Rokola Music
Modernization of jukeboxes
J u k e b o x D i g i t a l R K 4
41
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4.10 - Jukebox Brief History
The name Rock-Ola is derived from the name of the founder of the disk machine manufacturer
(Jukeboxes). David C. Rockola was born in Canada, even as a young boy he worked as a mechanic
repairing coin-operated devices, but by 1926 he already had his own company that manufactured scales
operated in coins.
In the 1930s, Rockola began manufacturing pinball machines and many other devices. Due to the
great demand of coin-operated phonographs, the temptation to manufacture them increased, so Rockola
bought a mechanism from a man named Smythe, which was a 12-pick mechanism and with this he
started building machines for 1935 Massively, the brand these machines was Rock-Ola.
The company
Wurlitzer
(another manufacturer of disk machines) directed by “
Farny Wurlitzer
”
(song of “
Rudolph Wurlitzer
”, founder of the company) who saw as a great threat the success of Rockola
for it I try to convince Rockola that there was no space or field for two company, only for the company
Wurlitzer, and started against Rockola a litigation for the patent rights of the mechanism Smythe, Rockola
won the litigation but for it had to spend half a million dollars. This caused damage to Rockola but it did not
stop it, it continued manufacturing and by 1939 it introduced with great success a new series of disk
machines with the name of "Luxury Light".
On the other hand the company
Seeburg
founded in 1907 by the swedish
“Justice Seeburg”,
who
came to the United States with only 16 years old and worked in Chicago in a piano industry as a
mechanic, this company became the first manufacturer of automatic pianos until 1927 when they were
discontinued to manufacture coin-operated phonographs, until 1930 Seeburg was the first manufacturer of
multi-selection disk machines (Jukebox) with the introduction of the "Audiophone", but for this year
Wurlitzer and Rock-Ola were big competitors, as well the company goes to son Noel Seeburg, who is very
well trained in business and reorganized the company to be able to compete effectively.
During World War II, it took the companies to the systems of transmission by telephone line, this
became very popular, since it was an alternative at the moment in which the war effort stopped the
construction of the disc machines. After the Second World War, the jukebox industry was in a boom, the
boys returned to their homes and it was a holiday. Wurlitzer came out with the 1015 model, probably the
most popular jukebox of all time, and Rock-Ola presented the "Magic Light" series. These were models
1422, 1426 and 1428.
1949 was the year of Seeburg who would change the history with the invention of the disk machine
that could touch both sides of the disk, it was 50 discs therefore of 100 selections, the model M100A, this
mechanism was so reliable that it almost took out of the business to the other manufacturers. In 1950
Seeburg introduced the first 45 RPM disc machine and in 1955 introduced the V-200 the first machine of
200 selections, a marvel of engineering.
In the fifties and sixties Rock-Ola was a formidable competitor in the field of disk machines. The
company proposed many new ideas, including a disk machine so small that it could be hung on the wall.
As the demand for disk machines for the seventies was reduced too much, it caused damage to Rock-Ola
so by 1990 the company was sold to Glenn Streeter, the owner of an Antique Appliances company in
Torrance, California.
Streeter took the name of Rock-Ola, gave it new life and turned it into one of the manufacturers of
disc machines that is at the top, offering a complete commercial line of disk machines for the home.
In the history of the construction of disk machines (Jukebox) there are perhaps five giants:
Wurlitzer, Seeburg, Rock-Ola, AMI / Rowe and NSM), the company NSM is European (German) and the
other Americans.