That's definitely cool old technolog. The Frank Sinatra Story being able to authenticate the handwriting definitely make something like this so much more special.
I had a "Seeburg Stereo Showcase" 45 RPM jukebox from 1966. It's amazing how similar these are. This is just a scaled up jukebox to play 78s. The Select-o-Matic served Seeburg well. They also made a huge "console stereo" in the 70's that played full size LPs. Like this, only the rich and famous that had them.
Incredible! What a beautiful piece of machinery, and an incredible history it has. How wonderful, that it has survived, and that you have restored, and have cherished it. I am grateful there are others like us, that see the value, and beauty, and don't just toss "old" technology away. Thank you, for also, making a video to share it with others, for all-time.
@@discerningmind The practice of using 'an' before words with an 'h' sound still exists, though it is increasingly rare in the modern world. Many of us use 'an' in this way in writing but not in casual speech. I only give into the modern practice because of the strange, ill-informed looks I would get otherwise. I should add that the 'rules' are not entirely clear. One might write "an honorary degree" but not "an hairy spider."
@@monteirolobato6830 You replied to the wrong person. I didn't understand Gary Francis statement, so I replied "?". I see by your comment that this is about language, and he was questioning marc jourdain use of "An".
Its so cool what they were able to accomplish with an electric motor, some solenoids and a few cams. Easy to see why the average Joe in 1948 couldn't have afforded one of these.
Why would anyone want to get rid of something so beautiful is beyond me. Truly this a piece of technological history from back in the day. This must be worth a fortune.
Beautiful old machine in astonishing condition. I love the history behind that one you have, and it’s wonderful to see yours playing records so perfectly. The timing device confirms it was designed for commercial use generally. I worked for Muzak for 30+ years, we used to have interval timers on many commercial background music systems. Those pretty much went away by the early 70’s most were found bypassed. The standard music systems installed by us were typically left on 24 hrs, and frequently in locked cabinets to stop employees from tampering with the music.
The digital Age has meant we seldom see the absolute genius of older sound technology. The record platter alone is amazing. I saw the pre amplifier, I wonder what the main amplifier looks like? I had a amplifier from a 1950 Seaburg juke box for our home stereo system in the 1950-60's
I bet the preamp and phase inverter tube is a 6SN7 and the output tubes are 6L6 tubes in push pull. The rectifier tube: I’d guess 5U4G - am I right? Yeah I always tinkered with old amps. I like how the old tube amps sound. It looks like there’s a black metal tube back there too.
Beautiful workmanship. Too bad that no matter how much you are willing to spend you can't get a phone with this kind of attention to detail and craftsmanship. The best you can do is a custom case and perhaps a matching theme.
Cool but I bet the handwriting is worth more than the record player. Few people have room or use for something that large that plays 78 rpm records. Fans of that era are mostly no longer alive either. Would take someone related to Frank to consider buying it really. Would be best to donate to a museum if one would take it. Maybe some rock star or movie star would buy it and never use it. It is cool though, so is my 1993 100 disc CD changer but that is also a dead format. Maybe if Curt Cobain owned it? lol
Don't type so fast, there are plenty of us out here who would love to have this in our houses if only for a year or two before passing along to someone else to enjoy
Mike,Glad you got this beautiful machine. I saw it when it was posted on eBay many years ago and the seller had said it was Frank Sinatra’s. I do believe there is a photo of Frank sitting down on the floor next to this machine holding one of the record books out there somewhere. I don’t remember where I had seen it,but I believe it was at a friends who used to work for Seeburg back in the 50’s and 60’s and he collected tons of factory photos and literature. He passed away a long time ago unfortunately. I believe Nat King Cole also owned one.
I have always been fascinated by jukeboxes. This one is a true work of art. And what a cool history to it. I wonder how many of these machines were produced?.
I repaired a unit like this that had mice pooping and pee and frayed wires. This unit was a modernized version that played LP records. SEEBURG claimed that the turntable playing the albums juke-box-style was playing the records with the same accurcay and precise tracking as a turntable sitting on a desk. The amplifier and radio section was in reasonable shape. It was all of the mechanical that needed help. I even bought a video about maintaining the system and aligning. It had a Tormat system as memory for music requests and a dial-type telephone to set up a playlist for playback. The stereo speakers were in separate cabinets that fit in the massive cabinet. It took me about 8 months to get it working again. The owner fell in love with the system. His family had a separate room built to play music and dance on a weekly basis. Quite a nice system . Probably cost a pretty penny back then
Very interesting piece of history and I'm glad to see it restored to working order. It deserves to be preserved and the fact that it belonged to Sinatra is just "the icing on the cake."
An amazing find. I would love to see what records were written in the indexes in each album, to get an idea of what they were listening to at the time. Most of us don’t have Seeburg music libraries but it could make for a fun playlist!
My dad had a jukebox route and I have one of his jukeboxes a Seeburg DS100 and a 3W1 wallbox, A Seeburg 1000 background music unit and also a Seeburg 45 library unit. I once saw this same unit advertised for sale as Frank Sinatra's unit. I'm happy for you that you have it and it is getting good TLC. An awsome piece!!!
What a great find in itself, that it had belong to 'Ol blue eyes and had his and Bing's notes in one of the record sleeves is even better. Juke boxes were amazing machines, just how they figured them out and were able to build them in such numbers, and have them be common tells what kind of people used to work in this country.
Sinatra and Bing were involved with ampex recording tape technology in its infancy just about that time. Nancy Sinatra released alot of music that she did on reel to reel. .. Nice unit,nice presentation. Thanks for sharing this with us.
Would this audio system have been terribly expensive when first marketed? I ask because I imagine that there cannot have been many sold and even fewer still available today. Your restoration is remarkable!
Fantastic. Thanks for sharing. I have a 1956 Motorola Hi-fi I am restoring. It is amazing how they built things back in the day. I still love tube sound.
Thank you very much for this. What a fascinating piece with a wonderful history. It's amazing to me how beautifully we used to make things. The audio hardware, cabinetry, and all other aspects of this equipment are top notch. When I see things like this and compare it to the high-tech plastic we have today, the transition is remarkable, but I feel that we're at a loss now because art and craftsmanship are missing. I own a 1948 Chrysler Windsor, and I can't ever drive that or even stand next to it, without feeling admiration for what just about all manufacturers would accomplish back then. As well as making a fine representation of their company and a presentation of beauty and craftsmanship for people to own something nice and personally experience. I think most often now, when we buy things, they lack beauty and detail. And they don't impart a statement that the manufacturer cares, and we don't really feel pride of ownership.
Wow, it is a beautiful piece of furniture let alone it's a great player and has pedigree to Frank Sinatra. The mechanics on how these work amaze me. Craftsmanship. Thank you for sharing this with us.
WOW! What a find! The restoration is immaculate! That's a keeper. I sure hope that in the basement, right below that monster, that you've installed an extra support post for the floor. LOL That has GOT to be super heavy! I'm guessing over 400 lbs. Well over.
This is great! First time I have seen or heard of this Seeburg jukebox! Great job on the restoration, it works well and sounds great. The "fidelity" of a 78 rpm record in good condition is amazing. I have a small collection of them and a couple of restored vintage machines to enjoy playing them on. I am assuming that the output tubes on the audio final amplifier are 6L6?
Goodness, what a wonderful music machine. Great piece of history. Wouldn't Nancy have a family picture of Frank with this audio system in the back ground?
I've had a seeburg jukebox from 1962, it had a memory build with wire and cores just like what's in the chips but full size. It retained the selection you made previously. It was cool with a powerful stereo sound. Has the same principle but with 45 ram instead. The disc itself doesn't flip sides, the tonearm change sides and the disc turns backwards instead.
I don't care much about Frank Sinatra, but that thing is COOL, and what a fascinating bit of detective work. It also can't be a coincidence that when talking about Sinatra and Bing Crosby "Count Your Blessings" from "White Christmas" was playing. Well done!
Nice unit, I have one myself. Did you happen to pay $100k for it? There was one on eBay priced at $100,000 for years that claimed to be Frank Sinatra's SL-1. It is good to know the real FS SL-1 is safe and sound at your place.
Well told, edited and simply delightful story to boot. Congrats on the wonderful find and beautiful piece of equipment, a superb combination of both art and machinery.
I'd love to know what the albums are. 200 records, all that fantastic music. What a beautiful piece of equipment as well. Being a fan of Sinatra, I'd love to know what he put in it.
Looks very familiar, the german NSM jukeboxes used a nearly same mechanism but the slide scanned for contacs with voltage on them to stop at a preselected record. Although for seven inch singles, the mechanism could switch from 45 to 33 1/3 rpm depending if the seven inch had a big hole or a small at the center. After seeing this I'm convinced that they adopted this Seeburg mechanism for their purposes.
MIke Pearlman! L.A. Jukebox. Mike, I remember when your hair was still all dark. ;) Remember when we did 18 Fatburger stores with Ed King of Sound Unlimited Systems? Don.
Pretty amazing. As a child in the early 1970's; I remember something somewhat similar to this, lower cabinet and and old fashioned "telephone" rotary dial that played records. This was at a relatives home in Palm Beach. Doubt that it would have played 78 's, perhaps 45 RMP records. What I do recall is "dialing" in a number to play a record.
@@pinballdan Thank you very much for the reply. It was the telephone dial, still then the most common type of phone and that always stuck out to me. My own parents would have shuddered at such a contraption as they were both "audiophiles" from the 1950's and always had component audio equipment.
That is very nice. How did it play the B side of the record? I thought he said something about the reversing unit, but I still don't understand. Only one song per 78rpm ten or twelve-inch record. The 33rpm was released in 1948, but this was perfect for someone who already had a collection of 78s. Cool find.
Seeburg made a smart move in buying the select-o-matic mechanism from Ed Andrews (the inventor,not the actor). It served them well for decades and gave them an edge on their competition. Not only was Seeburgs mechanism far more reliable,it was easier to service when it did need maintance and could easily hold more records than it’s competition. I think Seeburg also had some of the most beautiful designs of the 1950’s. It’s hard to find any of the M100A’s left that are still playing 78’s. Most got converted to 45rpm.
I like how the records were all in a row and the mechanism went to the record. Most others used a record carousel with some like Rowe making the carousel vertical with a belt used to hold the records in place on the sides and bottom of the carousel. Those in my experience suffer from worn pins on the motor armature where they engage a gear upon the motor turning on and when the pins get worn enough the carousel doesn't turn reliably if at all.
That's definitely cool old technolog.
The Frank Sinatra Story being able to authenticate the handwriting definitely make something like this so much more special.
Love your Handle, “ARednecksLife”
@@ThomasATorr Thanks
I had a "Seeburg Stereo Showcase" 45 RPM jukebox from 1966. It's amazing how similar these are. This is just a scaled up jukebox to play 78s. The Select-o-Matic served Seeburg well. They also made a huge "console stereo" in the 70's that played full size LPs. Like this, only the rich and famous that had them.
A thing of beauty and craftsmaship. And what a story. Thanks.
Incredible! What a beautiful piece of machinery, and an incredible history it has. How wonderful, that it has survived, and that you have restored, and have cherished it. I am grateful there are others like us, that see the value, and beauty, and don't just toss "old" technology away. Thank you, for also, making a video to share it with others, for all-time.
One of the coolest things I've seen in a long time.
An historical piece, they made so beautiful electronic things in those times. A real survivor from a fantastic era. 🎼🤩💯
A historical.
@@garyfrancis6193 ?
@@discerningmind The practice of using 'an' before words with an 'h' sound still exists, though it is increasingly rare in the modern world. Many of us use 'an' in this way in writing but not in casual speech. I only give into the modern practice because of the strange, ill-informed looks I would get otherwise. I should add that the 'rules' are not entirely clear. One might write "an honorary degree" but not "an hairy spider."
@@monteirolobato6830 You replied to the wrong person. I didn't understand Gary Francis statement, so I replied "?". I see by your comment that this is about language, and he was questioning marc jourdain use of "An".
@@discerningmind I didn't think you would get an answer from Gary Francis, so I explained as I did. I hope you took no offence as I meant none.
Amazing! Thanks for showing this. Anytime you get tired of it - I've got just the place for it in my living room!
Its so cool what they were able to accomplish with an electric motor, some solenoids and a few cams. Easy to see why the average Joe in 1948 couldn't have afforded one of these.
Why would anyone want to get rid of something so beautiful is beyond me. Truly this a piece of technological history from back in the day. This must be worth a fortune.
Beautiful old machine in astonishing condition. I love the history behind that one you have, and it’s wonderful to see yours playing records so perfectly. The timing device confirms it was designed for commercial use generally. I worked for Muzak for 30+ years, we used to have interval timers on many commercial background music systems. Those pretty much went away by the early 70’s most were found bypassed. The standard music systems installed by us were typically left on 24 hrs, and frequently in locked cabinets to stop employees from tampering with the music.
Wow wished they still had things like that
Man, what a beauty! even without the provenance!
The sound of that non-RIAA preamp is amazing with those 78s.
A real piece of history. Great Video x
That is absolutely amazing, what a piece of history! Cheers on such a great find!
That is a fantastic piece of technology.
FANTASTIC video, very cool piece and a wonderful story!!😎👍🐕
Gorgeous unit, couldn’t tell it is from the 40’s
The digital Age has meant we seldom see the absolute genius of older sound technology. The record platter alone is amazing. I saw the pre amplifier, I wonder what the main amplifier looks like? I had a amplifier from a 1950 Seaburg juke box for our home stereo system in the 1950-60's
Fantastic . Historical Functional Art.
Amazing piece of tech!!! Congratulation
It would be cool to see a live stream of it playing the entire rack, both sides.
It's fantastic old machine👍👍👍
How Lovely xx SWEET xx
The old records played on 33/3. Speed. Great find.
I bet the preamp and phase inverter tube is a 6SN7 and the output tubes are 6L6 tubes in push pull. The rectifier tube: I’d guess 5U4G - am I right?
Yeah I always tinkered with old amps. I like how the old tube amps sound.
It looks like there’s a black metal tube back there too.
This a great machine
Very good Sir
It’s so ironic that I listen to the seeburg 1000 back ground music radio
That's cool
Some of us literally have this device on our wrist now.
That is just the most insane piece of equipment, must have cost as much as a new car
Beautiful workmanship. Too bad that no matter how much you are willing to spend you can't get a phone with this kind of attention to detail and craftsmanship. The best you can do is a custom case and perhaps a matching theme.
Wow
Be careful with that door!
So has this unit sold? this would fetch a mighty sum based on it's rarity alone without it being once owned by Frank Sinatra
That must be worth a fortune
Nice
The four knobs under the records on the front what are those for?
Is that a timer in the upper left to automate when music plays?
Cool but I bet the handwriting is worth more than the record player. Few people have room or use for something that large that plays 78 rpm records. Fans of that era are mostly no longer alive either. Would take someone related to Frank to consider buying it really. Would be best to donate to a museum if one would take it. Maybe some rock star or movie star would buy it and never use it.
It is cool though, so is my 1993 100 disc CD changer but that is also a dead format. Maybe if Curt Cobain owned it? lol
Don't type so fast, there are plenty of us out here who would love to have this in our houses if only for a year or two before passing along to someone else to enjoy
@@arongarceau No there are not. Took a year for one person to say that.
Mike,Glad you got this beautiful machine. I saw it when it was posted on eBay many years ago and the seller had said it was Frank Sinatra’s. I do believe there is a photo of Frank sitting down on the floor next to this machine holding one of the record books out there somewhere. I don’t remember where I had seen it,but I believe it was at a friends who used to work for Seeburg back in the 50’s and 60’s and he collected tons of factory photos and literature. He passed away a long time ago unfortunately. I believe Nat King Cole also owned one.
Wow
That might be over 70 years, but dam that is high tech even today. High precision machinery.
What a wonderful story and a wonderful piece of equipment.
75 years later every single person non-chalantly carrries this device around in our pocket.
Pockets sure have gotten humongous over the years, huh?
@@theallknowingsause8940 No, the records got reeeealy small.
@@hyzercreek oh yeaaah, it's all coming back to me I love my 2 second singles in 80 parts for 1 song, supreme audio quality
Every person in our?
@@theallknowingsause8940 44.1 singles per second.
Wow that's beautiful. You can see the mechanical relays sparking as they're triggered. And what a piece of cultural history as well!
I have always been fascinated by jukeboxes.
This one is a true work of art.
And what a cool history to it.
I wonder how many of these machines were produced?.
I repaired a unit like this that had mice pooping and pee and frayed wires. This unit was a modernized version that played LP records. SEEBURG claimed that the turntable playing the albums juke-box-style was playing the records with the same accurcay and precise tracking as a turntable sitting on a desk. The amplifier and radio section was in reasonable shape. It was all of the mechanical that needed help. I even bought a video about maintaining the system and aligning. It had a Tormat system as memory for music requests and a dial-type telephone to set up a playlist for playback. The stereo speakers were in separate cabinets that fit in the massive cabinet. It took me about 8 months to get it working again. The owner fell in love with the system. His family had a separate room built to play music and dance on a weekly basis. Quite a nice system . Probably cost a pretty penny back then
I just picked up a almost MINT one of these for $200 !!! Such a lucky find!
Very interesting piece of history and I'm glad to see it restored to working order. It deserves to be preserved and the fact that it belonged to Sinatra is just "the icing on the cake."
Wow. What a find! It is a mechanical computer owned by Frank Sinatra and Marie McDonald!. Treasure it!
An amazing find. I would love to see what records were written in the indexes in each album, to get an idea of what they were listening to at the time. Most of us don’t have Seeburg music libraries but it could make for a fun playlist!
Frank's playlist! Fantastic idea! He put a lot of effort into it.
My dad had a jukebox route and I have one of his jukeboxes a Seeburg DS100 and a 3W1 wallbox, A Seeburg 1000 background music unit and also a Seeburg 45 library unit. I once saw this same unit advertised for sale as Frank Sinatra's unit. I'm happy for you that you have it and it is getting good TLC. An awsome piece!!!
What a great find in itself, that it had belong to 'Ol blue eyes and had his and Bing's notes in one of the record sleeves is even better. Juke boxes were amazing machines, just how they figured them out and were able to build them in such numbers, and have them be common tells what kind of people used to work in this country.
Well said, and particularly your patriotism.
Sinatra and Bing were involved with ampex recording tape technology in its infancy just about that time.
Nancy Sinatra released alot of music that she did on reel to reel.
..
Nice unit,nice presentation.
Thanks for sharing this with us.
Would this audio system have been terribly expensive when first marketed? I ask because I imagine that there cannot have been many sold and even fewer still available today. Your restoration is remarkable!
Fantastic. Thanks for sharing. I have a 1956 Motorola Hi-fi I am restoring. It is amazing how they built things back in the day. I still love tube sound.
Thank you very much for this. What a fascinating piece with a wonderful history. It's amazing to me how beautifully we used to make things. The audio hardware, cabinetry, and all other aspects of this equipment are top notch. When I see things like this and compare it to the high-tech plastic we have today, the transition is remarkable, but I feel that we're at a loss now because art and craftsmanship are missing. I own a 1948 Chrysler Windsor, and I can't ever drive that or even stand next to it, without feeling admiration for what just about all manufacturers would accomplish back then. As well as making a fine representation of their company and a presentation of beauty and craftsmanship for people to own something nice and personally experience. I think most often now, when we buy things, they lack beauty and detail. And they don't impart a statement that the manufacturer cares, and we don't really feel pride of ownership.
Frank collected Lionel trains and had a building behind his Palm Springs home just for those trains. Thanks for this peak at a celebrities toy.
Amazing - done entirely mechanically without any electronics. Folks back then were masters of engineering.
No,no back then we had the vacuum tube, the diode the pentode and all the associated circuitry involve,, that was. electronics,, all analog
Wow, it is a beautiful piece of furniture let alone it's a great player and has pedigree to Frank Sinatra. The mechanics on how these work amaze me. Craftsmanship.
Thank you for sharing this with us.
Great job restoring it especially the history of it very amazing. Thanks for sharing video of it.
WOW! What a find!
The restoration is immaculate!
That's a keeper.
I sure hope that in the basement, right below that monster, that you've installed an extra support post for the floor. LOL
That has GOT to be super heavy!
I'm guessing over 400 lbs. Well over.
This is great! First time I have seen or heard of this Seeburg jukebox! Great job on the restoration, it works well and sounds great. The "fidelity" of a 78 rpm record in good condition is amazing. I have a small collection of them and a couple of restored vintage machines to enjoy playing them on. I am assuming that the output tubes on the audio final amplifier are 6L6?
I'm sure the output tubes will be 6L6s..I have a Seeburg 100 A and play it all the time but man its hard to find the GOOD 78s ! It dose sound awesome!
Goodness, what a wonderful music machine. Great piece of history. Wouldn't Nancy have a family picture of Frank with this audio system in the back ground?
I bet that was a very expensive item to have back then-it's fantastic, even by today's standards. Thanks for sharing it with us!
What an amazing story! So is that Frank's private record collection?
One of a kind it belongs in a vintage electronics museum.
This is quality content! Thank you!!
What a great piece of everything except sxxx. History, engineering art,furniture, etc. what a score! Great presentation too, thanks for uploading.
That is so cool. A home juke box.Frank Sinatra wow.
Sinatra or not .. an amazing Part of Old Tech History !
I've had a seeburg jukebox from 1962, it had a memory build with wire and cores just like what's in the chips but full size. It retained the selection you made previously. It was cool with a powerful stereo sound. Has the same principle but with 45 ram instead. The disc itself doesn't flip sides, the tonearm change sides and the disc turns backwards instead.
That is an awesome unit!!
What a beautiful jukebox
We must preserve these
You have a magnificent piece of history!
I don't care much about Frank Sinatra, but that thing is COOL, and what a fascinating bit of detective work. It also can't be a coincidence that when talking about Sinatra and Bing Crosby "Count Your Blessings" from "White Christmas" was playing.
Well done!
What a beautiful and cool piece
Wow! What a work of art, then it plays so wonderfully! Thank you for sharing, as I had no idea these existed.
Nice unit, I have one myself. Did you happen to pay $100k for it? There was one on eBay priced at $100,000 for years that claimed to be Frank Sinatra's SL-1. It is good to know the real FS SL-1 is safe and sound at your place.
Incredible! A treasure to behold!
Thanks for sharing! What a great piece!
I think this is where Sharp got its idea from for the SC9670AV 50 + 1 CD changer stereo system.... Works entirely the exact same way....
A real treasure, thanks for sharing .
Really impressive! Glad you rescued that marvel.
Well told, edited and simply delightful story to boot. Congrats on the wonderful find and beautiful piece of equipment, a superb combination of both art and machinery.
Mechanical magic at its finest.
I'd love to know what the albums are. 200 records, all that fantastic music. What a beautiful piece of equipment as well. Being a fan of Sinatra, I'd love to know what he put in it.
Looks very familiar, the german NSM jukeboxes used a nearly same mechanism but the slide scanned for contacs with voltage on them to stop at a preselected record. Although for seven inch singles, the mechanism could switch from 45 to 33 1/3 rpm depending if the seven inch had a big hole or a small at the center.
After seeing this I'm convinced that they adopted this Seeburg mechanism for their purposes.
MIke Pearlman! L.A. Jukebox. Mike, I remember when your hair was still all dark. ;)
Remember when we did 18 Fatburger stores with Ed King of Sound Unlimited Systems?
Don.
Pretty amazing. As a child in the early 1970's; I remember something somewhat similar to this, lower cabinet and and old fashioned "telephone" rotary dial that played records. This was at a relatives home in Palm Beach. Doubt that it would have played 78 's, perhaps 45 RMP records. What I do recall is "dialing" in a number to play a record.
It would have been a Seeburg home console stereo and it plays 33 12" albums! I just got LUCKY and found a nice one for $200 !!! 🙂
@@pinballdan Thank you very much for the reply. It was the telephone dial, still then the most common type of phone and that always stuck out to me. My own parents would have shuddered at such a contraption as they were both "audiophiles" from the 1950's and always had component audio equipment.
And I thought the Sony 300 disc CD changer I had back in the late 1990’s was a new concept! 🤣
That is very nice. How did it play the B side of the record? I thought he said something about the reversing unit, but I still don't understand.
Only one song per 78rpm ten or twelve-inch record. The 33rpm was released in 1948, but this was perfect for someone who already had a collection of 78s.
Cool find.
It flips the tone arm in a cradle to play the other side of the record...Very cool !
What a great video and story
Blue eyes remains an iconic figure in the music world of mine
Thanks for sharing
Perhaps there is also pictures of his home taken inside where that system might be at the backgeounds.
I wonder what condition that metal stylus is in. Hope replacement needles can still be found.
We see the difference between the analogue mindset of 1948 and the digital mindset of today.
This is too sweet beyond words!
Seeburg made a smart move in buying the select-o-matic mechanism from Ed Andrews (the inventor,not the actor). It served them well for decades and gave them an edge on their competition.
Not only was Seeburgs mechanism far more reliable,it was easier to service when it did need maintance and could easily hold more records than it’s competition. I think Seeburg also had some of the most beautiful designs of the 1950’s. It’s hard to find any of the M100A’s left that are still playing 78’s. Most got converted to 45rpm.
I like how the records were all in a row and the mechanism went to the record.
Most others used a record carousel with some like Rowe making the carousel vertical with a belt used to hold the records in place on the sides and bottom of the carousel. Those in my experience suffer from worn pins on the motor armature where they engage a gear upon the motor turning on and when the pins get worn enough the carousel doesn't turn reliably if at all.
I have a 100 A on 78s...Love it!!
What a beautiful machine! 👌