I can tell you that vending was every bit as big a part of the marketing for Topps as retail when they started selling gum and then cards in the 1930's and 40's. After WW2, when raw materials and distribution networks were flowing again, around mid 1949, vending machines and distribution for them (automatic merchandising in the parlance of the time) were proliferating at exponential rates.
There are known Topps vending packs from as early as 1949 and as pointed out above, other companies, especially ESCO, were into this for a long, long time. The market though started to change only a few years after once nickel gum packs began supplanting penny packs and the single card penny venders were deemed not as profitable, although vending still was a big piece of the pie for many years after. Then vending in the 1960's started to cater more to after market dealers.
I certainly remember buying cards from vending machines in 1970-72.
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