[78-L] Vertical turntable

[David Breneman]

 From: Robert M. Bratcher Jr. <rbratcherjr at yahoo.com>


> Seeburg jukeboxes had vertical turntables starting with the M100-A in 1948 
> through the 1960's that I know of. Perhaps in the 70's too.

Seeburg made vertical play machines right through to the end in
the 1980s. In fact, one of the reasons they were compelled to
develop a CD jukebox mechanism (in cooperation with Sony) was
because the tooling for the 45 mechanism was worn out.

BTW, the reason I put a smiley by the link is that this is
my machine, which I've owned since 1976.  My parents bought it
for me as a Christmas present for $35!  Like a large number
of M100-As, it had been converted to play 33 LPs.  Many more
were converted to play 45s, and that conversion is almost
impossible to reverse.  I made this video a few years ago to
show owners of the converted machines what one looks like
playing 78s.

>  The Seeburg 
> home units from the 40's through the 60's had the same vertical 
> turntable design. The first home unit was a very large 78 rpm machine (that also 
> had an industrial counterpart) & it was the forerunner to the M100-A coin 
> operatede jukebox which was Seeburg's last 78 rpm jukebox then they switched 
> to 45 rpm both for the jukeboxes & the home units. There was also a big 
> console home unit in the 1960's that played 33 rpm LP's with the same 
> vertical turntable design.

It's arguable that the 45 would not have succeeded without
Seeburg's active involvement.  Remember, Columbia just assumed
that 78s would continue to be the format of choice for
singles.  Seeburg took the extraordinary step of scrapping 
its 78 mechanism (at the time the world's most advanced
record changer by an order of magnitude, and the one that
allowed Seeburg to finally topple Wurlitzer from its
position of dominance in the industry) after only one model,
the M100-A, and came out with the M100-B in 1950.  They also
established a distribution system for 45 records for jukebox
operators.