The Penny King Company

Letterhead Display Card Favorite Comics
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

In 1958 KFS licensed the Penny King Company to manufacture and sell buttons, rings and lockets, using 39 different characters:

Mandrake
Lothar
The Phantom
Diana Palmer
Devil
Flash Gordon
Dale Arden
Prince Valiant
Annie Rooney
Zero
Jiggs
Maggie
Henry
Henrietta
Der Captain
Der Inspector
Mama
Hans
Fritz
Popeye
Olive Oyl
Wimpy
Swee'Pea
Barney Google
Snuffy Smith
Loweezy
Jughaid
Cricket
Riddles Barlow
Toozy
Sut Tattersail
Tillie Jones
Clarence "Mac" Macdougall
unknown
Rosco Sweeny
Lucille Sweeney
The Little King
Little Iodine
Henry Tremblechin

Charms

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