were pretty rusty and were the larger less desireable 11 and 13 pull machines.  I was looking for a base for an older art deco National 9 pull and I had to stop and see the guy 3 times before he would sell me a spare base that he had in the lot.  His original CL add used a picture from the Art-O-Mat website to show an example of what could be done with the machines.  I guess the Art-O-Mat folks came down on him pretty hard and told him to remove their picture.

If I had a storage unit, I might have considered buying the lot.  I don't think he ever got a buyer for those machines.  I suspect they all went to the scrap man.

  Tim

[scalebowler]

Thats pretty cool! I know there is a place near my work that has one of those machines. I think it is an art gallery or something like that. I should go check it out sometime