Rebates I Have Known

What do I mean by a rebate? Broadly speaking, a rebate is a sum of money that is credited or returned to a customer upon completion of a transaction. In the coin-op business it is always money left in the machine. When I find money in a jukebox I buy I like to refer to it as a rebate. I have known many, some what you would expect and a couple of spectacular ones. Today I’ll cover the jukeboxes.

Working for Williford Music in the mid 80’s I repaired a lot of dollar bill validators used by Seeburg, the DBV2. It occurred to me one day that there might be bills that did not fall into the cashbox. These were simple validators and there was a pretty big gap between the drop chute and the coin box. I unscrewed one of the 12″ bass speakers from the cabinet bottom of the juke I was working on and looked and sure enough there were a couple of dusty dollar bills at the back. Anything in the coin-op business that doesn’t make it into the cashbox were called floaters and fair game. There would also be coins that usually fell to the back wall as we transported these on a tilted furniture dolly. I learned to look under the thick scratchy insulation Seeburg liked to lay in the “bass box” as well. I like finding money!

I happened to think about the subject after buying a couple of jukeboxes lately and finding modest amounts of money in them. These were jukes bought to part out. One of them, a 1971 Bandshell, had several dollar bills and a large handful of quarters inside the bass speaker box in addition to a full load of records. There was a service tag on the back naming South Dallas Vending as the operator. I used to know this cat in my early days and can’t remember his name for nought. He was a good guy. He owned several small businesses in addition to the vending and music. I had repaired jukeboxes for him and at times bought a jukebox, Seeburg of course, from him. I’d visit occasionally whenever a service call placed me close enough and we’d shoot the bull. One day he called and asked if I wanted to buy all of his Seeburgs. Of course! This happened fairly often. People got to know me and that I worked on Seeburgs. In the mid to latter 90’s the Rowe and Rockola CD boxes came into their own. Seeburg was long gone as a business and no one ran them anymore. So, operators that had any would call and I’d buy what they had left. Incidentally that load of records from the Bandshell had a lot of blues records that I culled and put into the old restored Console model I keep in the dining room. It is my blues box. Still trying to fill it up. It holds a hundred records and I’m close.

Early on after I went into business for myself about 1988 I started learning about antique jukeboxes. Restoring them was a big booming profitable business. I learned of a 1930’s machine for sale and went off to see about it. This would be my first antique jukebox! I arrived at an old house with a small cluttered yard on a sunny day. I went to the porch and knocked. And knocked. The door was a fancy full glass door and I could see no one in the front room. Eventually a really old lady appeared and was walking to the door taking about six inch steps. When she answered I announced why I was there and she directed me to the back yard. I met her husband, an equally old man much spryer than his wife. I looked at the jukebox and it was definitely a 30’s juke. I don’t remember the brand though. We struck a deal, it wasn’t much, a hundred or less. The last thing I asked him was if he had the keys to the twin cashboxes at the top sides. He did not. I loaded my prize and off I went.

I stopped by the old Gottlieb distributor at Hall Street in Dallas to visit with John Shaddick, the finest Rockola man ever and a good friend, and really to show the box off. He took a look at it and said, “That’s not the original mechanism. Someone put a record player in it.” Well, I was severely disappointed. At the time I was working out of a two car garage and using rental units as my storage. I took this juke back to storage and wasn’t too careful unloading it until I heard the unmistakable sound of coins bouncing around in the cashboxes. I borrowed a screwdriver from the attendant and pried them open. I found about a dozen silver Morgan and Liberty dollar coins from the 20’s, several each of Mercury dimes, buffalo nickels, and Indian head pennies. I thought I was rich-that those silver dollars were worth a hundred dollars each at least! This represented a lot of money to someone just starting out in business and scraping by. This was also well before the internet and easy information so it took awhile to get a numismatics price guide and find out they weren’t worth as much as I thought. (as usual) Still, it was a great find and the coins are in my collection today. All I can come up with is that someone must have used the cashboxes as a piggy bank.

I set out one day to look at a Bandshell someone had called about asking if I were interested in buying it. This was while I had a shop in Seagoville and I bought jukeboxes whenever I could as I was firmly entrenched by then refurbishing the newer jukeboxes and restoring the older ones and always on the lookout for parts machines. I arrived at a house in Pleasant Grove. There were several people gathered in the living room around the jukebox, a family by all appearances. The jukebox was locked up tight. They did not have a key and I had forgotten my key set. Generally I’ll open them up and make sure that everything is present. They mentioned it came with records and that it would light up but do nothing. Well, that is the most common thing people will tell you about a jukebox when it doesn’t work and they want to sell it. You can strip the guts out of any Seeburg and it will still light up. The line voltage, 115vac, is hardwired to the on/off switch and the lights. I think I gave them $75 for it. They helped me load it into my truck and off I went. I unloaded it at the shop and rolled it inside. Which is usually a feat unto itself. Seeburg has the worst casters-they wear out and most of the time it’s more shoving than rolling. I got my keys using #291 to open it up. In addition to the 80 records this jukebox normally loads there were about 50 more loose. And of course they were everywhere since I loaded the jukebox on its back. They were carefully removed and stacked. I pried open the cashbox and found about $50 in assorted change. A fine rebate indeed!

Then there was the old 30’s Mills jukebox and a rebate of a different kind. My buddy Jack Crossland called saying he knew a couple who had a really old jukebox. Jack ran a large route at the time mostly in washaterias and did well with them. He knew these people through that somehow. I drove to his place and we hopped in his car and drove over to the house. As we’re driving up I see a tall dark wooden jukebox in the driveway and husband and wife were cleaning and polishing it industriously. I told Jack to just keep driving. They were “in love” with the machine and I knew they wouldn’t part with it. Time went by. Jack called me perhaps three months later and said they were ready to sell it. They fell out of love with it and I ended up getting it for $400. When I got back to the shop I took my time examining it. It was a Mills of some sort. It had a very unique way of playing the records. It held a dozen 78’s on a big wheel with individual turntables. The selected record would roll around on this merry go round to the play motor. I don’ know if anyone knew or cared but the records were still on it. I carefully removed them. One was a Muddy Waters number, another a Big Bill Broonzy selection. This at a time when blues 78’s went for a LOT! I put those two on auction and ended up getting about $150 for the pair. As for the juke I just really didn’t know what to do with it and ended up selling it for what I gave at a local jukebox and collectible show. It helped me decide to stick with Seeburgs and only the 45rpm machines. It’s still a bit of fun to discover and old silver dime lost in a crack or corner of a 50’s box.