Stamp vending machine

A stamp vending machine (SVM) is a mechanical, electrical or electro-mechanical device which can be used to automatically vend postage stamps to users in exchange for a pre-determined amount of money, normally in coin. Most SVMs were positioned in public places to provide a useful service to customers when other sources of postage stamps, such as Post Offices were closed. The term is often applied to the entire object as found attached to a pillar box or sited in a wall. The name Stamp Vending Machine only applies to the internal mechanism, the housing is described by the UK Post Office as a "case" and was supplied, installed and maintained separately. Many postal administrations around the world have used automatic stamp vending machines including the United States, where private manufacturers began vending stamps from coils in 1908. Most countries of the Commonwealth of Nations have issued stamps for use in Stamp Vending Machines, including Hong Kong, New Zealand and Malta.

As a matter of fact, many countries still use stamp vending machines. For instance, in Europe, France and Germany do. Their design, fairly modern, is similar to the kind of electronic interface you may find on a machine selling train tickets, or an ATM: a screen displays several buying options, possibly in different languages. A set of buttons on both sides of the screen allows to select the desired option. The process can involve several steps (i.e. first choosing the value of the desired stamps, then their number). These machines normally accept coins, and in France also debit cards. The French machine, located in post offices, can let the user weight the envelope so that the exact correct fare may be selected (depending on the destination country). The German machines, located either inside or outside post offices, don't feature a scale, but the user can type the value they want to see printed on the stamp, before selecting how many they want. The German machine doesn't give change in coins, but issues extra stamps with the remaining value. The French machines, however, do give exact change.

In the UK, the earliest SVM was tested in the last years of the 19th Century, but there are no drawings or records appertaining to it and it was quickly withdrawn. The earliest production series machines were introduced under Edward VII in 1907 following experiments with a patented 1906 design by New Zealander Robert J Dickie which was demonstrated to the British House of Lords in 1907. Dickie licensed the sales rights to his new machine outside the British Empire to Kermode & Co, who successfully sold it around the world. SVM mechanisms and cases are described by the UK Post Office using, rather confusingly, two separate alphabetical series of type letters to describe each one. Thus a machine may be described in the format of a "Type B4 mechanism in a Case Type K".

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