Many years ago, I purchased a little Seeburg L, and one of my buddies,
had a Seeburg G and a small Engelhardt.  We thought it a great idea
to place them on location, and recover our investments.

At first all went well.  My Seeburg L was rolled down the street, and
down another street, and into a small Irish family-type bar.  There, it
flourished, and in a short time I had recovered my initial cost in
nickels!    My buddy, placed his two instruments in another night club.
At first they did well.  I was asked to come in to do some work on a
small (Ampico) grand that was played manually during entertainment
features.  The first thing I noticed was the Ampico grand had a
candelabra on it.  It had real candles in it and they had dripped wax all
over the tuning pins, strings and on some of the treble hammers, hammer
shanks and even the keys!    What a mess!

While working, (Trying to remove wax)  I noticed a semi drunken
fellow with his arm in a plaster cast. He walked up to the Seeburg, put
his money in, and decided to accompany the music using his cast, banged
as hard as he could on the keys!  I was appalled, and told him that one
should respect these nice old instruments.  But my words did not register
with him, and he kept on banging and damaging the ivory keys.  The
Englehardt got a lot of play, but the juke box people were not happy that
it cut into their business, and things started happening to the coin
mechanism, and it was determined that it was sabotaged.  It was found
jammed with slugs, and a sticky substance which resembled molasses.

When my friend heard of the abuse that the instruments received,
he removed them from the establishment permanently.

I moved my Seeburg L to a small town location in an old style
hotel.  It received a lot of play. One day I came in to change the roll,
and share the take with the hotel owner. I found that one of the doors
had been pried off!  I was told that something happened and the roll did
not rewind, and came off the spool, and a customer decided to fix it by
prying off the door at the hinge side, and found the wood split, and the
hinges badly bent. Immediately, I removed the Seeburg, and it has not
been on location again.

What is wrong with some people that they do not respect nice old
instruments?  Were these problems evident in the old days?

Bruce Clark