The coolest vending machine in California

I had the privilege of visiting the “Person of Interest” ‘abandoned subway station’ set, which served as the main characters’ HQ starting in season 4. There was a similar vintage candy machine there as set decoration, complete with fake old-fashioned style candy labels. It (and everything else in the environment) had really amazing detail, and I hope that it will actually show up in the background at some point.

I think you’re right.

Alas.

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[record scratch]

WHAT.

PRETENDING TO OFFER AWESOME CANDY AND THEN REVEALING IT TO BE A LIE IS THE OPPOSITE OF COOL

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FYI, you can still get candies like this. There are a couple of places in Chicago, for example, that sell retro candies. One is up in the Ethiopian section of town, so I’ve been there quite a few times, and if you ask them they can tell you where they purchase from. I’ve bought Chuckles from them, so I know they’re still available. They’re just slightly smaller, but still wrapped in cellophane.

That’s how I found out that a candy store started over 100 years ago in Minneapolis by a Lebanese immigrant and his local Swedish wife, Abdallah Candies, makes the closest equivalent of the old Callard and Bowser licorice toffee available. That was like finding the Holy Grail of retro candies!

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Yup. You [can get them on Amazon.com] (http://www.amazon.com/Chuckles-Jelly-Candy-24-Packs/dp/B000UUA7EO/ref=sr_1_1_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1460909386&sr=8-1&keywords=chuckles) too. They also have retro candy classics assortments from the '70’s. There are retro candy packages from other past decades as well.

[Edit: many negative reviews for the retro assortment in that last link. Caveat emptor]

There’s a massive retro candy store in the Grauman’s Chinese Theater plaza in Hollywood, with pretty much any obscure candy you can think of from all over the world. Unfortunately, it ain’t cheap; single candy bars are $2 or $3, so not exactly nickel candy.

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You can also order retro candy online from Galco’s in LA:
http://www.sodapopstop.com/products/candy/browse.cfm?link=2&s=1

This reminds me of the old candy machines on the NYC subway when I was a kid. They were obviously pre-war. They didn’t rely on electrical power. If you put in a coin, you had to turn a knob or lever that would push your coin through the mechanism and then drive the gum or candy onto the slide. They always sold unusual brands, a lot like the Holloway stuff in movie theaters.

You can still get a lot of retro candies, even today. There used to be a one cent candy story in the West Village. My parents would give my sister and me a dime’s worth of pennies and we’d buy weird stuff like Mary Janes and Bits o’Honey. My mother would wax nostalgic. This was the candy of her youth. Maybe ten years ago my sister took me to a bulk candy store on the Lower East Side. They sold big bags of candy at good prices and had all sorts of stuff I vaguely remembered from when.

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There is a much better one than this in California, in Sacramento:

I tried the raspberry ginger ale from the Coca-Cola Freestyle machine at Fuddruckers today, and it was horrible. Vanilla Barqs rootbeer is about a million times better. j/s

Doesn’t anyone make 3D candy printers?

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