Rock On Rock-Ola

I thought it might be fun to choose a photo at random from the many thousands I've taken over the years and see if I could dredge up a memory about it.

This one turned up. It's a Rock-Ola jukebox of the 1960s and we came across it at the Jukebox Madness Show in late 1995. Jukeboxes are hugely collectable. Even then, thirteen years ago, this jukebox was for sale at 4,250 pounds. It's the fact that it's a "visible mech" that makes it so pricey - you can see the records being selected and played. Compare that to my 1979 Rowe-Ami model that I bought in around 1992 for 250 pounds and you can see there's a bit of a difference. I've never really understood why jukebox manufacturers moved away from having visible mechanisms because it was such an obvious draw. But if you have a collection of 45s it's a great way of playing them!

Once properly restored a jukebox (I've found anyway) gives very little in the way of problems. Unlike pinballs where the game revolves around the various parts being battered to hell by the silver ball, jukeboxes don't have much in the way of internal impacts to make them go wrong. I've had mine repaired once in the sixteen years I've had it and it sounds as good today as it's always done. It would be great, however to have a visible mech in the front room wouldn't it? Perhaps one with bubbles...

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Fairground Stall Games

Linking with the entry about the Fairground Pierrots, this game is another I remember from Blackpool Pleasure Beach and elsewhere from the 1950s and 1960s.

It was a simple enough idea - the player rolled a number of balls down the gently sloping playfield, either falling into a hole with a corresponding score, or hitting the base board at the bottom and scoring nothing.

Scores were added up by the operator and you won whatever that score merited. Normally "anything off the bottom row" unless you played again, adding your win credits together until you had enough for the covetted teddy bear or whatever off the top row!

Pulling back to view the entire photograph, it can be seen that this was taken of a stall selling old fairground equipment and "penny slots".

I took the photo in November 1995 at the Jukebox Madness Show in Hounslow. Ages since I went to one of those shows. High time we went to another!

The Best Jukebox Ever?

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Wurlitzer 1015.

I'm still occasionally scanning old negatives and have in front of me a batch from November 1996. We were at Ascot Racecourse which was the home that year of an annual event called the Jukebox Madness Show. We found these two Wurlitzer 1015s standing together. The white one on the right plays CDs and as such is not worthy of even considering as a purchase. But the one on the left had a mechanism to play 45rpm records. This jukebox was originally designed to play a stack of 10" 78rpm records of course. It was first released in 1946 (see the 78rpm mechanism in an earlier blog entry) and has remained in production ever since. You can still buy them. Lots of other manufacturers have brought out very similar versions of their own jukeboxes too, but this is the one that collectors drool over. Me too... My Rowe Ami RI-2 sounds nice but I want one of these!!!

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