Automatic vending machine

A vending machine comprising:

• p article stockers (p is a positive integer of two or more) that respectively store a plurality of articles;
• one article guide path;
• p drive force generation/transmission mechanisms, each including one manually driven manual operation means and being adapted to transmit a drive force to a driven portion by utilizing a force applied from the manual operation means;
• and
• p article moving mechanisms, each driven by the drive force transmitted from each of the p drive force generation/transmission mechanisms to move one of the plurality of articles stored in the p article stockers into the one article guide path,
• each of the p article stockers including m article receiving paths (m is a positive integer of two or more) in which the plurality of articles are received and vertically stacked one upon another,
• the m article receiving paths surrounding a vertically extending center line of the article stocker, two adjoining paths among the article receiving paths being separated by separation walls provided to extend radially from the center line at an angular interval of 360°/m;
• each of the p article moving mechanisms including a rotational shaft of which an axis line coincides with the center line of the corresponding article stocker, the rotating shaft being driven by the drive force to rotate the article stocker, and being constructed so that the rotation of the rotating shaft causes the article to move from one of the m article receiving paths into the article guide path the article receiving paths being sequentially selected;
• the p drive force generation/transmission mechanisms being constructed to prevent two or more article moving mechanisms from moving the articles into the one article guide path simultaneously.