An Original Design Inspired by ’40s-’50s Stoner Vending Machines

Finished Prop – A Candy Machine That Never Existed

This was a fun little side project that came out of nowhere.

I was approached to help with development of a working prop for a stage play that was in the works for a Minneapolis theater. The prop needed to be a candy machine, specifically a Lifesaver vending machine that would be rigged to hit the jackpot and spill at least twenty lifesaver rolls out on the floor when a lever was pressed. It also had to take a coin, but that did not need to be part of the functional mechanism. There was no requirement that the prop look authentic; it just had to be recognizable as a candy machine.

The play was based on a story set in a department store the 1960s, so there was a real opportunity to make something more decorative than a simple box vending machine of later decades. I had been handed a few functional requirements and tentative dimensions, but I was already fixated on the idea of making something in the deco style of a vintage Stoner candy machine, some versions of which vended both candy bars and roll candy.… Read the rest