Old Coke Machine

You must know that Coca-Cola memorobilia is highly collectible and since yours still appears to work - that's even more awesome. It's pretty cool looking too.

Based on the photograph and what I could make of the detail on the Coca-Cola logo, the machine appears to date between 1941 and the 1960's - so your guess of 1950's was pretty close. I'm not at all knowledgable about coke collectibles other than knowing that they're huge and the folks who collect them are all over the world.
There are in fact world wide groups of collectors (www.cocacolaclub.org) devoted to collecting the stuff. The Coca-Cola company also has a few archivists on staff who chronicle coke items. They are so organized in fact, that they have a blog site....http://www.coca-colaconversations.com/

I'll bet you can find lots of information on this item and even an expert or two if you visit those sites as well.

Best of luck to you.

This one predates 1956, after 56 Coke machines were painted red & white. There should be some markings on it, I've only seen one of these,in the rough it sold for about $500.00. The crank handled machines tend to be made by Vendorlator which merged with the better known Vendo company in 1956.
This one looks like a model 149 or 139.