They are everywhere. They are just one of millions of the same thing, or they are totally unique You deposit money in them and you can win a million dollars, or just get a bag of potato chips, or you can toss all your loose change in them and get dollar bills back. What are they? Coin-operated machines.
This turned out to be a fantastic episode of Modern Marvels. I never realized how much money was deposited into machines on a daily worldwide basis, and how many unique ones there are today, and were in the past. Every three minutes, over three million coins are dropped into machines on this planet.
You can buy anything from aspirin to a gum-ball to ice cream. It's almost a $50 billion business! The variety of machines on display in this hour-long TV show including some amazing gum-ball machines, some cool old-fashioned pinball machines, parking meters that take only credit cards, and much more. We see how people use coin-operated machines in many daily activities from lockers to luggage, car washes, buy newspapers, on and on. Some of these things, though, are declining such as pay phones. That used to be very big business but now millions have cellphones. Pinball machine revenue is down 90 percent.
Another cool part of this MM episode were several tours, one to a place that makes those "Coinstar" machines which sort out your coins and two to places which featured bizarre amusement park-type entertainment machines (Musee Mecanique in San Francisco and Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum in Michigan.) By the way, do you know how the long the average coin is in circulation? About 30 years. Meanwhile, the average dollar bill only makes it through 18 months before being taken out of circulation.
All this and a lot more on an excellent show! Don't pass this one up. It may sound dull, but it isn't.
This turned out to be a fantastic episode of Modern Marvels. I never realized how much money was deposited into machines on a daily worldwide basis, and how many unique ones there are today, and were in the past. Every three minutes, over three million coins are dropped into machines on this planet.
You can buy anything from aspirin to a gum-ball to ice cream. It's almost a $50 billion business! The variety of machines on display in this hour-long TV show including some amazing gum-ball machines, some cool old-fashioned pinball machines, parking meters that take only credit cards, and much more. We see how people use coin-operated machines in many daily activities from lockers to luggage, car washes, buy newspapers, on and on. Some of these things, though, are declining such as pay phones. That used to be very big business but now millions have cellphones. Pinball machine revenue is down 90 percent.
Another cool part of this MM episode were several tours, one to a place that makes those "Coinstar" machines which sort out your coins and two to places which featured bizarre amusement park-type entertainment machines (Musee Mecanique in San Francisco and Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum in Michigan.) By the way, do you know how the long the average coin is in circulation? About 30 years. Meanwhile, the average dollar bill only makes it through 18 months before being taken out of circulation.
All this and a lot more on an excellent show! Don't pass this one up. It may sound dull, but it isn't.
