Unusual Jukebox
By Michael Walter
Dear Jody,
Over the weekend I had the opportunity of seeing a most unusual, early jukebox, which is in need of a new home. Here is the scoop.
The jukebox is located in Canada, not too far away from the U.S. Border, near Buffalo, N.Y. The couple have owned it for about ten years but have done nothing about it. It currently sits in a dry, basement rec room.
It is unusual for the following reasons.
The manufacturer is the "Automatic Instrument Co" out of Canada and the U.S. (Michigan). It is a Model 8 C.
The mechanism is similar in design to early "AMI" machines; ie. It has the turntable located on the right hand side of the mech board. The left hand side of the mech board has a row of ten vertical records. The stack probably moves from front to back. There is an arched arm which curves over the record stack, picks out a record, and places it upon the turntable. It will play either side of the record.
The tone arm is a chrome plated (I believe) tubular affair being @ 16" in length. The head of the tonearm is a large, almost vertical affair, with enough room for a horseshoe magnet and coil. The needle is probably supposed to be held in place by a screw. The tonearm is located at the back of the cabinet.
The cabinet is @ 48" high, 30" deep, and 36" wide. It's all wood. The speaker is located at the bottom of the cabinet behind a large circular recessed area, covered by grill cloth. Mounted vertically through the center of the recessed area is a chomed tube, which houses a fluorescent light (red). Each side of the juke box has three horizontal chrome tubes which wrap around to the front of the machine and meet at the speaker circle.
The top front of the jukebox has a piece of glass, mounted at a 45 degree angle, to view the mechanism as it is playing. On either side of the glass on the inside is a 12" fluorscent light.
The way to make a selection is unusual also. There are twenty slots, vertically arranged and numbered. To make selection #15, for example, you place a dime into slot #15, etc. The dime probably completes a circuit as it drops into a chute, and activates a solenoid pin, which will in turn select a record.
The jukebox has not been used in a number of years, since it is wired for 110 volts, 25 cycles. 25 cycles has not been used in that part of Canada since the 1950s. The owners say they have a converter to change the 25 cycles to 60 cycles. I didn't look at the tube configuration, but there were no unusually large or strange looking tubes on the amplifier.
From what I have seen, I would make a guess that the machine is from a company that evolved into the AMI corporation of the late 40s. There are patent numbers on the machine, so it wouldn't be too hard to date it if there is the interest...
Give me an e-mail or a call at 716-656-9583 if you would like more info.
Best wishes, Mike Walter
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(Message sent Mon 25 Nov 1996, 13:57:35 GMT, from time zone GMT-0500.) |
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