Dear Jody,

Over the weekend I had the opportunity of seeing a most unusual, early
jukebox, which is in need of a new home. Here is the scoop.

The jukebox is located in Canada, not too far away from the U.S.
Border, near Buffalo, N.Y. The couple have owned it for about ten years
but have done nothing about it. It currently sits in a dry, basement
rec room.

It is unusual for the following reasons.

The manufacturer is the "Automatic Instrument Co" out of Canada and the
U.S.  (Michigan). It is a Model 8 C.

The mechanism is similar in design to early "AMI" machines; ie. It has
the turntable located on the right hand side of the mech board. The
left hand side of the mech board has a row of ten vertical records. The
stack probably moves from front to back. There is an arched arm which
curves over the record stack, picks out a record, and places it upon
the turntable.  It will play either side of the record.

The tone arm is a chrome plated (I believe) tubular affair being @ 16"
in length. The head of the tonearm is a large, almost vertical affair,
with enough room for a horseshoe magnet and coil. The needle is
probably supposed to be held in place by a screw. The tonearm is
located at the back of the cabinet.

The cabinet is @ 48" high, 30" deep, and 36" wide. It's all wood. The
speaker is located at the bottom of the cabinet behind a large circular
recessed area, covered by grill cloth. Mounted vertically through the
center of the recessed area is a chomed tube, which houses a
fluorescent light (red). Each side of the juke box has three horizontal
chrome tubes which wrap around to the front of the machine and meet at
the speaker circle.

The top front of the jukebox has a piece of glass, mounted at a 45
degree angle, to view the mechanism as it is playing. On either side of
the glass on the inside is a 12" fluorscent light.

The way to make a selection is unusual also. There are twenty slots,
vertically arranged and numbered. To make selection #15, for example,
you place a dime into slot #15, etc. The dime probably completes a
circuit as it drops into a chute, and activates a solenoid pin, which
will in turn select a record.

The jukebox has not been used in a number of years, since it is wired
for 110 volts, 25 cycles. 25 cycles has not been used in that part of
Canada since the 1950s. The owners say they have a converter to change
the 25 cycles to 60 cycles. I didn't look at the tube configuration,
but there were no unusually large or strange looking tubes on the
amplifier.

From what I have seen, I would make a guess that the machine is from a
company that evolved into the AMI corporation of the late 40s. There
are patent numbers on the machine, so it wouldn't be too hard to date
it if there is the interest...

Give me an e-mail or a call at 716-656-9583 if you would like more
info.

Best wishes,     Mike Walter