If you are old enough to remember what an album was, what it meant when someone said that they were waiting for the Stones to put out some new vinyl, or that they wanted a lighthouse and some lumber with their blue plate special then you are undoubtedly familiar with the formerly ubiquitous cigarette machine. Attached to public buildings, found inside restaurants and bars, a staple of strip clubs and casinos, and found around train stations nationwide, cigarette machines were the smoker’s answer to business hours. No longer forced to make it to the corner store by seven, the smoker could now meander down to the local watering hole and utilize the cigarette vending machine to satisfy the nicotine cravings.

Granted, commercial cigarette machines had it made, and at times they were so popular that it actually required the person servicing the automatic cigarette machine to come out two times in one day simply to refill the cigarette machine. Yet in the last 30 years, the popularity of cigarette vending machines has suffered, in part because suddenly they were no longer to be found outside but instead had to be inside dining and drinking establishments. Furthermore, with the ID checks in full swing, more and more patrons considered it a hassle to be carded at the door and then once again when requesting tokens to purchase smokes. Smoking bans in eateries and bars further cut into the profits of cigarette machine sales, and today the only reason for anyone to still have a cigarette machine is because they are either a collector or because it is one of the few antique cigarette machines that have survived the decades. While antique cigarette vending machines making great conversation pieces, there is also another type of cigarette machine that is currently gaining popularity.

This is, of course, the cigarette making machine. In the past it was the hippie who would want to make his own cigarettes, and manufacturers who knew how hard it was to hand roll the smokes soon offered little cigarette making machines that fit easily inside a jacket pocket. There is the Top o Matic cigarette making machine, the somewhat more complicated automatic cigarette making machines that are battery operated, and the cigarette machine that required Premier Supermatic cigarette machine instructions. While vintage cigarette vending machines are currently a collector item, it is interesting to note that cigarette making machines have not yet entered the realm of collectible value.