Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Cigarette vending machines

Pretty common at all bus stations back in the day!

the way the machine was made, you had to be at least 10-12 years old to be strong enough to pull the knob

35cents and matches was paying extra for convenience. In Illinois, when I was a 18yr.
old migrant worker in '71, liquor stores could only sell quarts of beer 3 at a time.
A carton of smokes and 3 quarts was 5 bucks.

Oh man.

$1, some maybe a $1.25. Most restaurant lobbies in town. We’d cruise up on our BMX bikes and get a few packs before the manger came out and run us off. Lol.

I remember many a Friday and Saturday night going out with $5.00. I could buy a 6 pack of beer to drink in the woods, a pack of cigarettes, and some food at the burger joint on the way home and still have change in my pocket.

And an ounce of pot was 20 bucks. That lasted about as long as the beer.

And Bonanza too

Use to be a bar in Athens that had $2.75 pitchers (shorties, maybe 40oz), and dollar jaeger shots. Mid 90’s that was a hell of a deal.

If you could play pool, a $20 Bill was enough to get you and whatever girl hammered, play pool till close, and still tip the bartender.

I've long thought that anyone who started smoking after the surgeon general started putting warnings on cigarette packs had enough information to make a better choice.

My high school sweetheart died from brain tumors that metastasized from lung cancer. She started smoking when she was 14 or 15 and mostly bought her cigarettes from vending machines before she could legally buy them at 18. Salem 100s. Once she started, she was never able to kick the habit, but I never thought that she tried very hard. She died in 12/99 at age 42, left 3 daughters ages 14, 17, and 20. I felt bad for her husband and her kids. She would have been 65 this year. Sometimes the choices you make catch up with you. years later.

Remember when cigarette makers would sell cartons printed with a Christmas theme to encourage people to buy cartons of cigarette as Christmas gifts for their friends and family? Different times 50 years ago.

Our govt gave away free smokes in packages of C rations, always was glad to get something good to smoke in them, even tho in the late 60's they were already PLENTY old and dried out.

Once I turned 18 (drinking age in '74) my neighborhood bar sold mugs of Schlitz for 35 cents and most liquor shots were 60 cents. A game of pool was 25 cent.s

Way back me and three friends would get together $0.50 each for a total of $2 and have one of the guy's older sister buy us a gallon jug of Red Mountain wine and a pack of Marlboros, then out to the olive grove we'd go.

My mother and aunt were in a bowling league when I was kid. I remember the cigarettes in those machines at the bowling alley were .25$ . That place was so filled with smoke it's a wonder I don't have coal miner's lung.

I used to go to a Cafe with my grandpa on weekends and when I was out of school at it was the same.

During the Viet Nam war they used to park semi trailers in grocery store parking lots with big banners on the side "Smokes for the Troops" encouraging donations of cartons of smokes for the GI's. When I was a HS senior in 1965 I remember one of the teachers complaining that cigarettes had gone up to .45 a pack.

Cigarettes at the PX in June 1973 was 23 cents. At the local gas station they were normally less than 50 cents.
kwg

I remember them being in the entryway of the local hospital ER........right next to the pop machines.

I can remember going to the store in our town and on the check out counter there were counter checks from the local banks in town and my mom would get the one to our bank and pay for the grocery's. On that same counter was a tray of cigarettes and they were sold by the singles, don't remember how much they were now.

Ashtrays on the shopping cart handles, in the Dr office between the seats, sports stadiums, desks in every office environment.

Smoking was almost expected.

I can relate. My Mom died in 1976 at the age of 42. She never smoked, it was breast cancer that got her. She left behind 8 kids. The oldest was 21, the youngest was 8. I was 2nd oldest. Dad did the best he could. It was tough.

My mom was never a smoker but she said when she went into labor when I was born she was given a choice of a smoking or non smoking maternity room!

In the arm rests of airplane passenger seats too.