I bought this mini gumball machine for my daughters birthday in september. I was a bit of a joke because in a little shop where we live, there is one of these machines with minstrels in and every time we go in there she asks for 20p to have a go, and more often than not I say no because for 20p you get two sweets. So when I saw this I just had to buy it for her.

What is it ?
It is a small machine that dispenses bubblegum or whatever small sweets you wish to fill it with. It originally came with about 10-15 coloured bubble gum balls, but I took those out and replaced them with minstrels. Sweets any bigger than a minstrels would not fit, even some of those struggled to dispense. I would say smarties, jelly beans or the bubble gums would be best.
The machine is about 20cm high, the one I bought was pink but they had loads of different colours to choose from.
Unlike the real sweet machines you do not need to 'pay' any money. You just turn the handle and the sweet drops out. I think paying for a sweet would be a good feature, it could double as a money box and limit the amount of sweets eaten.

Was it good ?
Well it was worth it to see my little girls face light up when she opened it. She really loved it .... for an day or so !! Then the novelty wore off. The sweets had been eaten and it was put aside never to be used or seen again by her. She then gave it to my son to play with as he seemed to really like it. I refilled it with smarties for him but only after about ten minutes he had lost interest and had taken the lid off to eat the sweets out of it !!
The machine worked well, as you turned the handle the sweet dropped to the bottom. It was very easy to fill, just unscrew the plastic ball at the top, put the sweets in and replace on the base.
The whole machine is made out of a thin plastic that I can see cracking quite easily, especially with long term use or if it was dropped.

I would say it most definitely is a novelty item, I wouldn't suggest you spend a lot on it and I am not sure how long it would last if being frequently used as it is made of quite flimsy plastic. But for a fun joke and a trip down memory lane I think it was worth the few pounds I spent on it.

I bought this from a sweet shop called Sweet Heaven, it was £3.99 and came with about 10-15 mini coloured bubble gums.