Jukebox History 1934-1951
During
the late thirties the public atmosphere in
In
the early thirties, however, the modern automatic phonograph was not yet
considered a housetrained piece of machinery, and today it might be right with
a popular expression to call the following period the hobbledehoy stage of the
jukebox. Today we know it more correctly as the Golden Age. The latter
half of the thirties was definitely a period with circumstances important for
the development of the jukebox towards the hey-days of design in the years
1941/42. Circumstances like the difficult economic situation, the war that
might come, the invention of new techniques, and certainly the public yearning
for musical entertainment. All considered one cannot expect that a similar
breathtaking era will ever be possible in the future history of the jukebox concept.
The
period prior to the Golden Age gave birth indeed to a growing demand for
music machines, and in the years 1934-36 there was a perceptible competition
among the relatively few manufacturers to operate automatic phonographs in
diners, saloons, and other small locations of entertainment. The production of
jukeboxes in large numbers was no longer tantamount to a safe increase in
earnings. An effective marketing with a steady release of new models became
more and more important for the survival of the manufacturing companies, and
the production year gradually became of great importance, when the owner of a
saloon or diner should be talked into accepting a new piece of furniture.
Even
though the manufacturers had consulted industrial designers during the
development of new models for years it was not until 1938, when the J. P.
Seeburg Corporation intensely started to put catalin-plastics
into the wooden cabinets, it was understood how important the designers were
for the expected success of the jukebox business. The first design patents of
the golden era covering jukebox cabinets were filed in 1934 by Theodore E. Samuelson.
The two design patents were both assigned to The John Gabel Manufacturing
Company of
The
year after Charles Nairn Deverall assigned the design patent for the Wurlitzer
P-12 with illuminated dial to the manufacturer, the noted designer Paul
M. Fuller was employed by The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company as a kind of design
consultant. Paul M. Fuller is today considered to be the most important
designer in the history of jukeboxes, and it seems that the combination of the
two energetic, cigar-smoking gentlemen of the same age (both born in 1897),
sales manager Homer Earl Capehart
and designer Paul M. Fuller, kept
the Wurlitzer company alive as a producer of coin-op pre-recorded music
machines after the coin-operated organ and piano business died out as one of
the consequences of the Depression 1929-1934. The employment of Paul M. Fuller
in fact gave the company a leading position on the market during the early
years of the forties, the hey-days, and one might state for sure that the team
led by Paul M. Fuller made a line of jukeboxes superior to those of the
competitors.
The
automatic phonographs had suddenly become a real financial success for several
companies like The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, the J. P. Seeburg Corporation,
the Rock-Ola Manufacturing Corporation (David C. Rockola
delivered one of the new 12-selection phonographs to the decks of the luxury
liner Queen Mary on her maiden voyage from New York in 1936), and the Automatic
Musical Instrument Company, also called AMI. The big four mentioned here
were of course not the only ones to produce classic designs. A relatively large
number of design patents is today proof of the presence of many hard-working
industrial designers.
As
mentioned previously the J. P. Seeburg Corporation used catalin-plastics
in the music machines around 1938. Two industrial designers were connected to
the company, and they worked hard to create successful designs. One of them, Henry T. Roberts,
also designed radios, and the other, Nels A. Miller,
became a noted designer after the war with the rather special Trash Can
models. The official names were of course Seeburg Symphonola
P-146, P-147, and P-148. Using the word catalin,
'the gem of plastics', it is important to mention that the product
name was a registered trademark of the Catalin Corporation in
In
connection with the designer names it is interesting also to observe that David C. Rockola,
the president of the Rock-Ola Manufacturing Corporation, assigned all design
patents to the company. No other top manager in the early forties was a
designer, as far as the editor knows. One of the other important industrial
designers was the engineer Lloyd J. Andres, who
worked near the top of AMI together with engineer Clifford Henry
Green. The two engineers had been authorized by the
management to develop a new line of improved coin-op phonographs after the
depression. Lloyd J. Andres has not previously been mentioned, as he deserves,
in the literature about jukebox history. His first patented full size jukebox
design of 1937 got the official name AMI Top Flight, but he had prior to
that designed the casing for a special remote control selector in 1936. Later
he also designed most of the interesting AMI Singing Tower models in the
early forties. However, it ought to be mentioned that Henry T. Roberts,
who normally worked for the J. P. Seeburg Corporation, as a freelancer assigned
a remarkable Singing Tower design patent to the Automatic Musical
Instrument Company (Lloyd J. Andres) in 1941. The talents of industrial
designers became an important asset of the big jukebox manufacturers in
Chicago, Grand Rapids, and North Tonawanda.
The
J. P. Seeburg Corporation seriously introduced transparent plastics in the
cabinets in 1938, as mentioned before, and also other new design effects like
for example the use of nickel-plated castings had a certain influence on the
marketing possibilities. The nickel-plated parts of the models from The Rudolph
Wurlitzer Company, especially of the models Wurlitzer 500, 600
and the counter-top model 61, and the introduction of colour cylinders
in model 500, made the Wurlitzer jukeboxes very popular. Now it was not
only a matter of an illuminated jukebox, but the idea of changing colours had
come to stay. The other big manufacturing companies had to find new ways in
order to compete, and as an example the Rock-Ola Manufacturing Corporation used
big areas of catalin-plastics in the models Rock-Ola
Standard 20 and Deluxe 20 of 1939, and the year after in all models Rock-Ola
Master 20 and Super 20 Luxury Lightup.
Another competitor, the Mills Novelty Company of Chicago, produced the nice Laurence B. Burnham
styled Throne of Music and Everett B. Eckland
styled Empress full-size jukeboxes in 1939-1941 with big cabinet areas
of transparent plastics (different colour combinations were available).
According to the manager Arthur V. Cooley,
Everett Byron Eckland also designed the previous Do-Re-Mi, Swing
King, Studio, and Zephyr models of 1936-1938, but
unfortunately none of the designs were filed for patent. The special Art Deco
design of the Empress model makes it in great demand among collectors
today, and talking about Art Deco design of those years one cannot forget the AMI
Streamliner designed by Lloyd J. Andres and produced by the Automatic
Musical Instrument Company. Lloyd J. Andres had several Streamliner
designs patented, but they were never manufactured. These designs were together
with several other remarkable Singing
Tower designs published for the first time in the editor's publication of
1994 entitled "Golden Age Juke-Box Design 1934-1951".
The
special version of jukeboxes to be used in small locations, often called
counter-top or miniature jukeboxes, was a well-known type around 1938/39, and
the leading manufacturer, The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, marketed until 1941/42
the nice counter models Wurlitzer 41, 51, 61, 71,
and 81 with a compact mechanism developed and patented by the inventor Otto A. Hokanson,
who was also manager of the New Products and Patents Department. The Rock-Ola
Manufacturing Corporation had to compete with them only the model Rock-Ola
CM-39 of 1939 and later in 1941 the model Rock-Ola 1409, also called
JR-12. There were a few others of the same type on the market, but as a phenomenon they had no chance to
compete with the hide-away units connected to remote controls, which were
introduced for real in 1939 by the Automatic Musical Instrument Company in the
form of Mighty Midget units, and in the form of Wall-O-Matic and Bar-O-Matic
remote controls produced by the J. P. Seeburg Corporation. The small
counter-top jukeboxes could not survive the hey-days of design and the
competition during the years 1940-42, but the hide-away units did survive
because they could be used in very small locations in the big cities. The
impressive AMI Singing Tower models also survived during the war,
operated by an affiliation of AMI, Singing Towers Inc. in Chicago, until the
Automatic Musical Instrument Company of Grand Rapids introduced the AMI
Model A, also called Mother of Plastic. The AMI Model A was
designed by the industrial designer Jean Otis Reinecke,
who assigned the design patent to the company in 1946.
In
the year 1940 the hey-days of design really started with the full-size models Wurlitzer
700 and 800, and the counter-top model Wurlitzer 41 made by
the company in
At
the J. P. Seeburg Corporation, the designers choose not to use extreme visual
effects, but some unique automatic phonographs were manufactured in 1940. The Square
Top series, namely Seeburg Cadet, Commander, and Concert
Master (nicknamed Faces) with matching Seeburg Top Spot
speaker unit, was indeed something special, but unfortunately that series with Rainbo-Glo
illumination was not design patented. However, it is possible that Nels A.
Miller was responsible for the Square Top series. The year before Henry
T. Roberts designed and patented nearly all models with Marbl-Glo
illumination for the company, but there are so distinct differences in details,
that it seems correct to assume that Nels A. Miller designed the model line of
1940. Henry T. Roberts also design patented the following Hitone
Symphonola series of 1941/42 equipped with the
new sliding-tray mechanism invented and filed for patent in August 1937 by Carl G. Freborg
and his father, piano maker Charles A. Freborg.
The sales department at Seeburg dubbed this model their Minute Man
model to promote the sale of defence bonds. After the Hitone
series the production was stopped for a short period until after the war, when
the new and interesting Trash Can models were design patented by Nels
Allen Miller, as mentioned before.
The
model line of the years 1941/42 from the Rock-Ola Manufacturing Corporation
shows some of the most remarkable cabinets of the Golden Age, the ToneColumn series, which in fact represented big
combined remote control and speaker units. The today well-known representative
of the series was Rock-Ola Spectravox 1801/1802
with a dial instead of push buttons. All ToneColumn
models with selector unit could be used in connection with the newly introduced
Playmaster hide-away mechanism. During the war
year 1942 before the factory production stopped the models Rock-Ola Commando,
Premier 1413 and President 1414 with top speaker unit made by the
American Jensen company, were made in limited numbers. They were a natural
continuation of the ToneColumn principle, but
they now had a complete mechanism and amplifier in the lower part of the
cabinet. The Rock-Ola Commando was the basic model built in two
variations, the common one using glass panels and the other using catalin-plastics, and the Premier 1413 and President
1414 were only made in very limited numbers. Caused by war restrictions the
limited series had glass pilastres, and maybe due to
the size and the fact that they did not look like ordinary jukeboxes with push
buttons they were never considered a real success among operators.
Nevertheless, it is interesting to note from the indication of the design
patents, sound reproducing apparatus, that they were not meant for
built-in mechanisms in the first place. The following production obviously went
in another direction, and it is also confusing that David C. Rockola a few years later used the same indication sound
reproducing apparatus for two design patents for the Rock-Ola 1420
series.
In
1941 there were at least five totally unknown design patents by David C. Rockola for ToneColumn
auxiliary speakers without selector units, but they were most probably never
produced. The Rock-Ola Manufacturing Corporation had after that, like the other
big companies in the business, a period of three or four years where no new
models were produced.
Considering
the line of jukeboxes from The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company made during the years
before the war stop between 1943 and 1945 one can easily get the impression
that nothing could stop the Paul M. Fuller team from making nice play appealing
models. The team was in fact way ahead of the other designer teams in the
business, and it is surprising that Paul M. Fuller never design patented the
Victory line models: the Wurlitzer 750, the Wurlitzer 780 also
called Wagon Wheel, the Wurlitzer 850 generally known as the Peacock,
and finally the Wurlitzer 950 of 1942 often referred to as Pipes of
Pan, which was the last in direct series. The company celebrated the
National Wurlitzer Days, the 5th and 6th January, 1941, by introducing the
Victory line of three console and two counter-top models (750, 780,
850, 41, and 81). However, the war took longer than
expected and the model 950 was not referred to as part of the Victory
line. It is interesting that the previous models Wurlitzer 700 and 800
of 1940 were not design patented, and also that the same can be said about the
successive model in colonial style officially named Victory by the
company. It may therefore be reasonable to assume that the models made in those
few years in the early forties at The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company were designed
by the team at the factory and not by one particular person (Paul M. Fuller did
not want to take all the credit), although it was stated by general sales
manager Milton G. Hammergren in the "Coin Machine Review" in January,
1941, that the Victory line was
designed by Paul M. Fuller, and that the Victory Models were the most beautiful
phonographs ever to bear the Wurlitzer nameplate.
A
new detail in the design of the Wurlitzer 850 was that it had
illuminated push buttons that turned dark when selection had been made. The
feature in question was not quite easy to combine with another operational
detail, namely the electric selection mechanism. In the earlier years of
mechanical selection the customers could see which records had been selected,
and therefore they avoided selecting the same record again. With the new
electric selection mechanism the same record could be selected several times,
but normally only played once. In short, the new electric selector gave the
operator(s) an opportunity to earn more due to the motto that the customer
would be satisfied if only he heard the tune he had paid for. The Wurlitzer
750 was the first jukebox from the company with an electric selection
mechanism. The last model in the series, the Wurlitzer 950 of 1942, was
originally produced with glass pilastres and not as
the previous models with catalin-plastics, and the
use of many wooden parts in the cabinet combined with a very limited production
number makes it very popular among collectors today.
As
mentioned before there was a production stop among jukebox manufacturers in the
years from 1943 until 1945/46 mainly due to lack of metal and other material,
and a few of the factories built military equipment instead of music machines.
Another reason was of course that jukeboxes were 'non-important' products
officially during the armament, and thus it was necessary to wait until autumn
1945 before new design patents could see the light of day. However, one
company of the era that deserves to be mentioned, although it was short lived
from 1938 until 1942, is the Cinematone Corp. at 1107
North Highland Avenue in Hollywood headed by dentist and inventor Gordon Keith Woodard
(1911-1986). The coin-op film projectors made and operated by the company were
not successful, but another venture of the company, that ought to be remembered
today, is the very rare and much desired Penny
Phono jukebox developed by William Peter Falkenberg (1889-1973),
amusement park owner from Tulsa, Oklahoma. William P.
Falkenberg invented and patented several rifle range gaming devices late in the
1930s for Rayolite based in Chicago, and he was
president of the Rayolite Distributing Co.. The
unusual, compact Penny Phono machine
used special 12-inch 20-song transcription records that played at an
ever-increasing speed starting at 20rpm and ending at about 60rpm, and the
jukebox was introduced to the public in September, 1939. From April 1940 the
company was headed by Erle Miles Burnham (1879-1943),
and the manager of the motion picture factory, the former Associated Cinema
Studios, was Fred John Alberty (1897-1982).
Gordon K. Woodard and William P. Falkenberg withdrew from active participation
and became stockholders. The Cinematone Corp.
had of course its own recording studio at 1357 Gordon Street to produce the
special records, as the Penny Phono
could not play regular 78rpm records, and a very special person was head of the
Cinematone Music Department in the years around 1940,
namely the talented drummer Lindley Armstrong Jones
(1911-1965) better known today by the name Spike Jones. The cabinets for Penny
Phono phonographs were made at Erle M. Burnhamˈs
furniture factory at 1935 South Los Angeles Street, the facilities of the
former Burnham Phonograph Manufacturing Co..
After
the war, towards the end of the golden era, all four big companies and a few
others introduced new cabinet types for automatic phonographs, and Paul M.
Fuller again had several cabinet designs patented and assigned to The Rudolph
Wurlitzer Company, which was still the leading firm in the business. The
post-war models were produced in large numbers followed by very effective
marketing, and the models in mind were of course the famous Wurlitzer 1015,
the following model 1080 and finally the Wurlitzer 1100 with a well designed Encore program selector. The last of
the three models was nicknamed Bullet or Bomber Nose by the
public, and all three models were design patented by Paul M. Fuller in the
period 1946 until 1948. With direct reference to the Wurlitzer 1015
design there was a special cabinet named Ambassador to be produced in
1948 by a small firm in
In
the period 1946 until 1948 the Rock-Ola Manufacturing Corporation produced
three cabinet types: the Rock-Ola 1422, the 1426, and finally the
1428 also named Magic-Glo, and there are in fact three design
patents related to that series, all officially made by David C. Rockola. Two of them can be related directly to the models Rock-Ola
1422 and 1428, but the last of the three relates to details on both
the 1422 and the
In
Grand Rapids a new AMI Model B was introduced in 1948 by the Automatic
Musical Instrument Company to follow the Mother of Plastic designed by Jean Otis Reinecke
(1909-1987). The next model, the AMI Model C was made in 1949, and it is
normally not considered to belong to the Golden Age of American
jukeboxes. Both models were not design patented. The name of the company was
officially changed to AMI Inc. in 1946, and it was finally sold to Automatic
Canteen Company of America in the spring of 1959. The Automatic Canteen Company
of America, a major vending machine operating company founded 1929 by Nathaniel Leverone,
also owned Rowe International, a vending machine manufacturing company, and the
two subsidiaries were amalgamated as Rowe/AMI around 1960.
The
last of the four big companies, the J. P. Seeburg Corporation, produced as
mentioned earlier three Trash Can models designed by Nels A. Miller in
the period 1946 until 1948. Nels A. Miller and the all aluminum
Symphonola P- boxes led the company to
the end of the Golden Age. The era ended in fact with the well-known Mahlon W. Kenney
styled Seeburg M-100-A with Select-O-Matic vertical play
mechanism invented by Edward F. Andrews
around 1941. The new model was introduced in 1948/49 as the first jukebox with
100 selections in 78rpm, but many of the M-100-A's were in fact
converted to play 45rpm records in the years to come. In connection with the
use of 78rpm vs. 45rpm format in jukeboxes it is rather interesting to note the
comments sent to the editor by Morgan Wright, who wrote the following facts: "...Black people preferred the 78rpm format until the late
50's even in their jukeboxes, because they were living in poverty, and when the
78rpm jukeboxes in white neighborhoods were being
replaced by 45rpm jukeboxes, the operators (all of whom were white) had to use
the old 78rpm jukeboxes for something. They couldn't just throw them away, so
they stuck them in black neighborhoods and also
hillbilly juke-joints, while the people with money used the 45rpm jukeboxes.
One will notice that many R&B and C&W records were still being pressed
in 78rpm until as late as 1957-58, but it's very rare to find 78rpm recordings
of popular white 'pop' music later than 1952-53...". Those are,
whether we like it or not, true and interesting historic comments.
At this point, it is reasonable to mention that the
first mechanism for vertical double-sided play of 78rpm records for commercial
phonographs was constructed and patented in June 1935 by the electrician Henri
Paul Louis Couly (1905-1979) in France. The mechanism
was introduced to the public in October 1936 at Le Salon des Inventions
(Concours Lépine) in Paris, and Henri Couly received a Diplôme de Grand Prix for his invention.
The complete patent for the semi-automatic mechanism was, however, filed in
June 1948, and Henri Couly also filed a new patent in
May 1953 for vertical double-sided play of 45rpm records to be used in
commercial phonographs made in his own workshop. The Couly
family grave can be found at the Cimetière Ville Haute in the village Provins
in France.
A
rather special phenomenon in the history of jukeboxes was remote control via
telephone lines, or more correctly music ordering via phone. The idea of big
central music libraries was not something new as there had been such libraries
in the early years of the 20th century, but they had not been connected to
restaurants, saloons, or diners. In the forties several music ordering systems
were used around in America, for example the Rock-Ola Mystic Music, the Jennings
Telephone Music first known as Magic Music in Columbus, Ohio, the Scotto
Melody Master mainly used in Sacramento, California, and not to forget the Shyvers' Multiphone system designed,
introduced, and operated for more than a decade by Kenneth C. Shyvers,
and his wife Eloise, in the cities Olympia, Seattle, and Tacoma, in Washington.
Another
line in the jukebox history led to the big audio/visual machines, which mainly
the Mills Novelty Company of
Towards the end of this short American design history some manufacturer
and designer names, that had a certain importance, ought to be mentioned. At
the end of the war a company that originally made radar equipment and
electronics went into the jukebox business. The first jukebox series from the
Aireon Manufacturing Corporation founded by William J. Hosmer
and Randolph C. Walker
was designed and patented in 1946 by Canadian born Ernest F. Thomson
(1914-1997). The box was officially named Aireon Super De Luxe, but also
nicknamed Airliner because of the size. From the very first day the new player in the coin-op phonograph field
caused a lot of buzz-buzz in the industry, and the Canadian born vice-president
Rudolph (Rudy) Greenbaum
(1912-1994) was in charge of the phonograph division from the autumn 1945 until
May 1948. Rudy Greenbaum was from 1939 until 1942 sales manager of the Packard
manufacturing Corp. in Indianapolis, and then until 1945 he served with the WMC
in Kansas City. However, the first serious production of Aireon jukeboxes was a
little delayed and started in May 1946, and after six months the phonograph
division and plant manager Joseph Bush
(1892-1950) could celebrate machine #10,000 leaving the assembly line on the
30th November 1946. The following Aireon Fiesta series was
also design patented by Ernest F. Thomson, and the auxiliary speakers, the Impressario, the Melodeon, and the Carilleon, were all designed by Jay B. Doblin
(1920-1989), who was associated with the Raymond Loewy Studio in New York for
twelve years. All patents were assigned to the independent federal agency
Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which had become responsible for the
production of Aireon commercial phonographs due to financial
difficulties in the Aireon Manufacturing Corporation founded in 1937. The
following phonograph model of 1948 officially named Aireon Coronet,
nicknamed Canned Ham by the public,
was unfortunately not design patented, but it is possible that the design of
the cabinet was part of a complete functional patent not yet located in the
archives. The last new model was introduced at the coin machine show in January
1949, and the Aireon Manufacturing Corp. was finally liquidated by the RFC in
January 1950. It is important to mention that the Aireon company was a merger
in 1939 between a company founded 1932 by Thomas Lee Siebenthaler
in Kansas City, Missouri, and the company founded in 1937 by William J. Hosmer
and Randolph C. Walker in Burbank, California.
Another production shortly after the war was the Packard line
made by the Packard Manufacturing Company (founded in 1932 and named after
Packard Avenue in Fort Wayne). Another company, also founded by Homer Earl
Capehart (1928), had been active with several Orchestrope
models for years before the war, but the new company was not active until the mid forties. Homer Earl Capehart was also for years in the
thirties (mid 1933 through 1939) connected to The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company as
general sales manager. After the war, when Homer Earl Capehart had become
senator of Indiana (served in the Senate 1945-1963), the Packard company was
revived and headed by the founder's son, Thomas C.
Capehart, and the jukebox series Packard 7 Pla-Mor
(pronounced play more) and Packard Manhattan with matching
speakers was produced until the spring of 1949. The Packard 7 Pla-Mor
was design patented by Robert L. Ardner, and the Packard
Manhattan introduced in January, 1948, was design patented by Russell E. Brandenburger Sr..
Edward E. Collison, who
constructed most of the mechanical parts for Packard jukeboxes together
with Paul U. Lannerd,
assigned several nicely designed speakers and remote controls to Homer Earl
Capehart as early as 1941, and among them was also the Packard Butler
remote control unit. The design of the Butler was in fact part of a
complete functional patent. The Packard Manufacturing Company was finally taken
over by The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company early in September, 1951. It is sad to
remember today that the last head of Packard Manufacturing Co., Thomas Charles Capehart and his wife Nancy Elizabeth
both died in a Jamaican plane crash on Thomasˈ birthday, the 21st January,
1960.
Concerning the Capehart Butler
remote controls of 1941 it is important also to mention the Buckley version. The
Buckley Music System Inc. at 4223 West Lake Street was established in 1939 as
an affiliation of the Buckley Manufacturing Co. at 2156 West Washington
Boulevard, Chicago, founded in 1929 by Patrick J. Buckley
supported by his older brother Hubert G. Buckley.
The Buckley Manufacturing Co. was active on the market until late in the 1950s,
when federal laws to regulate interstate shipment of slot machines were
implemented by company raids, and among others also Buckley had to stop
production of mechanical coin operated gambling machines. More than sixty
different slot machines and pin tables were made with the Buckley name plate
between 1929 and 1958. The Buckley Music System Inc. was active as a separate
affiliation from the autumn 1939 and used mainly mechanics and record changers
from other major manufacturers in the field. However, the remote selector units
and speakers were developed, designed, and patented by the skilled engineer Earle G. Henry, and
at least fourteen patents related to the music system are known. The main
units, which were steel cabinets containing Twin-12 or Twin-24 Simplex record changers from WurliTzer or Daily Double-Track
changers, were sold as hideaways with a set of Buckley Music Box remote controls, nicknamed Buck, and usually one mighty lite-up Zephyr wall speaker. Smaller wall speakers were of course
available, and the lite-up Buck
selector units could over the years be delivered in chrome, gold or different colours with or without red or yellow side plastics. It is
known that a ceiling speaker was made, but size and colour
is unfortunately not known.
The Filben
FP-300 Maestro was another jukebox of the post-war golden era, which today
is reckoned to be something special by enthusiasts. The first models with the
official name Filben (mechanism based on the
original patent filed on the 15th July, 1937, by William Michael Filben) were made according to a license contract of
September 1938 with the Rock-Ola Manufacturing Corporation, but unfortunately
William Michael Filben
died on the 1st May, 1940, without any company name officially registered. The
rights under the license contract, however, were then vested in his widow,
Berniece M. Filben, and in three minor daughters
(Patricia, Rosemary, and Dolores). Later the widow assigned all rights to the
newly constructed Filben Manufacturing Co. against
51% of the shares, and the production of automatic phonographs was carried out
by the co-owner of the company, Leonard Egan Baskfield
(49% of the shares). The actual production of the mechanisms and cabinets took
place at Batavia Metal Products Inc. according to a contract stating that an
initial amount of 10,000 such phonographs should be produced. The contract also
provided for re-designing of the cabinet at the expense of Batavia Metal
Products Inc., and the distribution of all Filben
phonographs, including the Mirrocle
Music line with stow-a-way unit FM-S2, was carried out by the
U.S. Challenge Co. in
One
of the last important jukebox productions of the Golden Age took place
at the Mills Novelty Company, also known as Mills Industries Inc. after the
company name was officially changed on the 16th July, 1943. The firm is
mentioned previously, also in connection with audio/visual machines, but after
the war the production of ordinary jukeboxes went on with the Mills
Constellation models. The mechanism used in the last series of Mills
phonographs was developed by the team headed by the technical director John P. (Midge) Ryan, and the
cabinet for the Constellation was designed by the noted industrial
designer Walter Lockwood Martling Jr.,
who was also responsible for some remarkable drafts for Mills speakers and
remote controls in 1946/47. Finally, after the phonograph division of Mills
Industries Inc. had been taken over by the H. C. Evans Company, the Constellation
model was produced in two versions, models 950 and 951, of which
the model 951 had a fully visible mechanism. The H. C. Evans Co. was
like the Mills firm an old family owned firm founded in 1892 by Edwin C. (Ed) Hood, and after his death managed
for decades by his son Richard W. (Dick) Hood. The firm was liquidated in
April 1955.
It
is still possible to locate new jukebox related patents, but all the known
American design patents of the Golden Age were published for the first
time in the editor's publication entitled "Golden Age Juke-Box Design
1934-1951". The
publication was printed in 1994 (limited edition).
Gert J. Almind