When they were 25 cents, I wasn't buying them in a machine. My friend and I would buy a pack and it lasted us a week - assuming the super in my building didn't find them stashed in the radiator in the lobby. :)
Ha! Our cigarettes would last about a week between the four of us (we only smoked on the weekends). We took turns on who was going to hide them from our parents.
Gotcha. i just heard that is why the old machines had a coin return even though my whole life they were exact change only. Old timers always said you got two pennies back on Lucky's at one time and that's why it was there and that the mechanism only was able to dispense two pennies. That's why it was functionless later on.