The other day on the way out of the store a vending machine caught my eye, so I decided to spend whatever change I had on me. After plunking in the quarter out popped a cool little plant guy. He looked like a slime from dragon quest with cotyledons on it's head. The next day I felt like going on a bike ride and decided I'd get a few more plant dudes for the hell of it as a destination for the ride. Here was the haul:


Upon getting home and looking them over I realized there a couple that were green instead of clear. I laughed thinking I scored some 'rare' ones. That did turn out to be the case as those contained fancier ones with more painted features. Here is another shot of them:


Upon further review it was noted that variants also exist within each basic type as they can come with different types of cotyledons. Here's a group shot containing one of each variant I got:


Noticing how the orbs came sealed with a strip of plastic led to thought of parralells with collecting other items.

Looking back on it I realized I've always liked to "collect" vending machine items, although I never really considering it collecting. If I have some quarters and I see a vending machine on the way out of a store I usually like to buy something for the hell of it. I can remember being quite young and getting a $10 cashed in for quarters to purchase orbs of slime. I always loved slimes for whatever reason and these were super cool, as they had fake body parts in them like tounges, eyes and fingers. My pockets were so full and bulging on the bike ride home some of the canisters cracked open and I had a bunch of slime in my pockets. It was pretty cool. I remember filling different glass jars with the seperate colors to have a big stash. I also recall parents hating any slimy toys because they always inevitably ended up sticking to the sealing and leaving discolored oily spots.

After digging up some of the crap I've bought I thought it would be neat to make a thread and see if anyone else collects vending machine items, has some interesting ones, or even has a story about a favorite vending machine toy.

Here are some things I dug up, I'll post more if I find them:

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Ninjas

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Space Vehicles

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Cootie Keychain

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Weird Eye Dude

 I was able to figure out this orange guy belongs to a line called "Block Headz".

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Barrel Of Monkeys

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VooDoo Doll Animals ($0.75)

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Super Balls

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Like I had said, these are just things I acquired throughout the years and never really though about it from a collecting standpoint until looking at the variants and other things with the little plant dudes. I might actively "collect" some items more often now just for something silly to do. If other people are into collecting junk like this we could even trade different trinkets for fun.

Well, that should get the ball rolling. Hopefully some other people have cool junk to post. 


 

I'm dedicating this post to listing possible machines I have access to if anyone else is interested in this junk and trading or whatever.

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Machines I've Found recently:

Ninjas
Nino n' Dip
Sqwishland
 

sucks that we get this kind of stuff and Japan gets all kinds of kick ass capsule toys

Yeah, but at what cost?

I never really collected this sort of stuff, but in Taiwan I have gotten a few items from machines before, nearly always only the stuff relating to Mario or Nintendo in someway. The thing with my stuff though, is that it easily costs $2 - $3 per item, which gets expensive really fast.

This is the only cool one we've had around here (and it's only at one Wal-mart). I've probably spent $20 or more in these machines buying them for other people and shipping them (shipped a set to Australia and another to Europe, I think).

Man, those ninjas look fucking cool.

Man, those Pac Man figures look really nice!

Neat! I think you may have inspired me to take a look at the vending machines at my grocery store.

Nice to see someone else collects superballs! Most of these I have had for 15+ years.





Only other collection I have of vending machine toys are these cool Nintendo box things from Japan.



They have lots of detail for vending machine toys. I think the FC carts are pencil erasers, the GC discs seem to just be normal plastic.



They even have screen shots on the back!

Homies, and mini nfl football helmets still have the Homies somewhere.

Japan gets some real awesome capsule toys. I always liked getting those sticky hands you would swing around and whip people with, until they got all dirty and your mom would throw it out. A kid in my class in elementary school, his dad owned a bunch of vending machines so in their garage they had huge boxes of candy and toys, he became very popular once the other kids learned this.

Yes, Japan rules on this stuff.

I remember back to the glorious decade of the 80's (and early 90's) and it seemed to me that Gumball Machines had much better stuff in them. I was a sap for those ol' football helmets. They rocked. I also liked the fake Muscle men they had.

You can buy beer in Japan in the vending machines too, right? So cool.

And used panties

Oh man, I LOVE those little ninjas! Jeremiah used to get those all the time. I still see them mixed in with the rest of the toys now and then.

We used to get these little tiny books out of nickle gumball machines way back in the day.

Awesome! Post your haul! I might go 'on the hunt' today again.


Those are pretty awesome. Might have to have you get me some

I always thought so. They seem to be a pretty common vending item for years. I collect all kidsn of ninja figurines so when I saw them I had to have them.


Cool. Hoping to bring more pics like this out of the woodwork. I figure there has to be other guys who collect this junk.
And those famicom things really are badass.

Hahaha, Exactly. I think I might have a slime hand around somewhere! Loved those. Loved any slime I guess.



Cool. Are those yours shan?

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Got $5.00 in quarters lined up. Going go on a cruise and see what I can find

 

When I was a kid, when we would go grocery shopping with mom I would always go and check out the vending machines to see what the next item out the machine was, if it was anything good I would beg mom for a quarter to get it. My favorite was the Transformer watches, I think I managed to get 3 or 4 of them.

Every capsule toy I bought and owned, I almost lost every single one. lol I mostly collect Japanese Gashapon, although I do have one of those ninja guys.

Back in the day, my younger brother and I used to go house to house in the neighborhood and ask for people's empty cans and bottles. We'd cash in those empties - then head down to the local grocery store and cash in every quarter we made.

That affinity for those helmets prompted me to make this for my game room/man cave...

naw, I have trolled ebay looking For  them a time or two though.

I have a DS case with an eraser in it from Japan.

They have way more stuff in vending machines over there. I also got a neat Dragon Ball GT little figure of Super Saiyan 4 Goku.

I don't mind doing it, but internationally, shipping was just too much. Cost me 75 cents each, to make it worthwhile, I'd have to do a set at $5.00(would mean that they would be $1.00 each) plus shipping for the US. Would have to get 4 or 5 people to commit since they are random. Don't wanna dump another $20 in the machine only to be stuck with extras

Man, lots of memories here. My favorite of all time was when I finally got a golden egg from one of those chicken machines. Actually, it was a Flintstones machine and Fred made chicken sounds for some GD reason. It contained a wind-up cockroach and it still works. So awesome.

I got one of those golden eggs too. Can't remember for the life of me what was in it, but I do recall being disappointed that it wasn't something cooler.

I also still have a bagful of those helmets (probably about 100 or so?), but mine are older than the ones Commander Santa has. They just have the basic old running back style facemask.

Recently got some Care Bears too.