The Granite Falls Journal - Antiquities Vending Company Business Profile

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A & W Root Beer

Antiquities Vending Company

Business Profile

When we started our company in 1989, the Internet had not yet been born and eBay was Pig Latin for the word "be". Our goal was to operate a fleet of vintage soda machines 30 to 50 years old and only sell glass bottle products. We were able to locate a few really nice antique machine parts suppliers, however in 1989 these suppliers only produced parts for the more collectable or more popular antique soda machines. There were several parts that the vending company constantly needed and reproductions were not available. Antiquities Vending Company paired up with three local machine shops to produce everything from Jacobs 26 drums to Vendo rack S cams. These machine shops have reproduced everything from Cavalier 51 rollers to Deep Freeze, Westinghouse and General Electric tank liners.

Internally, our company currently has a repair or replacement for every wet and dry refrigeration system for every model soda machine from 1925 to current. Each restored refrigeration system not only works better than the day it was new, it looks like the day it was new. Our attention to detail and preserving each refrigeration systems historically correct antique appearance gives you a new cooling system that looks straight out of the 1950’s You can have your cake and eat it too.

Antiquities Vending Company preserves in house the largest most complete collection of antique vendors in the world today. Anytime we need a part for an antique soda machine, we have one on hand for our machine shop to copy. We are your one stop for glass bottle soda pop, stocking over 40 different flavors of glass bottle soda today. We are your source for restored antique vending machines of all brands and models. If we don’t have it, we well help you find it. We are the only company that both specializes in restoring vintage refrigeration equipment and devotes our entire facility to restoring only vintage equipment. We are your restoration specialists for your machine as well as your machine’s refrigeration system. Our entire current customer base was established through good old-fashioned word of mouth. We prefer to deal individually with each and every customer directly.

If all you need is free advice about your soda machine or refrigerator, do not hesitate to call us directly for free advice, appraisals, or questions concerning your vintage soda machine, ice machine, chest cooler, or vintage refrigerator anytime. We hope that we can assist you in your quest to locate that restored soda machine or hard to find part or decal. When you call, you talk directly with experienced hands-on restorers. Feel free to contact us by phone or e-mail, purchase or no purchase. Every customer is important.

Flashback to 1975, Galaxy Food Store, Granite Falls North Carolina. The 12-flavor gravity-fed soda machine vended drinks for a quarter. You had to return the empty bottle to get your deposit back. Remember those days? I could get a big 10-ounce Orange Suncrest with the bubble glass bottle. When I popped off the cap, the drink would always slush up. I had no idea when I was a kid that the glass bottle soda and gravity-fed vendor would soon become an endangered species. This machine disappeared sometime after 1979, and I am not sure I even noticed. Your life just gets busy.

In 1989 I remembered that drink machine at the Galaxy, and I decided to start a vending company that would only operate vintage equipment and sell glass bottle sodas. Kind of like a protective habitat for endangered soda machines! By the end of my third year of being in this business, I had patched up 12 vintage soda machines and placed them inside local businesses. I had no part suppliers, no paint shop, R-12 Freon was on its way out, and I had only three bottled soda flavors to offer customers.

It has been an incredibly long and hard road, but today this vending company is still in business! Antiquities Vending Company now offers over 40 flavors of glass bottle sodas. The company also remanufactures unavailable vintage replacement parts as they are needed, and does all of its own painting, refrigeration and service.

We are information packrats. Today, the company houses over 700 antique soda vending machines. The main showroom contains over 400 machines; one of each model of bottle vending machine produced from 1925 to the late 1970’s. Each machine is complete – from head to toe to tag. It’s like having a room full of 3-D life-size parts and service manuals. We have an exact-from-the-factory copy of every gear, chain, breaker strip, lock, panel, foot, kick plate, motor, basket, lens, or handle from every manufacturer from every year. These machines provide the templates for our machine shop to reproduce replacement parts that our parts supplier cannot currently provide. Our company has a close working relationship with licensed reproduction parts suppliers and we lend them parts to be copied and sold to the masses on a regular basis. You can see from the photos contained on this site that Antiquities Vending Company can restore your personal machine to the letter! Our restorations are the best in the world.

The vending side of Antiquities Vending Company is our research and development department. The vintage machines we operate run hard and sell drinks 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We operate and service all makes and models of antique chests and antique upright machines. This gives us experience with everything from crank handled vendors, wet refrigeration systems, dry refrigeration systems, ice makers, round-top cabinets and square-top cabinets. You can be assured that any machine that passes through our restoration department not only will be restored correctly but for the long haul, and will provide you many years of maintenance-free enjoyment. That is why we warranty our refrigeration work for four years. No other restoration company does this.

Today, the company operates many upright, gravity-fed machines like the one that stood inside the Galaxy Food store almost 30 years ago. We carry four different brands of orange pop in glass bottles today. If you ever pass through our area, stop in and bring your kids for a cold orange drink with mush ice in it!

OUR LOCATION AND OUR CONTACT INFORMATION
Our Company is located about 20 minutes from Blowing Rock North Carolina and about 45 minutes from Charlotte North Carolina. We are about 55 minutes from Ashville North Carolina, home of the historic Biltmore House. We are around 35 minutes from Boone North Carolina.

IT IS HARD for us to ANSWER the many emails that come our way - so CALL US by phone the old fashioned way - 828-962-9783

Our Address:
Antiquities Vending Company
30 South Main Street
Granite Falls N.C. 28630

Our Phone:
828-962-9783

Our Email:
info@antiquevending.com

www.antiquevending.com

CLUB COLA BANQUET RECEPTION HALL
PHONE: 828-962-9783
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