Jukebox History 1952-1998
The
Silver Age of jukeboxes is often described as the period starting with
the first 100-selection phonograph, Seeburg
M-100-A and -B, introduced by the J. P. Seeburg
Corporation in 1948/49, and ending with the last models with visible record
changing mechanism in the early sixties. However, it is interesting to note
that the first real chrome Silver Age boxes were introduced around 1952, one year after
the death of the leading designer of the Golden Age, Paul M. (Malt) Fuller. He died at the Millard Fillmore
Hospital in Buffalo on the 29th March, 1951, only 54
years of age.
In
the early years of the fifties the Seeburg
Corporation (founded in 1902) produced nice machines with pilastres
and visible mechanisms, and none of the models had names with the previously
used Symphonola prefix. The first one was
model M-100-C of 1952, known from the M.A.S.H. series on television, and after
that came the somewhat similar HF-100-G and W-100 models of
1953. Very nice jukeboxes and after that a new style in design was tried out.
The models HF-100-R Bandshell and HF-100-J
of 1954 had a boomerang-shaped top section, and beautyful
as they were they became quite popular in cafés and diners. In 1955 the Seeburg company introduced the
first American 200-selection jukebox, the model V-200 / VL-200
with Dual Music System, often nicknamed the Towel-rail. At
this point in the mid fifties the company was hit by litigation under the
Sherman Anti-Trust Act and found guilty of operating a closed network of
operators and distributors which was judged to impose unreasonable restraint on
other tradesmen. Anyway, none of the jukebox cabinets mentioned so far was ever design
patented, but it is obvious that they represented a new line after the Symphonolas designed by Nels
A. Miller. The next industrial designer to be a well-known jukebox trend-setter
for Seeburg was Carl W. Sundberg.
It is quite clear that the KD-200 and the L-series of 1957
came from his drawing-board, but his first patented design was filed in
November, 1958, The cabinet of model 222 / 220
was the first of a number of patented Sundberg
designs in the early sixties. In 1956 the Seeburg
family sold out the company activities to Delbert Coleman and the Fort Pitt
Industries, and in 1964 the Seeburg Corporation took
over the Williams company from industry investors, the Commonwealth United
Corp. and the XCor International Inc., and in 1977
the company itself was renamed XCor International
(but still known also as the Seeburg Industries). It
seems that the Seeburg company
was sold again due to financial difficulties among the investors in 1979/80 to
become the Seeburg Division of the Stern Electronics
Inc. (until March,
1984). Williams, by the
way, was extricated at that time. The founder of the Seeburg
company, Justinus Percival Sjöberg
(born 20th April, 1871), immigrated to the States in 1887, aged 16, and took the name
Seeburg when he was granted American citizenship in
1892. Many people
immigrated to the States during those days, usually
arriving by boat and
passing the Statue of Liberty on their way to Ellis Island. Today Ellis Island
and the Statue of Liberty are reminders that the United States is truly a
country of immigrants.
Justus P. Seeburg died on the 21st October, 1958, in Stockholm, 87 years of age, and was according
to the official archives cremated. His ashes were then sent to the States for
burial, and he was not as could be expected buried in Gothenburg (Göteborg) where he was born. Justus P. Seeburg
was according to the obituary survived by his second wife Gurli
Maria (married in July, 1950), his only son Noel Marshall, and his two
grandsons Justus Percival II and Noel Marshall Jr..
During
the same period in the early Silver Age, after a difficult start with
the models 1432 Rocket, 1434 Super Rocket, and 1436
Fireball, the Rock-Ola Manufacturing Corporation tried to compete with the
Seeburg Corporation, and produced the models, 1442
and 1446, that looked very much like the Seeburgs.
They were not design patented, and the same was the case with the nice models 1448,
1452 and 1454, which were produced with minor changes until
1956. The three models were together with the later Tempo series the
high points amongst Rock-Ola's output during the Silver Age.
After the 1954-56 models came the non-patented models 1455-S and 1458,
and finally in 1959 the first and only 'new' David C. Rockola
design patented wall-mounted model 1464 was produced.
After
Paul M. Fuller left The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, and Joseph J. Clement (designer of
Wurlitzer’s smallest barbox, model 2140 nicknamed Frogbox, together with Harry C.
Kline Jr. in 1947) had
taken over the designing responsibility, there were many new ideas how to catch
up with the 100 selections offered by Seeburg. The
company introduced several complicated add-on bits to the Simplex mechanism
(including the WurliMagic Brain
system for the model 1500 to play both 78 and 45rpm records), but most
of the models, 1250 of 1950 through 1650A of 1953, failed in
the competition. When the new 104-selection model 1700 was introduced
in 1954, the company was at a turning point, and finally in 1956, the centenary
year of the company, a new elegantly styled 200-selection model 2000
Centennial, came out from the factory. None of the Silver Age
models from Wurlitzer were design patented, but it was difficult for
competitors to copy the cabinets because they were well matched with the
patented carousel mechanism. The company continued with the new elegant style
until late in 1957, when the less expensive model 2150 was introduced.
After that the Wurlitzers, the models 2200
through 2250, became less elegant in square cabinets. The company was
ready for the next decade, the sixties, with a lot of box-shaped jukebox
cabinets. However, it is important to mention that the German branch of the
company, Deutsche Wurlitzer GmbH, was founded in 1960, and that the European
branch started production of the Lyric in 1961. The Lyric was
produced with modifications until 1973. During the fifties and sixties Farny Reginald Wurlitzer (born 7th December 1883, deceased
6th May 1972) headed the main company as the last of the three brothers, who
had inherited the company after its founder, Franzis
Rudolph Wurlitzer, born in Schilbach (Schöneck) in Saxony (born 1st February 1831, deceased 14th
January 1914). The other two brothers in the second generation heading the
company were Howard Eugene Wurlitzer (born 5th September 1871, deceased 30th
October 1928) and Rudolph Henry Wurlitzer (born 31st December 1873, deceased
27th May 1948).
In
order to continue the line of the most important jukebox manufacturers of the Silver
Age it is now time for a few words about the company AMI, The Automatic
Musical Instruments Inc., in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Like the other two big manufacturers AMI was caught a little off guard
when Seeburg introduced the 100-selection model in
1948/49, but it was somewhat easier to increase the number of selections on the
'Model 500 Record Changer' up to a total of 120 selections in 45rpm in
the models E-120, F-120, and G-120 of the period
1953 until 1956, until a new carousel mechanism was introduced for model G-200
of 1956. The 'Model 500 Record Changer' was based on two original
patents filed in October, 1946, by Anthony M. Kasnowich
and by Harry Herbert Vanderzee and Robert A.
McCallum. Both rather important patents were assigned to AMI, and finally
granted in April 1953 and January 1954. The design patent for the model G-200
was filed in September, 1955, by Melvin H. Boldt.
Melvin H. Boldt then carried on with the line of eye
catching H-, I-, Jubilee- and K-cabinets of
1957-1960 (the G-, H- and the Jubilee-models were
copied by European license holders). As the noted president of AMI, John W.
Haddock, decided to retire from the jukebox business around 1961, and the
Automatic Canteen Company of America
had taken over the company administration, a new designer, Jack R. Mell, was consulted. He would soon come up with a strange
but beautiful patented cabinet design.
One
of the most remarkable productions of the Silver Age, the United Music
Corporation, came up with a line of four models in the late fifties. The first
two models, the UPA-100 and UPB-100, and the carousel
mechanism and finally the design for the Ultra Compact Wall-Box
resulted in four patents by Lyndon A. Durant. Raymond Loewy is often related to
the design of the United series, but the correct name
on the patents is Lyndon A. Durant. The industrial design legend Raymond Loewy
was one of the architects of the American Streamline Movement, and his
style surely influenced the design of the United
jukeboxes. The models, UPA-100, UPB-100, UPC-100,
and UPD-100, produced from 1957 until 1961 never became a success, as
they were almost unrivalled in the capacity to radiate absolutely nothing, and
the Seeburg Corporation finally bought up the company
in 1964 (also taking over the Williams company).
A
few of the minor American productions in the early fifties can be added here.
The Ristaucrat company owned by the three brothers
Alfred, Harold, and Arnold Ristau had been active in
the very early thirties, but the depression forced them to stop production and
sell the Paul H. Smyth Jr. patented mechanism to the Rock-Ola Manufacturing Company.
Again in 1950 through 1954 they tried to find a market for small inexpensive
machines with the Ristaucrat 45 and
S-45, but like the Chicago Coin Hit Parade and the Williams
Music Mite there was no immediate nation-wide success although it seems they
took the largest share of the market. Later they even tried with a new concept
and made a limited number of 50 Ristaucrat
models for export. In the early sixties they tried at last with a new style Melodie Vendor, but still without
noticeable success, and they ceased production of jukeboxes completely in 1964.
The firm H. C. Evans & Co. took over the phonograph division of the Mills
Novelty Company in December, 1948, and continued to produce the Constellation
model in 1951. After that the company produced the models Jubilee, Century,
Holiday, and Jewel until 1955, when the by then liquidated
firm was sold to Jose Tabachnik and Abraham Grinberg in Mexico
City. The machinery from the factory was then moved to
Mexico
to become the first real jukebox manufacturing plant in the country. The
product names Holiday and Jewel
continued after the sale, but the design was nothing to brag about. The first new Mexican model to follow was the Maya. A lot can
be said about the American jukebox design of the fifties, and the resemblance
with tail-lights and fins of the cars can be found on the Seeburg
KD-200 and the Rock-Ola Tempo series. They represented
distinct features taken from American fifties automobile culture with a lot of
fins and chrome.
Moving
on to the sixties the design of music machines became quite different, and a
lot of design patents were filed in order to protect the models in competition
with the few other big manufacturers on the American market. Especially AMI,
now also by the name of Rowe/AMI, and Seeburg used
the right to design patent the cabinets. At AMI the two distinct designs for XJ
Continental and XJ Lyric were filed for patent in
August, 1960, by Jack R. Mell. The XJ Continental
is often referred to as the Radar, and both the Lyric and the
Continental are much loved today by collectors and enthusiasts. After the
two models designed by Jack R. Mell (patents granted
in 1962), Melvin H. Boldt took over the trend-setting
again at Rowe/AMI, and design patented the following models through the sixties:
JAL-200 and JEL-200 (1963), JBM Tropicana (1964), JAN
Diplomat (1965), Wall-ette (remote
control unit, 1965), MM-1 Music Merchant (1967), CMM-1 Cadette (1968), MM-2 Music Master (1968).
After the Music Master the official name of the product line was
simply Rowe, and Melvin H. Boldt design patented the
following models from 1969 until 1973: MM-3 Music Miracle (1969), MM-4
Trimount (1970) named in honour of Rowe's New
England dealer team, MM-5 President Line (1971), the RI-1
line and the TI-1 line (1973). After that Melvin H. Boldt designed the following models around 1980/81: R-82
Woodhue (1980), R-83 Claremont (1981),
and finally the R-84 Prelude (1981). Year in parenthesis indicates the
year the patent was granted. One Rowe design of the era, however, had other
names attached to it: The front panel for the CDII Cadette
de Luxe Violetta was
filed for design patent by Walter L. Koch and Robert P. Franklin in 1971 and
the patent was granted in 1973. Most models of the eighties clearly show the
lines from the Boldt-designed boxes. Some trendy
styles were the R-85 Starlight (1981), R-86 Blue Magic
(1982), and the Sapphire series (R-87 through R-92)
leading to the new compact-disc era of jukeboxes that started around 1987.
At
Seeburg the following models were design patented by
Carl W. Sundberg in the very early sixties: Q100
and Q160 (1960) plus the 3W100 Wall-O-Matic
(remote control unit, 1960). James Cameron Gordon (sales president) and
Theodore A. Dobson, however, designed the DS100 and DS160
(1962). Mahlon W. Kenney (principal engineer for
decades) and Carl W. Sundberg designed the following
remote control unit, the Consolette
SCH-1 (1963), and Carl W. Sundberg and Theodore
A. Dobson designed the LPC-1 and LPC-1R phonograph cabinets
(1963). The following model, the LPC-480, was designed by William C. Prutting (1964). William G. Broman and Theodore A. Dobson
designed the PFEAIU Electra and APFEAI Fleetwood
(1965/66) and after that Carl W. Sundberg designed
both the SS-160 Stereo Showcase (1967) and the S-100 Phono-Jet (1967). It is interesting to note that the Phono-Jet model came out as a mirror
image of the patented design. After the 1967 models Raoul
E. Rodriguez and Carl W. Sundberg designed the LS1
Spectra (1968), and Carl W. Sundberg alone
designed the following two models, the LS2 Gem (1969) and LS3
Apollo (1970). The Golden Jet (1970) was designed by William G.
Broman. In 1971 Carl W. Sundberg finally assigned the
patent for the Seeburg Apollo Consolette
(a wall mounted selector unit) to the production company Walter E. Heller &
Co. in Chicago.
In the following decade, the seventies, there were a few additional patented
designs from Seeburg: The USC1 Musical Bandshell (1971) was designed by Robert A. O'Neil
alone, and the following Marauder SX-100 (1972), the FC1 Regency
(1973), and the SB100 Magna Star (1975/76) were
all designed by Robert A. O'Neil in collaboration with Michael C. Wilson. Some
of the other trendy designs of the seventies (after Carl W. Sundberg)
and eighties were not patented by the Seeburg company. For example the SPS Olympian (1972) and SPS2
Matador, FC1 Regency (1973), STD Vogue II (1974), STD2
Entertainer (1975), Sunstar (1976), SMC1
Disco (1978), SMC3 Prelude (1984), and the compact-disc play Crusader
(1986/87) followed by the new, nostalgic style. The SMC3 Prelude was
the first model after the Seeburg Division of the
Stern Electronics Inc. had been purchased in March, 1984, by the new Seeburg Phonograph Corporation formed by a group of industry investors including Noel Marshall Seeburg Jr. (3rd generation of the founding family). In the
early nineties the firm was renamed Seeburg
International, also known as the Seeburg
Manufacturing & Supply Company owned by the Seeburg
Satellite Broadcasting Corporation (1998). Since then the company has left the
scene completely.
None
of the models from the other two big jukebox companies, the Rock-Ola
Manufacturing Corporation and The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, were design
patented in the sixties and seventies. It seems strange because there were so
many models produced at both companies. It seems that the major manufacturers
including Rock-Ola and Wurlitzer were slightly behind the current design trends
in the late sixties and early seventies. It was obvious, however, that the
cabinet design was considered an important component of the complete product
when sound transmission really was a factor. Plastic, that had been at first a
novelty, was in the sixties a necessary component material, but jukeboxes were
moved from one location to the other, and literally had to be built to
withstand the beating they were constantly subjected to during transport. At
Wurlitzer it was simply a matter of building a cabinet with or without plastic
that enhanced the tone, protected the mechanism, was durable, attractive, and
that would blend with any location decor, and still allowed the finished
jukebox to be sold at a reasonable price. In the sixties Wurlitzer produced
several box-shaped machines, for example models 2600 through 3000,
the 3100 Americana, the Satellite, and finally 3600 SuperStar and 3700 Americana III. The last
try by Wurlitzer came in 1973/74 with the unique limited edition revival of
vintage phonograph styling, the model 1050 Nostalgia using the
electromechanical selector unit, known as Wurlamatic,
developed by Frank B. Lumney and Ronald P. Eberhardt around 1967 (patented in September, 1972). The 1050
Nostalgia is often referred to as the 'swan song' for the American
Wurlitzer (production run of 2,000 ended in December, 1973), and the company finally
stopped production with the model 3800 in 1974 leaving a legacy of
wonderful music machines. At that time Deutsche Wurlitzer GmbH, a division of
the corporation, had already manufactured the Carousel model for the
American market, and continued production of the following models with
modifications until the mid eighties: Cabaret, Atlanta, Baltic,
Lyric, Tarock, X2, Niagara,
X5, X7, and X9 (X200), Cabarina,
Carillon, Silhouette, Estrella,
Barcarole, Caravelle, Fuego,
the Tele-Disc model nicknamed the Flying Saucer, and
finally the SL200. Some of them had rather psychedelic colour decor to
attract attention.
Rock-Ola,
however, never stopped production although the cabinets became very discreet,
designed to blend into the background rather than be the focus of attention.
During the sixties, through the seventies, and into the eighties the company
produced a lot of models. The 418 Rhapsody II of 1964 was the last one
of the era with visible mechanism through the front glass. After that came the
following models, all with the new Mech-O-Matic mechanism: 426 Grand Prix, 429
Starlet, 431 Coronado,
433 GP/Imperial, 434 Concerto, 435 Princess Deluxe, 436
Centura, 437 Ultra, and the 441
Deluxe Compact plus a few modified models with different numbers. In the
seventies Rock-Ola produced the styles 442 (1970) through 471
(1976), and then the Sybaris and Mystic models in 1978. Those
two models had like some of the Wurlitzer models
rather psychedelic colour decor. It is interesting to note that Donald Charles Rockola, the son of David C. Rockola,
developed and filed the patent for the special 506 Tri-Vue
Wallbox in 1972. Donald C. Rockola
also developed a few other, important jukebox cabinet details for the Rock-Ola
company during the seventies and eighties. The last two patents by Donald C. Rockola (and Shuja Haque) for an album cover display kit for the model 498
of 1989 to make it a 45rpm/compact-disc combination machine, and a compact-disc
holding mechanism for the new model 2000 of 1990, were both filed in
1989, when Rock-Ola Manufacturing Corporation moved into the compact-disc
jukebox era. In the period from 1978 until the mid eighties the following
models had been produced by the Rock-Ola company: Max 477, Techna 480, Vista
488, Super Sound 490, and Encore 494 (1987). In 1987 the
company even tried with something new 'old' stuff, namely the 'exciting,
vintage look' of the Wurlitzer 1050. The original model made in 1973
had not been design patented, and it is obvious that both Wurlitzer and
Rock-Ola found no reason to protect the cabinet designs, as there had to be a
new attraction, a new jukebox, every year with the company name on it. The Wurlitzer
1050 design was also marketed around 1979/80 with the brand name Sonata
1050 Nostalgia by the Corporacion Sonata S.A. in
Mexico (with a sales
division in Culver City, California). The Mexican company purchased
the remains of the Wurlitzer company in 1975, but the new nostalgic
100-selection jukebox was no real success, and the Wurlitzer named company
became part of the Nelson Group of Companies in 1985. Since then, in the late
nineties, the structure of the company has changed, and the main office is
again situated in America,
in Gurnee in Illinois
to be exact. The other major company, the Rock-Ola Manufacturing Corporation,
was finally sold out to the Antique Apparatus Company in September, 1992,
shortly before David Colin (Cullen) Rockola died at
the age of 96 years, but the name Rock-Ola lives on into the next millennium
due to a line of well-designed jukeboxes. The history of most of the modern
American jukebox manufacturers can be found and studied in the great books by
Frank Adams, published 1983 through 1991 by AMR Publishing in Arlington,
Washington.
The
history of the audio/visual jukeboxes of the sixties is also rather
interesting. There were a few registered and patented designs in the States and
in Europe. The well-known film jukeboxes, the Scopitone ST-16 and Scopitone
ST-36, were made in France
in the very late fifties and early sixties. Later the version called Scopitone 450 was produced by Tel-A-Sign
Inc. in Chicago,
but the machines were never as successful as expected. The first original
patent for the Scopitone was filed in July,1956, by the firm Cie d'Applications Mécaniques
à l'Électronique au Cinéma
et à l'Atomistique, also called CAMECA, 103
Boulevard Saint-Denis in Courbevoie, later located at 79 Boulevard Haussmann in
Saint-Denis (both northern suburbs to Paris), and the last of the four known,
registered patents by Jacques Guernet and CAMECA was
granted as late as January, 1966. The basic patent, however, was filed by the
Italian Teresio Dessilani
on the 22nd December, 1958. The company CAMECA was in fact an affiliation of
the Compagnie Générale de
T.S.F. (Télégraphie Sans Fil). The name Scopitone
was an amalgam of the two Greek words scopein
and tonos meaning to observe and the
way musical notes come together and move apart on a scale, and the first
machine, the ST-16, was presented to the
press on the 28th March, 1960, and after that to the public at the 'Foire de Paris', 14th-29th May, 1960, by the engineer Frédéric Mathieu, who was also the general manager of
CAMECA. After the Scopitone patents there
were at least two other interesting film jukebox designs in the sixties. The
European design related to the Cinebox
machines was filed for patent in 1964 by Angelo Bottani
in Milan, Italy, and the model was probably also manufactured by Società Internazionale Fonovisione S.P.A. in Milan. The 40-selection Cinebox
machines were also made on license in France,
and the Colorama (Cinevision)
version was marketed by Intersphere Development
Corp., an affiliation of the Estey Electronics Inc.,
in America
without immediate success. One important feature of the Cinebox
compared to the Scopitone was of course an
Advertising Message Repeater, a device flashing paid advertising messages from
slides onto the screen whenever the machine was idle. The very first Cinebox was in fact presented to the press in
Paris on the 25th February, 1960, by Société Internationale de Phonovision
(French subsidiary of the Italian firm), and shown to the public at the 'Foire de Paris' in May (same time as the Scopitone). The Cinebox
was as a matter of fact invented by the company Società
Internazionale Fonovisione
in Rome (later Milan),
Italy,
in the autumn 1959. The machine was based on the original patent filed on the
12th October, 1959, by Raffaello Nistri.
In America, however, Henry A. Schwartz filed the design patent for the Color-Sonic, also known as the Combi 150, in 1966, and the patent was assigned to the company Color-Sonics Inc. alias National Company Inc. in New York.
The Color-Sonic machines were
manufactured at the facilities of the National Company Inc. in Melrose, Massachusetts.
The other French machines of the same era, the 30-selection Cinecolor and the 50-selection Cinematic
50 for Super-8mm, and the 28-selection Cinematic model for 16mm,
all three made by Société Française
De Radio Télévision, 72 rue Marceau in Montreuil near
Vincennes a little east of the French capital, and the 28-selection Caravelle Tele Box for 16mm made by CIFA,
72 Boulevard du Montparnasse in the 14th district of Paris, were as far as it
is known today not design patented. The idea of film jukeboxes was certainly
not new. The concept can in fact be traced direct back to the Edison Kinetoscope equipped with synchronized sound
(1895) and the first real coin-op moving picture machines patented in 1908 by
Henry K. Sandell (an immigrant Swede) and in 1909 by
Herbert Stephen Mills of Mills Novelty Co. in Chicago. Known as the
manufacturer of the famous 16mm, non-select, 8-film Mills Panoram of the forties designed by Everett B. Eckland. The 'reverse title' or 'rear projection' Mills
Panoram was presented to the public in Chicago
in December, 1939, and the model became more popular and long-lived than other
coin-op motion picture machines of the era like the Vis-O-Graph made
by the famous camera maker Ampro Corporation in
Chicago, the Pic-a-Tune made by the
Phono-Kinema Company in Los Angeles, and of course
the 16mm 'reverse title', non-select, 10-film Phonovision
introduced by the Phonovision Corporation of America
also located in Los Angeles, a company that unfortunately had to fold very
early in the process due to lack of capital. A few design patents related to
those machines are known today, and especially the one filed for patent in 1941
by Abraham Shapiro and assigned to Ampro Corporation
is very nice, and looks to some extent like the Panoram.
The coin-op audio/visual music machines, that combined the eye-appeal of the
motion picture with the ear-appeal of the automatic phonograph, have a history
of their own, but they will always be part of the jukebox history. The story
can be found in several essays and articles, and among them the essay entitled
"The Archaeology of the Music Video: Soundies, Snader Telescriptions, and Scopitones" by Gregory Lukow
published in "National Video Festival, Los Angeles: American Film
Institute, Dec., 1986", and the article entitled "Boxes of Sight and
Sound" by Russell Ofria Jr., published 1983 in the American
"Nickel A Tune" magazine. Other sources of information are of course
the book entitled "Scopitone" by Gerold F. Koehler and Linda L. Koehler, published 1978 by
the authors, and the "Scopitone Newsletter"
published for many years by Fred Bingaman in Manchester, Missouri,
which indeed contains a lot of valuable information about audio/visual
jukeboxes.
There
were also a few other important patented European jukebox designs of the
sixties and seventies. The first one that deserves to be mentioned here is the
design for the Chantal Panoramic (also called Enigma or Météore) by André Alexandre
Deriaz of Morat (Murten) in Switzerland.
The design for the Gramophone Automatique
(the Chantal Panoramic) was filed for patent on the 10th April, 1959,
and extended in 1964 (ending 1969). The model is often referred to as the Ice-cream
cone and has acquired cult status among collectors today. The Chantal
was produced for nearly a decade until the early or mid sixties by different
companies. First of all of course by the company Derac
S.A. in Morat, Switzerland,
headed by André Alexandre Deriaz
and Jean Theodore Foufounis (represented by the firm Padorex S.A.
in Lausanne),
then on license by Ets. G.B.G. in Courbevoie, a
western suburb to Paris in France (represented by the firm S.E.M., Société des Electrophones Météore,
8 rue de Montyon in Paris), and finally on license by
the British firm Frenchy Products Co., Small Street,
St. Philips in Bristol, which was also known for production of aircraft
components (represented by the firm Chantal Ltd., Station Road, Kingswood in
Bristol, headed by David H. C. Fry). The history of the Chantal, named
after Jean Foufounis' wife, is well described in the
book "Swiss Jukebox Art" by Franz Urs
Linder. The Chantal is also claimed to have been the world's first
200-selection jukebox, as it was tested in a restaurant in 1954 (a year before
the Seeburg Corporation introduced the model V-200 in America).
In
Germany
there were a few patented designs of NSM jukeboxes manufactured in the early
seventies. The two registered designers were Wilhelm Menke
and Horst Friedrich, and both had two patents granted. Wilhelm Menke filed one design patent on the last day of 1968 (the Prestige
120) and one in September, 1970 (the Prestige 160 B). The two
patents were granted in 1973 and 1971, respectively, and Horst Friedrich had
the other two patented designs for the Consul 130/160 series granted
in 1972. The NSM company was founded in 1952 by Herbert Nack,
Gerhard W. Schulze, and Wilhelm Menke (Nack and Schulze had operated amusement machines together
in Braunschweig since 1949), and the company became a
well-known jukebox manufacturer due to the Fanfare-60, -100, -120,
and -Silber series of 1956 through 1961. The last of the NSM models of
the Silver Age was the Serenade alias Stereo Magic
(brand name for export) in 1963. Today, in the late nineties, the German NSM
factory is considered the largest jukebox manufacturer in the world, and
Wilhelm Menke et al. of NSM have been
granted the most recent design patent for the Sapphire compact-disc
jukebox in February, 1999. The history of the NSM company in Bingen a/Rhein is like that of
other European manufacturers described in detail in the great book "The
Ultimate Jukebox Guide 1927-1974" by Ian Brown, Nigel Hutchins, and Gerry Mizera (published 1994). Another important source related
to the research on jukebox design is an article entitled "The Art of the
Jukebox" with interesting thoughts published 1996 by Lesley Winward in the 15th issue of the British magazine "The
Record Machine". In the article the author takes a look at the background
to classic jukebox cabinet decor and design.
In
the latter half of the eighties, in 1986/87, the Deutsche Wurlitzer GmbH tried
again with the Paul M. Fuller nostalgic design, marketing the Wurlitzer
1015 OMT (One More Time),
and the new model became an immediate success. The OMT-model was
introduced with a new compact-disc mechanism in 1989. At this moment, late in
the nineties, the American main office of the Wurlitzer Jukebox Company has
moved to Gurnee in Illinois, but the
production facility is still located in Stemwede-Levern
in Germany.
Rock-Ola, however, tried in 1987 as mentioned previously with a new version of
the 1973 Wurlitzer 1050 design and called it the Rock-Ola
Nostalgia 1000. Although the 160-selection model was introduced late
autumn 1986 as a 'truly sense-sational' model, the
cabinet was still too heavy and did not have the elegance of the classic Wurlitzer
1015 of 1946/47. Today several manufacturers in Europe and America
reproduce the classic Fuller design. NSM in Bingen a/Rhein, Germany,
even uses the term 'the Concorde of nostalgia jukeboxes' in the sales campaign
for the NSM Nostalgia Gold, which has an extremely fast
changer mechanism, but it is always the cabinet design that really matters. In
America model names like Rock-Ola Bubbler Nostalgic (now produced by
the Antique Apparatus Company, a leading exponent of the amalgamation of
vintage design and hi-tech sound), Rowe/AMI LaserStar
Nostalgia (voted #1 compact-disc jukebox by American operators), and even Seeburg Classic (the models SCCD-1
and -2) can be found on nostalgic jukeboxes. In England the manufacturing company Sound Leisure
Ltd., 39 Ings
Road in Leeds (founded in 1978 by Alan J. Black
and Kevin E. Moss) has been known for years for its very elegant and Fuller
inspired reproduction antique jukeboxes, especially the latest Manhattan and Gazelle
series. The company amazed the public at the ATEI exhibition (held at Earls
Court in London a year or two ago) with a demonstration of the world's first
digital satellite down loading video touch screen jukebox, and it will be
interesting to follow the development of the British company in the years to
come. The company received the Best Jukebox Award for 1998 in Britain (the Starlite 21 model) and for the second
year in 1999. Also in England, back in 1978 by the way, David R. Wilcox filed a
design patent for a 160 selection phonograph cabinet that looked very much like
the Seeburg Musical Bandshell
of 1971 (assigned to the Associated Leisure Games Ltd., and named Fantasia), and ten years later, in 1988,
Bernard Hart filed a design patent for a compact-disc jukebox (assigned to the
Arbiter Group Plc., and named Discmaster 60).
Finally, in 1990 Ivor Arbiter filed three design
patents for modern style, full size and wall-mounted compact-disc jukeboxes
(all three assigned to Your Electronics Specialists Ltd.). Despite the fact,
that different companies (including Rowe International with the design patented
Starlet / Wallstar remote selector
unit of 1992) try to find new ways of attracting patrons, it will be interesting
to see for how many years the Paul M. Fuller classic design of 1946 will be
able to stay on the market for popular musical entertainment. The Fuller-design
seems to have started a never ending story, and today's jukebox history with
the great re-birth of classic design may be just as exciting as the past. As
the noted historian Dick Bueschel once wrote:
"...There's
one difference. You're living in it, and that makes you part of the passing
parade, and a participant in the living history of the machine we covet and
enjoy!...".
The
editor will conclude this short historical survey by mentioning, that a rather
interesting design patent was granted in England only a decade ago (1994).
Stephen K. Joynes used the rear of a Morris Mascot
(the Mini) as the cabinet for a jukebox, probably well inspired by the Songbird
jukebox introduced in 1989 by the Carson City Parlour Enterprises in
Shakopee, Minnesota (a copy of the tail section of a classic Ford Thunderbird
of 1957). The historical survey has of course not yet been completed, and it is
interesting to note that only a few years ago in America the Seeburg Manufacturing & Supply Company was rocking the
planet with the newest hi-tech jukebox, the Seeburg
Millennium for the year 2000, and in Europe the British Sound Leisure
Ltd. produced an interesting line of timeless, wall-mounted, high-quality
jukeboxes like the Star Dust, Nite
Scene, and Lime Lite models with 21st
Century Mechanism. The mechanism was introduced in 1997 as the simplest
commercial compact-disc mechanism in the world. The other manufacturers of
commercial jukeboxes in both America
and Europe also try of course to create new
eye-appealing styles without features from the famed Golden Age design
of the forties. For example the style of the Wurlitzer Rainbow (with
the industry-first 120 compact-disc mechanism) and the Wurlitzer Rave On,
and the style of the Rowe Encore and wall-mounted Rowe Berkeley
and Sunrise models. All produced around the turn of the century.
Considering
the above mentioned models and designs, the following question might still be
asked in the early morning hours among operators and patrons in the
juke-joints: Will there ever again be a really new, revolutionary era in
jukebox design? It is the editor's opinion, that one
of the first steps towards a new design era was taken in 1998 by Christian Bökenkamp in Germany,
a student then at the Berlin University of the Arts (Hochschule
der Künste Berlin). Christian Bökenkamp created a marvellous, unique 1:1 model of a
wall-mounted jukebox for the theme Gestaltung
einer Musikbox
completing his course of study in industrial design. The unique 1:1 model has
unfortunately not been preserved for the future. The story continues, and it
will be interesting to study the developments in both the digital satellite
down loading units and the new DVD-units with space for 600 audio/video titles
and 1,000 audio-only titles, and especially to study the design ideas for the
cabinets in the years to come. There is a great deal of research and development which occurs in the jukebox industry. Innovative companies can make use
of R&D tax credits to design the jukeboxes of the
future. There will
undoubtedly be enough material for a new chapter in the history of jukeboxes.
Gert J. Almind