Coin Slot Magazine - #V8N4 - 1982 - December [International Arcade Museum]
Vintage
Collectibles
ou want to start
box collection?
he majority of
| jukebox collectors star
I out like myself. Whatever
turned up was a new addition to the
collection. The limitations to the col
lection were the amount of space
available, and whether or not you
liked that particular brand and mod
el. Price never was m uch of a factor,
since many collectors of the mid-
1970s were the only collector in
their area Much like the transition
from silver coins to the clad coins in
1965, there were times of plenty
progressing to times of scarcity.
The majority of pre-1955 jukeboxes
are now progressing to times of
scarcity. The term, "paying through
the nose" now has some validity,
and a novice collector today must
give careful though before investing
hundreds, if not thousands, of dol
lars for an individual machine. I
started a few years later, when the
easy finds in an operator's back
room had been emptied. I tracked
down individual owners, one by one,
and did not have the opportunity to
pick which, or how many. In many
cases I had to pay their asking
price, or go without. The market had
become a sellers' market. That is
the situation today— a sellers' mar
ket. Possibly the following advice
may help an interested novice to
discover the direction needed to
pursue the jukebox collecting hobby
of today.
Manufacturers
my manufacturers exist
machlnes^Dperated by^Tcoin to
play a record. I am interested only
DECEMBER 1982
facturer does make a difference as
far as mechanical design is con
those that I would consider a juke
cerned, and what problems a machine
developed over an extended lifetime
of operation.
The three most common manufac
box. The companies that are the
turers are Wurlitzer, Rockola and
in the machines that are suitable
for 78 or 45 RPM records, and only
most collected are: Wurlitzer, Rock-
ola, Capehart, Packard, Gables,
Seeburg, AMI and Mills, roughly in
that order of preference.
Why is manufacturer
important?
Some brands have a better mech
anical and electrical design. Cape-
hart, Gables and Mills are not the
machines that a novice would want
to start on repairing without some
idea of how a jukebox operates.
The majority of these machines are
scarce, making parts difficult to lo
cate. Wurlitzer, Rockola, Packard,
Seeburg and AMI models are better
designed pieces of equipment Sales
were reasonably high on most mod
els, so parts are available. If you
have seen an unrestored Mills, Cape-
hart or Gables jukebox, look inside
.com
m
:
u
m
e
d fro de-mus the cabinet at the bottom. You will
e
d
note the numerous pieces of broken
nloa w.arca
w
o
recorda That is an indication of how
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the machines operated when new.
p
t
t
h
© The International Arcade Museum
Suble understanding how to
fast these mechanisms. Manu
Can you imagine how they operate
today? Even the jukebox mechanics
of the late 1920s and early 1930s
Seeburg in the 1940s. Their mech
anics are all basically good and
reliable. The electrical design is
equally good. Rockola and Seeburg
jukeboxes appear to take the wear
and tear better than Wurlitzera This
may be due to the extended use of
the Wurlitzers, but I have fewer pro
blems with the mechanism being
worn in the Rockola and Seeburg
designed machines. The amazing
machine is the AMI with its simple
system of operation. Packards rate
much like the AMI, but are more
scarce.
Mills, Capehart and Gables are
sometimes frustrating machines.
There are numerous places for prob
lems and only a small minority of col
lectors have knowledge of repair
procedurea It is also amazing that,
as many problems as these machines
presented the early operators, any
exist today at all. They were not
only heavy, but the mechanical de
signs were all primitive with barely
adequate sound quality. The later
Mills machines, of the 1940s, were
a more tolerable machine, but again
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