Jukeboxes - The BalAMI I200M

Let's have a change.

It's been pointed out (correctly) that this blog is more than a tad OUFC-heavy. So here is something completely different. I have always subscribed to the maxim that 'he who dies with the most toys wins'. Here is one of my toys...

First, a short history lesson...

The AMI bit of BalAMI stands for Automatic Musical Instrument company. AMI are one of the 'big four' American manufacturers. (The others are Wurlitzer, Seeburg and Rock-Ola). American, I can hear you saying! Where was this beauty built? Memphis? Chicago? New York? Bismark, North Dakota?

Ilford.

Ilford, Essex.

After the second world war, the British government imposed import restrictions. A certain percentage of any item imported had to be 'made' in the UK. I'm not quite sure how this worked for bottles of Coke, nylons or American tourists, but bear with me. Balfour Machine Engineering (hence the Bal bit) imported parts from the states, put the boxes together in Ilford and hey presto! A British jukebox. Sort of.

The BalAMI story is documented in greater detail than I am going to go into here on the excellent BalAMI web site (http://www.bal-ami.com). Go there if you want more info.

Suffice to say that Balfour Machine Engineering put together a rather eclectic mixture of AMI jukes, some pretty close to their American equivalents and some completely off the wall (it must have been all the bromide in the tea).

The Model I of which this is an example, is one of the most 'true to the original' models in most respects, except that deep inside is a British Beam Echo amp rather then an American AMI version. OK, so that's explained the BalAMI bit and the I bit. The 200 means it plays 200 selections (the a and b sides of 100 45 rpm seven inch records) and the M means it is a manual selection jukebox.

Here's a shot showing the selection mechanism. To select a top tune, just spin the red wheel. As the numbers click past the letters also increment, and with a mere three hundred spins of the wheel you have reached your choice. A bit of an exaggeration maybe - but these manual select mechs are much cheaper to make than the electric select option. Having said that, there is a certain physical nature to this kind of selector, that is quite pleasing to operate.

Above the selector wheel you can see the turntable and arm. Above that is the gripper motor and (in between the title strips) a small bit of the record basket.

Let's take the back off the machine and look at the record basket...

Here's the record basket. It has (oddly enough) 100 slots, hands up who can tell me why...

The main motor of the juke moves the basket round, and the jukebox equivalent of a large elastic band makes sure that the records don't fall out when they're at the bottom. I bet you were wondering about that!

So, you make your highly manual selection, press the gaudily coloured black button next to the red selector wheel and it all swings into motion. The turntable starts going round, the record basket revolves. When it gets to your selection, the basket stops and the gripper arm driven by (go on, guess...) the gripper motor grabs the record, and depending on whether you have selected the a or b side, flips the record horizontally one way or the other and plonks it on the turntable. The arm then comes across and you hear that lovely hiss as the stylus hits the groove. Aaah..

Unless you've chosen to play 'I Think I'm Paranoid' by Garbage.

Then the gripper arm hurls the record around the jukebox, and the needle starts to play the lovely sound of the turntable. Nice! But only that record. So my jukin' advice is never put Garbage in a BalAMI - you know it makes sense.

And finally - this jukebox was made in 1958. BalAMI made this machine in just the fetching pink you can see above - AMI made a turquoise version as well. There are no confirmed sightings of an electric select BalAMI version of the Model I - unless you can tell me better. The colour scheme above is not totally original - the pink bits right at the back and under the grille would originally have been black, but a previous owner wanted it pink - looks OK to me. Oh, and this actual box was on 'Blue Peter' back in September 1998. Now if only I can just peel off all that sticky back plastic...