The Penny King Company

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Country:	USA / English

History

Charms first appeared in vending machines about 1930 in US, these were mostly imported from Japan and came with silk strings attached. The operator removed the strings before placing them in his machines. The charms were generally sold in penny vending machines with a small candy. The novelty of the charms lasted for a couple of years, but died becauce of lack of variety^[1]

In 1949 the Penny King Company (Pittsburgh) started making charms for the growing vending machine market. In the beginning they contracted for molds and jobbed out the molding and plating to outside firms. The firm opened a plant in Puerto Rico for the manufacture of charms n 1951 and became a national sales agent for Acorn Charm Vendor parts and assessories in 1953. By 1955 the firm was one of the major charm manufactures and became sales agent for the Penny-Nickel Atlas Master vendor machines.

Gumball Prizes with King Feature characters

As the world's largest selection of minature charms in 1958 KFS licensed the Penny King Company to manufacture and sell buttons, rings and lockets, using 39 different King Feature characters. The 39 different characters included:

Mandrake the Magician by Lee Falk and Phil Davis: Mandrake, Lothar
The Phantom by Lee Falk and Wison McCoy: The Phantom, Diana Palmer, Devil
Flash Gordon: Flash Gordon, Dale Arden
Prince Valiant: Prince Valiant
The Lone Ranger: The Lone Ranger, Tonto
Little Annie Rooney: Annie Rooney, Zero
Bringing up Father: Jiggs, Maggie
Henry: Henry, Henrietta
The Katzenjammer Kids: Mama, Hans, Fritz, Der Captain, Der Inspector
Popeye: Popeye the Sailor, Olive Oyl, Wimpy, Swee'Pea
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith: Barney Google, Snuffy Smith, Jughaid and 4 other figures
Tillie the Toiler: Tillie Jones, Clarence "Mac" Macpougall and at least 1 other figures
Rosco Sweenwy by Roy Campbell Crane: Rosco Sweeny, Lucille Sweeney
The Little King: The King
Little Iodine: Little Iodine

Charms

The various figures are printed on paper and have a plastic casings in yellow, blue, red, green and white colors. Several colored casing have diluted colors, light blue, light red, transparang red and on. It appears that it also was produced a series with a metallic looking (silver, gold or bronze) casing. Another distinct series of the charms was double sided with a clear frame, with different figures on each side.