My Seeburg life began when I went to work for an operator in 1985 after graduating from Texas State Technical College after an 18 month long electronics course called Electronic Amusement Equipment. Prior military electronics training plus an excellent mechanical ability stood me in good stead for this type of work. An operator is the guy who puts arcade games, pinball machines, jukeboxes, cigarette machines, and pool tables among other things into bars, hotels, cafes, bowling alleys, skating rinks, or anywhere someone may drop a quarter in a slot for a few minutes of amusement.
I did component level repair to circuit boards for the pinballs, games and jukeboxes. It so happened Seeburg jukeboxes were the only jukeboxes Williford Music ran. It was here I cut my teeth on them and learned the basics of Seeburg jukeboxes. These were all 1963 up to 1984. One of the outstanding features of the basic Seeburg mechanism is it hasn’t changed from 1950 to 1984. Makes it a lot easier to work on with this kind of continuity. I also got an excellent grounding in arcade game repair and pinball machines.
I started taking on side work in peoples’ homes repairing their games or pinball machines. Through word of mouth I soon had so much business that I had no free time. It dawned on me that perhaps I could make a living doing this and after three years with Williford Music I launched my own business, Game Electronics. I worked out of rented garages for a couple years buying, renovating, and selling arcade games, pinball machines, and Seeburg jukeboxes.
I lucked into renting a large building in Seagoville to where I moved about 1990 and remained there for the next nine years. I started doing mechanism work and restoration for Tom Kunkel of The Brass Register in Richardson. It was this period where I began learning the 50’s models doing work for The Brass Register in Richardson and BeBop Music in Dallas along with my own restorations.
Here’s where I will make a distinction in what I was doing with these jukes. Any of the 50’s boxes were full on restorations with cabinet and chrome work done as well as electronic and mechanical work. The rest were more like “shopping out” or basically cleaning the cabinet as well as possible while rebuilding the mechanism and electronics. In later years the 1960-1962 jukeboxes also became a mix of restoration and shopping out.
I was the “go to guy” for Seeburgs in the greater Dallas area. Operators moved on to Rowes for route work. No one ran Seeburgs. Factory support had dried up what with the number of times Seeburg had been sold and finally foundered. Even the huge Seeburg distributor O’Conner Distributing got out of them entirely. Operators called me to buy their (to them) useless Seeburg inventory. I have torn down and shopped out a couple hundred jukes. My used parts inventory swelled. The 90’s were a “golden age” of home or private ownership of arcade games, pinball machines, and of course jukeboxes. I usually had a restoration in progress with one or two behind the current one with money down waiting their turn. Operators sold their old games and pins cheap to make way for newer games. I have had hundreds of arcade games and pinball machines run through the shop. Good times indeed.
About 1999 with several factors contributing I closed Game Electronics down. One major factor was the number of critical parts becoming unavailable for Seeburg jukeboxes. Another major one was the time it now took to sell a restored jukebox. Computers? The economy? A mix of the two? Dunno. Sources were drying up for the old games as well. I had no interest in pinballs or arcade games newer than about 1980. I sold my wallbox route to the owners of both Donna’s Kitchen restaurants in Mesquite and Rockwall. Both restaurants had a total of 58 Seeburg DEC wallboxes. I ran the last Seeburg wallbox route in the county for sure. So I went to work for the next 20 years for someone else.
I retired early at 62 1/2. Having saved all my manuals, mechanism parts, tubes, and test equipment I started working on Seeburgs again. It is work I am good at and enjoy. It keeps me busy and off the streets. The money helps as well. I am gratified to see that the interest in jukeboxes is very high with a lot of demand. I now restore or shop out Seeburgs from 1952 to 1984. Don’t really like the 1950-51 B’s. I also avoid the “cabinet” boxes from 1963 to 1970. In addition to complete jukeboxes I do piece work such as amplifier recapping and repair, some for others some for me to resell. Black and gray box repair, wallbox repair. Most anything Seeburg. I work on something Seeburg almost every day except weekends or most weekends anyway. I started this blog for those who would be interested in following along as I do day to day work on the jukes I love.
I hope you enjoy it too.
My Seeburg Life 