Grip the handle and turn the crank. Watch the roller turn. Wait for that clink, reach into the little door. Turn over the still-warm, copper-colored oval in your palm. Smile. It’s a pretty penny.
Standing on a Chicago el platform one day in 1928, a lean, mild-mannered New Englander named Nathaniel Leverone idly started feeding coins into the vending machines and got madder by the minute. “I ...