Well, I finally got a Jacobs 56. I wasn't looking for 10 years like Brian, but I have been for 5. A picture I once saw of one in a photo shoot once is what actually got me interested in these old machines. Yet, other machines popping up here and there, kept taking away the funds for one like this.
I've come close MANY times to getting one, but it was usually the condition or the price that made me pull back. Then I put it on the back burner, that it until I saw the job Pat did on LT's 56 in person. That brought back my desire to chase after the 56.
Thanks to JBrooks, who shared the CL ad with the site and me early on, I contacted the seller (really nice people) and we were back and forth for about a week and a half. I got them to a price that I was good with, less than what they were asking, and so the deal was done.
The sellers were selling the machine on behalf of his father, who had lost his back deck because of Sandy, and the machine belonged to his grandfather who had a store in NY city. This is actually an email that she had told me;
"My husbands grandfather owned an Auto
> Parts Store on Worth Street in the Village NYC and the
> machine was given to him as a gift from a guy named Johnny
> "Fats" loL. They used it to vend soda in the store in which
> my father-in-law worked as well. My father-in-law moved the
> machine to his home in NJ and .
we have had it every since.
Sure there are a few scratches here and there, but what else can be expected for a 60 year old machine. The machine is WAY too nice of an original to restore, (sorry Pat as it would have been yours to do lol) so I will be giving it a good cleaning and bringing it down to the mancave where it will sit for the rest of my life lol.
Other than the fact that the front lens is burnt, which played on my mind a Lot, yet the condition of the machine far outweighed that lens, is that I need a key for the coin door, as I don't want to drill out the lock. Any idea how I can get one? I know the coin mech is there because we loaded the machine and deposited $$ and cranked the handle, and out it came.
Well, until I post a pic of it's final resting place, here she is