Jukebox History 1914-1933
In
the second era of the phonograph history following the first 25 years, in which
both the electric and spring-driven coin-op phonographs had been made more reliable,
the big multi-selection machines took over most of the market in the States. In
Europe, however, most of the acoustic phonograph productions were at a
standstill due to World War I. In the States the very nice Hexaphones,
Style 101 through Style 104, made by the Regina Music Box
Company, were produced from 1909 until 1921 in a number of at least 6,000 units. The
6-selection Regina models were very popular and competitive against the Cailophone models made by the Caille
Brothers Co. in Detroit, and the Mills Automatic Phonographs made by
the Mills Novelty Co. in Chicago. The Mills company was founded in 1891 as the
M.B.M. Cigar Vending Machine Co. by Mortimer Birdsul
Mills (born in 1845 in
Ontario, Canada), and the company name changed in 1897/98 when the controlling
share was transferred to his son Herbert Stephen Mills. Both phonograph types,
the Cailophone and the Mills Automatic
Phonograph, had very typical oak wood cabinet designs of the era, but both
were non-selective. The bigger selective type, the Gabel's Entertainer
multi-selection phonographs, patented and made by the John Gabel owned company
(Gabel's Entertainer Co., 210
North Ann Street, Chicago,
previously known as The Automatic Machine & Tool Co.)
came out in most of the big cities, and they had a good reputation for
reliability although they were extremely complicated machines. Most of John
Gabel's phonographs were in fact distributed nationwide by a section of The
Rudolph Wurlitzer Company headed by Howard Eugene Wurlitzer. John Gabel had
four patents granted during the acoustic era of the automatic phonographs
including the classic one for the original Automatic Entertainer of
1905/06 with exposed 40 inch
horn on top, and his firm even used the name Gabelola
as a trademark for a non-select home unit around 1917-1918. After the 1909-1928
era of the enclosed horn models (exposed brass horns were considered to be
old-fashioned), John Gabel had another patent granted for the mechanism of the
new 'modern' 12-selection Entertainer of 1934 with cabinet design by
Theodore E. Samuelson. John Gabel died in December, 1955, at the age of 83
(born in 1872 in
the Austro-Hungarian monarchy), and it is estimated today that a total of about
7,300 Entertainer models (300 exposed horn models and 7,000 enclosed
horn models) left the factory in the pre-modern period 1905-1928.
One
or two of the other manufacturers of the era between 1914 and the early
twenties deserve to be mentioned here. The engineer John L. Vaughn of San Francisco had a few
designs assigned to the well-known slot-machine inventor and manufacturer
Charles A. Fey. The 20-selection Fey machines were
actually produced in series and operated on the West Coast until the mid
twenties, and there was in fact a special San
Francisco style of machines designed by Vaughn,
Nelson, and Briggs & Jenkins. Later at least one of John L. Vaughn's
automatic phonograph patents was assigned by mesne
assignments to The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company. It was filed in April, 1929, and
planned to be used on license by the company Bussoz
Frères in Paris, France, for the first Phonolux
jukebox mid thirties. However, it seems this was soon if not immediately
changed, and a mechanism filed for patent by Pierre Joseph Bussoz
in August, 1931, was used for the line of very nice Phonolux jukeboxes until 1939.
Around 1916 Cyrus C. Shigley started the production
of the Kalamazoo
Electric Coin-op Phonograph (named after the city). Cyrus C. Shigley had before that, and after he had started out in
Hart, Michigan,
been involved in the production of the ornate Multiphone
selective phonograph designed by William H. Pritchard. The new six feet tall
square cabinet Kalamazoo still had the 24-selection cylinder playing ferris wheel mechanism (four-minute Blue Amberols). The Kalamazoo was produced
for two years until late in 1918, and in this connection it can be mentioned
that the last cylinder phonographs were produced ten years later, in 1929, when
the Edison firm went out of the phonograph
business. There were of course many other minor local phonograph manufacturers
in the States, but most of them are rather unknown today. Only one person, the
noted historian Richard M. Bueschel, tried to shed
light on all the minor productions in America, but unfortunately Dick passed
away on the 19th April, 1998, and a lot of valuable information may still be in
the files he left behind. Especially in the unpublished manuscript entitled
"Let the Other Guy Play It!", an illustrated
history of automatic music and jukeboxes written in 1996/97 (in fact, only a few
pages of the last chapter 12 were missing when Dick Bueschel
died).
In
France, after World War I had come to an end, there was a market for new
phonographs with coin-op mechanisms, and one of the best and well-known
machines, often referred to as the Bussophone,
was introduced by the company Société des Phonographes Automatiques Bussoz Frères & de Vère in
Paris. The full patent for the machine, the Phonographe
perfectionné à magazin,
was applied for on the 8th April, 1921, and finally granted on the 22nd
December, 1921. Before that Cyril de Vère filed four
patents of his own. The last of them in fact granted on the 6th April, 1921,
and when he came into the company owned by the brothers Marcel and Pierre
Joseph Bussoz the four patents could be incorporated
in the complete Bussophone patent. The Bussoz Frères company in Paris had
been a manufacturer of slot-machines since 1901, and some of the company's
finest wall-mounted slot- and arcade-machines were made in the period from 1912
until 1920. The 20-selection mechanism for the Bussophone
was a very nice construction, and it is known today that some of these
phonographs have survived in museums and collections. In the summer 1998 one of
these was taken over by the noted Gauselmann
Collection in Germany together with one of the nice Phonolux
phonographs. Another extremely nice acoustic multi-selection phonograph of
European origin was produced in Italy.
The 16-selection Fonografo Giacardi Automatico was made
and patented by Enea Flavio
Giacardi in Milan.
The Italian patent was granted on the 5th June, 1922, and later Giacardi also registered the patent in England. That
particular patent much later formed the basis of a wonderful Silver Age
jukebox in the States, namely the last Ristaucrat
built by the Atlas Manufacturing Company in Wisconsin (1956/57). A very nice
machine made in a limited number of 50 especially for the European market. Ristaucrat was another interesting name at the beginning of
the thirties.
The
acoustic era finally came to an end in 1925/26 with the introduction of
electrically recorded 78rpm records. H. C. Harrison of the Western Electric
Company (the manufacturing subsidiary of the American Telephone & Telegraph
Co.) had a patent granted for electrical recording in May, 1924, but the first
commercial electrical recording session took place in February, 1925. After
that, the first real electrical recording was released on the market in April
same year. Electrical amplification of the sound was of course important to the
manufacturers of phonographs because many of the different amplification
methods used during the acoustic era were very expensive and after all not too
successful on location. One of the rare automatic phonographs of the
intermediate phase between the acoustic era and the electric era was known as
the Daily Automatic Phonograph constructed and patented by William H.
Daily in Chicago
in the mid twenties. The Daily phonograph, having a square three-window cabinet
and four turntables and a tone arm from the center,
was short lived like many other constructions due to the fact, that only four
successive plays were not enough for the patrons.
The
era of the modern electrically amplified phonographs, often described as pieces
of Americana, really started after 1926/27, when
the Electramuse based on an original patent
by James E. Stout was introduced by the Holcomb & Hoke
Manufacturing Company in Indianapolis,
Indiana. The Electramuse
had a square cabinet with front window and the cabinet was design patented in
1927 by Frank J. Hoke. According to the unpublished
story "Two Heads Are Better" written by Frank J. Hoke
in 1958, the company lost more than half a million dollars during the four
years it was active in the automatic phonograph business. That is quite an
interesting and honest statement from a pioneer in the business. Frank J. Hoke also states in the story that there was only one thing
wrong with the machine: It was not selective, but the 1926/27 Electramuse was in fact the
first ‘light up’ coin-op music machine with back lit artistic panel at the top
(the Concert Grand model even had
animation in that panel)!
The Electramuse later came out in a very
nice cabinet called the The Auditorium
Model for use mainly in clubs and hotels. About the same time, early in
1927, another nice coin-op phonograph, the National Automatic Selective
Phonograph, was introduced by the Automatic Musical Instrument Company in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
The company was known then for its main product, a special 8-selection
coin-operated piano that looked like a normal upright piano, but had no
keyboard installed in the usual place. The cabinet housed an 8-roll changer
including a selective mechanism with 8 coin slots that played National coin-piano rolls (according to
recent information from the historian Arthur A. Reblitz
the National rolls had their own
musical layout). The company was in fact since 1910, although founded in 1909,
until late1925 two separate companies. The manufacturing section was known as
National Piano Manufacturing Company and the operating section was known as
National Automatic Music Company. Both companies moved to 1500 Union Avenue (a former horse-drawn
hearse plant) in 1922, and finally merged into Automatic Musical Instrument
Company (AMI) on the 9th November, 1925. As a result of that it is often
mentioned in history books, that AMI introduced the first coin-operated,
electrically amplified, 20-selection phonograph with a mechanical ten-record
system that played on both sides. The record changing mechanism, the pick-up
arm, and the coin chute for the National Automatic Selective Phonograph
were based on inventions by Bertram C. Kenyon and Wilmur
W. Boa, Harry A. Yeider, and finally Clifford H.
Green, all patents acquired by AMI (filed in 1925 and in July, 1927), and the
modern jukebox was born.
Another
line of automatic phonographs that had a kind of relation to the Electramuse would of course be the Capehart Orchestrope
models 28G, 28GB, and 28F with 18, 24, or 28 records,
respectively, played in chronological order without choice. The first of the
series of Capehart Orchestrope
models styled by the furniture designer David L. Evans was released in the
spring 1928 by the Capehart Automatic Phonograph
Corporation in Huntington, Indiana. The company was founded by a former
Holcomb & Hoke salesman, Homer Earl Capehart (1897-1979), who lived at 709 Packard Avenue in Fort Wayne (named after the Packard Piano
& Organ Company founded in 1872). The name Packard would certainly be known
in the jukebox industry about two decades later, in the late forties. On
balance one might say, that the Orchestrope
built on the basis of patents by Frank J. Seabolt was
superior to the Electramuse. Not only was it
the first apparatus to play both sides of its capacity of up to 28 records (56
selections), but it could also be supplied with remote control units
(wall-boxes) for use in restaurants. That feature was indeed far-sighted,
although it was not a new idea. In 1916 James W. Bryce assigned a patent
concerning a remote control for phonographs to The Aeolian Company, but without
a coin rejector. The Capehart
models, both the Orchestrope and the Amperion, were marketed by the use of the
following phrase: You are listening to The Capehart
Orchestrope, faithfully recreating the world's finest
music for your entertainment. Important men in the Capehart
firm were Edward E. Collison (former employee at
Holcomb & Hoke) and Ernest Degenhart,
who had several patents granted and assigned to The Capehart
Corporation. About the same time came also Paul U. Lannerd
and Thomas W. Small into the firm with several important phonograph mechanism
patents. Thomas W. Small initially invented the record turner-changer and sold
the invention to Homer Earl Capehart. A new style
turner-changer was invented by Ralph R. Erbe, who had
been working for the Columbia Graphophone Company,
and also that one was bought and used by the Capehart
firm. The Capehart Corporation even produced a line
of table-top phonographs around 1930/31. The Capehart
Model 1 through Model 4 were design patented by Arvid Dahlstrom, a Swedish
immigrant, who had three designs, each with a special mechanism, filed for
patent in 1929, 1930, and 1931. It is interesting, however, that the mechanism
actually used in the table-top Capehart phonographs
was constructed and patented by Edward E. Collison
and Paul U. Lannerd (filed for patent in November,
1930, and granted in 1933). Also, it is interesting to note that one-third of
the rights to the first two patents filed by Arvid Dahlstrom was assigned to Justus P. Seeburg
before the patents were granted in 1933/34, and in this connection it is also
important to mention that the 8-selection two-layer mechanism developed by Arvid Dahlstrom (1930) was used
in the Seeburg Audiophone
E made in 1930/31. The noted pioneer in the business, Homer Earl Capehart, finally left The Capehart
Corporation in 1932 after some disagreements with the other directors and
investors, and started to work as head of the sales department at The Rudolph
Wurlitzer Manufacturing Company in June 1933.
Around
1928 several other companies released automatic phonographs, jukeboxes, and
among them was the J. P. Seeburg Piano Company, 1510 Dayton Street, Chicago, headed by the founder, Justus
Percival Seeburg (1871-1958), and his only son Noel
Marshall Seeburg (1897-1972). The J. P. Seeburg Piano Company had in 1927, when the management
heard news about the Electramuse model,
tried to introduce a Melatone phonograph on
the market. It was no success, and in fact all about hundred manufactured Melatone machines were recalled. However, in 1928
and 1929 the J. P. Seeburg Piano Company tried again
(name changed to J. P. Seeburg Company around July,
1928), and had more success on the market with the Autophone
(presented to the public at the Chicago Commodore Hotel music trade convention
in June, 1928) and certainly with the following line of 8-selection Audiophone Senior and Audiophone
Junior pneumatic coin-op phonographs. Showing their nickelodeon ancestry
the Audiophones were equipped with electric
motors that in turn operated a suction pump. The pump was used to turn the ferris wheel type mechanism for
record selection. The pump also supplied suction for rubber tubing that went to
pneumatic operated valves that controlled the operation of several smaller
pneumatics. Those pneumatics operated various
functions of the mechanism. Then, in 1930, the J. P. Seeburg
Company (name changed to The J. P. Seeburg
Corporation around September, 1929) presented the all mechanically operated 8-selection
phonograph called the Audiophone E
(mechanism developed by Arvid Dahlstrom),
of which the first version looked very much like the Electramuse
made before 1929 by the Holcomb & Hoke
Manufacturing Company.
Another line of automatic phonographs, that was introduced on the market
around 1927, were the Selectraphone, and Mechanic-Dynamic models, which to some
extent looked like and certainly operated like the early Autophone and Audiophone
models made by the Seeburg company. This other line
of phonographs was introduced by Western Electric Piano Co., a company founded
in 1924 by Axel F. Larson, Byron C. Waters, and Russell I. Wilcox. In fact it
was based on the A. F. Larson Piano Co., and the founders knew each other from
previous employment at the Marquette Piano Co., maker of the first and famous
coin-operated Cremona 10-roll rewind
piano. Also Axel F. Larson knew Justus P. Seeburg as
a member of the Swedish immigrant industrialist circle, and Justus P. Seeburg bought a controlling part of the company very soon
after it was founded. According to Noel Marshall Seeburg
his father Justus Percival really wanted to stimulate competition among his
dealers, who had exclusive territories, and he could do it that way by
introducing highly competitive instruments. The fact that the J. P. Seeburg Corp. controlled Western Electric Piano Co. was
kept a secret for many years. In July 1926 Western Electric Piano Co. moved the
manufacturing facilities from 429 West Superior Street to 900-912 Blackhawk
Street (side entrance of the Seeburg factory in
Chicago) to get more space due to a real success with the 1925 Selectra 10-tune orchestrion and the new Derby
model with built-in horse race (in fact a new gaming device) developed by Axel
F. Larson, who was still leading executive in the company, and a good friend of
Justus P. Seeburg. At the same time, in 1926, the
company introduced its first (prototype) amplified selective phonograph called
the Electraphone
to be followed in 1927 by the known Selectraphone model housing the new 8-selection Selectra ferris wheel mechanism developed, refined, and patented by
Axel F. Larson and Charlie W. Anderson (filed 1927 and granted 1932). In fact the company also used the simple
12-record push and slide mechanism patented by Arthur W. Wilson (filed 1921 and
granted 1926) for the Junior
alias Mechanic-Dynamic phonograph
models around 1927 to gain a foothold on the market for coin-op phonographs.
These models were not selective but played the records in sequence, first all
the A-sides and then all B-sides. The records were pushed from the bottom and
then flipped on top of the stack. These models with Mechanic-Dynamic mechanisms were cheaper to produce, and therefore
very competitive on the market against among others the Seeburg Autophone and Audiophone models. Some of the cheaper Mechanic-Dynamic models were called in
for service and operated again in rural areas by new dealers for the J. P. Seeburg Corp., even after the Western Electric Piano Co.
went bankrupt in 1933 due to the difficult times for the whole mechanical music
instrument business after the Wallstreet Crash in
1929. The executive offices of Western Electric Piano Co. were still located at
the address 429 West Superior Street for several years, probably until the
company closed in 1933. According to information from the historian Arthur A. Reblitz, the amplifiers of both the early Seeburg Audiophone
and the Western Electric Selectraphone had
the brand name of the portable radio manufacturing company Operadio
founded in 1922 by J. McWilliams Stone Sr. (known today as the Dukane Corporation). A few of the Selectraphone models and at least
two Mechanic-Dynamic phonographs have been preserved today by
collectors.
One
of the most amazing phonographs introduced in the late twenties was without
doubt the Link Autovox. It was a very
interesting coin-selective machine released by the Link Piano Company Inc., 183-185 Water Street, Binghamton, New York.
A wonderful description of the talking machine designed by Edwin A. Link Jr.
can be found in the book "Encyclopedia of
Automatic Musical Instruments" by Q. David Bowers. The book contains a
transcript of an original tape recording (Arthur A. Reblitz,
6th November, 1965) of a talk between Harvey Roehl of Vestal Press, Murray
Clark, Q. David Bowers, and of course Edwin A. Link Jr.. The big 10-selection Link
Autovox was purely mechanical,
and it had two stacks of five records each on two spindles. The spindles were
divided in the middle and you could raise the spindles and slip the records in,
and then later select any one of the ten by push button. Despite the fact, that
there were ten turntables and ten reproducers, the Autovox
was reasonable successful on the local market according to Edwin A. Link Jr.. Quite a few were made, but unfortunately the production
took place just before the 1929 crash on Wall Street, and after that the Link
Piano Company went out of existence. If the editor is not mistaken, all
cabinets for the Link machines were built by the Haddorff
Piano Company of Rockford, Illinois, and that may also have been the
case with the cabinets for the short lived experiment, the Link Autovox. Today it is known, by the way, that the Autovox company in Binghamton also marketed a
nice, but much smaller, coin-op phonograph around 1928, with a cabinet much
like that of the 1927 Automatic Orthophonic Victrola and other typical phonographs with coin
attachment of the era. The history of the Link (Autovox) production sure is interesting
and deserves more research if possible in the future.
The
Mills Novelty Company at Fullerton
Avenue, Chicago,
entered the market for coin-operated radios and multi-selection phonographs in
1928, and became a very important competitor against other manufacturers in the
years to come. The brothers Frank W. Mills and Bert E. Mills (sons of Herbert
Stephen Mills, 1872-1929) had a lot of patents for coin-detectors and
phonograph mechanisms granted through the twenties and early thirties. The ferris wheel mechanism for the
full size phonographs and the MCP Series remote controls (the models MCP-1830-CSP
through MCP-1835-CSP) were filed for patent by Bert E. Mills in 1928
and 1930/31. The first non-selective, full size phonograph, the Mills
Hi-Boy 800, and the following 12-selection phonographs Hi-Boy 801
and Hi-Boy 802 (with radio unit) came out in the same cabinet style in
1928 and 1929. The following models, the Mills Troubadour series
covering the models 811 (one coin), 870 (three coin), and 871
with radio (three coin), were made until 1933. The last model in the Troubadour
series was the less expensive 875 Compact phonograph (three coin
device). The Troubadour 875 Compact was in fact introduced in 1931
when sales were slow at the height of the Great Depression. The new era after
the depression started with the Everett B. Eckland
styled Mills Dance Master 876 (green/silver, one coin) of 1934,
introduced late in October, 1933, and the following Dance Master
models 877 (black/silver, one coin), 878 (open colour, one
coin), 879 (green/silver, three coin), 880 (black/silver,
three coin), and finally the model 881 (open colour, three coin).
One
of the minor manufacturers mentioned before, the Ristaucrat
Inc. in Kaukauna, Wisconsin, came out into the open with the first Ristaucrat Console A in 1931. The same construction
was also marketed as one of the very first 24-selection table models with nice
butt walnut/mahogany cabinet. A little later, in 1932, RCA Victor's
coin-operated Automatic Victrola CE-29 was
announced in a letter to the company's dealers. The letter also stated that RCA
Victor was returning to the field of coin-operated musical instruments with the
model CE-29, but in fact some of the 1927 Automatic Orthophonic Victrola models
had been fitted with coin attachments for commercial use by dealers and
probably not by the factory itself. It must, however, be mentioned that the
introduction of the model was not very successful, and Raymond Rosen & Co.
in Philadelphia soon announced that the company had purchased the entire
factory stock of the model CE-29 jukebox. Finally, in this line of
minor manufacturers, it can be mentioned that the Deca-Disc
Phonograph Company of Waynesboro,
Pennsylvania, produced a
combination of automatic phonograph and advertising device for years. It was
design patented by Paul D. Bodwell and Henry W.
Bellows in the late twenties, and the patent was granted in December, 1931. The
combination-model was followed by the nice Model E Coin-Op Phonograph
(ten records, continuous play). The name Deca-Disc
was registered as a trademark in 1922, but most of the phonograph inventory was
bought by the Ristau family around 1928, and formed a
basis for the coin-operated Ristaucrat
phonographs of the early thirties.
The
Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, established in 1856, started out in the automatic
phonograph business by introducing the 10-selection Debutante in 1933, a copy of the Ampliphone made by the Mid-West Automatic
Phonograph Company late in 1932. It is important to mention here that the
Rudolph Wurlitzer Company had been active in the coin-op phonograph business
years before (1927-1929) when the firm produced semi-automatic Victrola models with a 5 cent coin-box mounted on
the side. Not many Debutante models were actually produced in 1933,
and it may have been considered a trial production by the management of the
mighty house of WurliTzer before it was decided to go
at full steam into the business. Homer Earl Capehart
was again an important man, as he introduced the Simplex mechanism to
the Wurlitzer company. The Simplex was an old
construction, but Russell I. Wilcox had filed an improved patent for the
mechanism construction in 1931 (used in the Ampliphone)
and assigned it by mesne assignments to The Rudolph
Wurlitzer Manufacturing Company in 1934/35. The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company
became in the era to come, the Golden Age of jukeboxes, a very
important player with cabinets designed by Charles N. Deverall,
Model P-12 of 1935, and by the famous Paul M. Fuller, Model
312 of 1936 plus 16 additional patented designs for classics until 1948,
when he decided to leave the company. The noted industrial designer Paul M.
Fuller was born on the island Corsica on the 5th January, 1897, and he died at
the Millard Fillmore Hospital in Buffalo on the 29th March, 1951, only 54 years
of age.
One
of the major European counterparts to the American automatic phonographs of the
very early thirties was produced in Belgium by the Pierre Eich piano manufacturing company. The first two versions of
the Radio-Discophone came out in 1930 and
1931, and as a matter of fact the Pierre Eich company received a special prize for the phonographs at the
1931 autumn trade fair in Paris.
The two machines represented an interesting type of mixed radio- and phonograph-units
often used in cafés in Belgium,
and they initiated the famous production of the David- and Goliath-Discophones in the late thirties. The Goliath-Discophone made by the Pierre Eich
company was, if the editor is not mistaken, the
largest 'modern style' jukebox ever produced.
Gert J. Almind