David Rockola and the Rock-Ola
By Dick Bueschel
[ A request for memorabilia was recently forwarded from this author,
[ who immediately joined our group! Richard, thanks for sharing this
[ excerpt from your forthcoming book. -- Robbie
David Colin Rockola was Canadian. His father worked for a pump company in a small town in western Canada, and was an inventor. When Rockola was 14 he worked in a hotel as a bellboy, and later opened his own cigar store in Calgary. When the slot machine that sat on the counter made more money than the store, he knew his calling.
He went to Toronto to get into the business, and later came to Chicago, working for the top three slot machine manufacturers; Mills, Jennings and Watling. In 1927 he started his own vending machine manufacturing company, and soon added scales. In 1932 he started making pinball games, and after some serious failures, finally made it big.
He quickly discovered that people mispronounced his name (which is not Italian, although the origins have yet to be fully defined, possibly Scotch or a made-up name) so he kept it personally, and added a hyphen to create Rock-Ola for business, circa 1929. He got into the jukebox business in 1935 when Seeburg, Mills and Wurlitzer were making a killing with music machines after Repeal [of the Prohibition laws] and the opening of thousands of taverns in 1933 and 1934.
But Wurlitzer attempted to thwart his entry, and that of anyone else, because they had such a strong patent position. So a patent war ensued in which Wurlitzer and Rock-Ola were bidding against each other to buy up all prior art they could find. Wurlitzer got most of it, but Rock-Ola did fairly well, too. That gave both companies back-dated origin dates based on the patent application and issuance dates of their acquired art.
A lengthy Rockola story (2 chapters) is contained in my book "Encyclo- pedia of Pinball Volume 1" (Silverball Amusements, 1996). The story of Rock-Ola's entry into the jukebox business, and the patent wars with Wurlitzer, will be in my forthcoming book "Let The Other Guy Play It!" (Royal Bell Books, 1997).
For a book list, send a self-addressed stamped envelope to:
Richard M. Bueschel, 414 N. Prospect Manor Avenue,
Mt. Prospect, IL 60056-2046 USA
P.S. I just joined MMD -- It's marvelous! |
(Message sent Tue 14 Jan 1997, 15:48:52 GMT, from time zone GMT-0500.) |
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