What Wine, Condoms and Gold Have in Common

August 18, 2010 | Uncategorized

Remember when vending machines only dispersed candy, cigarettes, newspapers and soda? I know, that sounds so-o-o-o 20th Century.

But today’s traveler knows he/she can get all sorts of things from vending machines. Just look at how companies like Best Buy and Sony have begun transforming purchasing habits at many airports.

This all came to mind the other day after I read an article about wine vending machines being tested in two stores in Pennsylvania.

To buy a bottle you insert your driver’s license into a kiosk. It then reads your age from the license bar code on the license and matches your photo to a video it takes of you. Apparently your screen test is viewed remotely by some magic corkscrew over at the Liquor Control Board who also ensures you use the built-in Breathalyzer to detect whether you already have half a load on.

Despite PA winos now being given a step-up, those who travel a lot know that other countries are far ahead of us in the vending business.

In Europe, for example, public toilets have long displayed condom and personal-hygiene product dispensers on their walls, all certainly placed there decades ago by sex-crazed Frenchmen.

Not wanting to be outdone, however, the Japanese started vending designer condoms. One of these vending machines dispenses a product called “United Colors of Benetton,” which is marketed to the Japanese as an effort to comfort lonely Italian businessmen.

With an estimated one vending machine for every 20 people in the country, the Japanese vend just about everything you can think of — eggs, umbrellas, porn, fishing bait, toilet paper, you name it.

Despite Japanese entrepreneurs forging the mother lode of vending machines, it’s a German businessman named Thomas Geissler who produced the mother of all machines — one that dispenses gold.

Geissler started test-marketing his gold-dispensing kiosks in Germany last year but they only became well known when he installed one in the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi a few months ago.

There an upscale hotelier — looking for a bit more Gulf glitz, of course — was able to rise above his competitors with the cash-for-gold attraction in the lobby.

Jim Ferri