Penny (1 cent) Gum Ball Machines
Posted: 03 Mar 2009 07:34
Does anyone remember the last time you could buy a supermarket item for just one cent? As late as 1979, I remember buying penny gum balls from a dispenser in the front of the Lucky supermarket on Pacific Avenue in Livermore, Calif. (not long before it closed in March 1980). They were small gum balls in bright colors. (I'm not sure how they worked out the sales tax on a one-cent item.)
Chewing gum, of course, has a special role in supermarket history. I believe that a package of Wrigley's chewing gum was the first item to bear a "universal price code" (UPC) in the United States, in the mid-1970s.
See: http://www.nationalbarcode.com/History- ... anners.htm
In some ways, it's odd that a Wrigley's product started this innovation because Wrigley's product line remained basically unchanged from much of the mid-20th century. (Another example of the Wrigley family's traditionalism is the fact that permanent lights were not installed at Wrigley Field in Chicago until the mid-1980s.)
The San Francisco Chronicle re-printed a column from 1968 in a recent edition (3/1/09) about what a nickel purchased in the late 1960s. At that time, just a candy bar and Wrigley's chewing gum were among the few items that could still be purchased for five cents. See: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 15539I.DTL
Chewing gum, of course, has a special role in supermarket history. I believe that a package of Wrigley's chewing gum was the first item to bear a "universal price code" (UPC) in the United States, in the mid-1970s.
See: http://www.nationalbarcode.com/History- ... anners.htm
In some ways, it's odd that a Wrigley's product started this innovation because Wrigley's product line remained basically unchanged from much of the mid-20th century. (Another example of the Wrigley family's traditionalism is the fact that permanent lights were not installed at Wrigley Field in Chicago until the mid-1980s.)
The San Francisco Chronicle re-printed a column from 1968 in a recent edition (3/1/09) about what a nickel purchased in the late 1960s. At that time, just a candy bar and Wrigley's chewing gum were among the few items that could still be purchased for five cents. See: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 15539I.DTL