BY PV Editor Ian Reynolds-Young
In a post on 26 August, ‘Is This The UK’s Oldest Working Vending Machine?’, we asked if any of our readers could identify the vending machine in question. The response has been great, as you’ll see below.
We’d like to thank everyone for their contributions, not least Frank Champion, of Tin Pot Vending, the man tasked with keeping the vending machine up and running, who was kind enough to bring it to our attention.
I’ll put my hands up now: before we published the story, I’d had a quiet word with one of vending’s legends, the MD of Coinadrink, Roger Williams. Some time ago, I interviewed Roger about his long career in vending and he showed me his collection of workshop manuals dating back to his earliest days in the business. I thought, ‘if anybody can identify this machine, it’s Roger.’
I sent him a photo of the machine and he came back to me that same day. He was pretty sure: ‘It’s a Sankey Super Compact circa 1970 to the best of my recollection’ he said. ‘It’s probably been ‘personalised’ for a customer but it’s a dead ringer for a Sankey Super Compact.’
With that info ‘in the bank’, we published the story. First to respond was Ernest Johnson of North East Vending. ‘It’s a GKN Sankey Mark 7 model that was around from 1967 to1972 ish’, he said. ‘They dispensed 2 x tea, 4 x coffee and 1 x hot chocolate or soup. I think it was the CTCSR model that had a cold drink option. It was superceded by the Supermatic range of machines around ’74.
Next up was Paul Sucksmith, Technical Manager at Technical Vending Support. The detail he provided was amazing. ‘The machine is a GKN Sankey Super 8 (under license from Vendo USA), made at Bilston probably about 1970’, he said. ‘I’m not 100% sure, but I think this has the bottom button, as either no milk in the tea or not whipping on the coffee. When I worked at Vendepac, in Ajax Avenue, Slough, we did these modifications in house, so the machines arrived as a basic Super Seven or Super Eight and we modified the selection slider mechanism, adding the button, the plunger, return spring and so on. The original whipper motor would have been a Flugal 110 Volt on a spring loaded bracket, pulling it onto the large mixing bowl that had the four ingredients going into it, tea, coffee milk and sugar. The selections ran from the top as;
Coffee white, with sugar.
Coffee white, no sugar.
Coffee black, with sugar.
Coffee black, no sugar.
Tea white, with sugar.
Tea white, no sugar.
Chocolate.
Soup or lemon tea.
On this machine the last button would be as described earlier.’
Wow – but if you think that we’re now in ‘anorak’ territory, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet: ‘The top display was held in place with 5BA nuts and bolts’, Paul said. ‘The plastic was also the new type plastic that would not produce toxic smoke if in a fire, as after the Summerland Disaster, in Douglas on the Isle of Man, everyone was chasing around trying to find a new type of smoke retardant plastic. We were already fitting it, another first for Vendepac and the Mars Group! I saw a Sankey Super Compact at Westomatic’s own ‘museum’ two years ago. I worked on those as well! Hope this is of help.’
Er, just a bit Paul, cheers!
‘I cut my teeth on these’, said Andrew Simpson, these days a partner at Sell-a-Vend. ‘I would date it at least 40 years old and possibly re-manufactured by Westomatic in their early days. It probably started life as a Sankey CTCS2 – Coffee, Tea, Chocolate, Soup and 2 cold drinks.’
The final contribution turned out to be ‘from the horse’s mouth’ and it came from Richard Brinsley, the long-serving MD of Westomatic .
‘I can tell you that the machine in question is a Sankey hot drink machine that was refurbished by us’, he said. ‘I recognise the stripes and graphics. All Sankey machines of this era delivered instant hot drinks, but sometimes we fitted a refrigeration system to deliver two cold drinks aswell.
‘Without seeing the serial number, I couldn’t be specific’, Richard said, ‘but I would suggest we refurbished it during the late 1970s or early 1980s, which would actually make it older than 30 years, bearing in mind it would of course originally have had a previous life from new.
‘Sankey Vending, the original manufacturers who were part of the GKN Group, was always one of Britain’s major engineering companies. Machines were built to last and I am pleased to see that this one has not only provided an initial life but more importantly a much longer life having been refurbished by us’, Richard said proudly.
‘Refurbishing continues to be a major part of our business and we stock parts for a very large number of older models like this one’, he went on. ‘You might be right in that this could be the oldest still working vending machine. We do have other machines in our ‘museum’ which will work but which are not in daily use.
So, there you have it, chapter and verse.
Thanks again to all who contributed and remember, we’re now on the lookout for a machine that’s still in use that’s even older than this one! Send me your pictures please.
