1957 Seeburg 100

Sooo, I fixed my Rock-Ola 478. Thanks especially to Ron and Clones. Now that I have something to enjoy, I spoiled and looking for a machine that is more my style. There's a 1957 Seeburg is local / for sale, and I think it is a beautiful machine. Price seems fair at $1k, it plays, looks to be in nice aesthetic condition. Only negative raps are that I am worried about loading / transporting it, and the card selector v-shaped plastics are missing. I know the plastics can be replaced but are pricey. I am concerned with handling something with this much glass to it. It also concerned me that the owner said that she could fit 100 records into it by putting 2 records per slot. Maybe she miscommunicated. I'm going to look at it Saturday. Any wizdom Jedi Masters?

-Joe

Hi Joe,
1st--what model # is it ?? Seeburg made at least, 25, "100's"--(model # should be on cabinet rear on ID tag)
2nd. In most cases not a good idea to transport it unless PROPERLY, "bolted for transport".
3 rd. "Doubling up" was considered a "no-no" by Seeburg engineering ! I have seen some people get away with it--for awhile--till it jams and ruins something !
Ron Rich

Ron, 2nd and 3rd: That's what I feared. 1st, this is the one.

https://ci5.googleusercontent.com/proxy ... ukebox.jpg

HorrorBiz 72 wrote:Sooo, Only negative raps are that I am worried about loading / transporting it, and the card selector v-shaped plastics are missing. I know the plastics can be replaced but are pricey.
-Joe

The fact that these parts are missing raises warning signal. This is a fairly desirable machine in terms of looks and size. In the fall of 1969 when I got an "L" as my Christmas present, they were selling for just over twice what a V-VL went for. If it has been "parted" it may indicate that some serious problem made it beyond the seller's ability or desire to fix and instead he used the parts to finish something in better internal shape.

Th K&L had an unusually short production run. The principal issues were burning circuit boards at their edge connectors. There were old wives tales of fires, but I've seen dozens of these two models, owned three L's and a K and not had anything more than annoying problems to deal with. There were boxes of failed circuit boards at Al Simon (Seeburg Dist) here in NYC but nothing catastrophic.

The edge connector problem is easily dealt with by soldering the wires directly to the traces. A more pernicious problem with these now 60 year old boards is carbonization between traces and pin holes at high voltage pins on the tube sockets causing leakage and potential minor burning as well as shorts. I had one tone amp board that oscillated due to this problem. Sometimes you can remove the socket, drill out the holes that show blackening so they when the tube socket is placed back those pins do not touch the board and instead use point-to-point wiring instead. There are replacement boards available -both populated and bare.

The usual need to add fusing applies equally to these models

One advantage is these small versions have the same amp as the 200. I you add a crossover, real tweeter, later pickup and external preamp, they sound better than anything else in their size from that era....but they are a bit more work to get safe and reliable.

Rob

Hi Joe,
Still un-sure of the model number--Seeburg made two models, using this cabinet, neither of which was the 1957 model ! Ron Rich