The full story?
Well, I was driving through Hillsdale, MI on a business trip and traffic was being diverted down a side street due to construction. This detour took me past an older warehouse building and I noticed something red and white near the dumpster. I discovered the shell of a Vendo V-44 but it was missing the rack and coin door. Later that afternoon, I stopped at the local antiques mall and found all of the missing parts except for the key sitting under a table of telegraph line insulators and old glass milk bottles.
Honest, it really can happen!
But seriously, I have not been buying much or even looking lately but I tripped across the listing for this machine on CL. It was an older listing so I was surprised when the guy called me back and told me he still had the machine. The seller was located just outside of Toledo. Sorry to the OH guys for venturing into your neighborhood but this is the part of Ohio that was originally part of Michigan until The Toledo War (really!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toledo_War). I figured all is fair in love and war and I was visiting a customer in MI just north of the MI-OH line so I scheduled a trip to see the machine. The seller is a real nice guy--also named Tim, it must be the name--and it sounded like he had a few people calling him trying to buy it and ship and he did not want to mess with shipping. He mentioned a guy from Canada--sorry Ed if that was you--and another guy from TN--again, sorry if that was an SMC member. In any event, I must have been the first person to stop by and see the machine. He said that he had the machine for a long time--I believe he said 30 years. He is in the used auto parts and used car business so I am assuming he took it on trade. He told me he always wanted to get it restored but never got around to it and it was just sitting in his basement game room. Now he is in the process of down-sizing and selling a lot of items.
I made him a fair offer and he accepted. The mech was pretty much dismantled by whoever decided to put it to free-vend and it is likely beyond saving so I am in the market for a replacement mech and can hopefully find a change giver like the original.
Next task, move it into the house and get it cleaned up. The seller told me that the compressor had been disconnected so I was worried that a line had been cut and the system evacuated but it looks to me like the cord was removed and the wires were disconnected at the 3 in 1 switch. So when I get it cleaned up I will put everything back the way it should be and see if she fires up.
That is about it for now. I have wanted one of these for a while but figured I would never find one in a price range I could afford. Sometimes you get lucky and this was one of those times for me. I may have to change my name to VendoTim. I now have 2 V-39's, a V-44, a V-81D and a V-110SD
Tim
