Custom Gumball Machines

I stumbled across some cool custom vintage gumball machines on eBay:

These are made by eBayer "thetrebusgallery."  You can see his items for sale HERE.

Diaper Change Kit Machine

75 cents gets you a Diaper Change Kit which I assume includes a diaper...but that's just pure speculation.  This was spotted in a Wal-Mart in East Texas.

Pinballing #1 - Timeless

Nott too far from Carlsbad Caverns (which coincidentally seems to be larger on the inside) there used to be a great roadside treasure call the Million Dollar Museum in White's City, NM.  Two headed snakes and mummified alien babies sat alongside  collections of antique typewriters, doll houses and jukeboxes and collectively they all seemed at home.  Sadly the place is no more.

But it was the location where we found what will be our first entry in a  new ongoing blog feature: Pinballing.  Check out the classic Doctor Who Pinball Machine:


It features the first seven Doctors from the original series.

We also dug up some of the promotional material from when the machine was released:

And if you still have questions then take it up with the promotional one sheet:

White's City Million Dollar Museum will be missed.  You can get a better look at it through this video we shot a few years ago while we were out there doing some documentary work (you can see several other unique coin operated games toward the end of the video):

Penny Press #2 - Dallas World Aquarium

It's time to, once again, smash a penny. This one is courtesy of a trip to the Dallas World Aquarium where, instead of a standard crank, they have a "turning wheel" model:

Is it meant to somehow fit in with a nautical theme?  I can't say.  But I can say that you have to turn that wheel quite a few times to get your penny.  It's also worth mentioning that the gift shop near the penny smasher will provide you with a free shiny penny for your trouble.  I've never seen that before and I liked it!

Design options include Leafy Seadragon, Crocodile, Toucan and Octopus.  The Leafy Seadragon is the aquarium's pride and joy and it's pretty rare to see that as an option so that was my selection.  In real life it looks like this:

In squashed penny form it looks like this:

Another successful smash!  More coming soon!