Is this heaven?

JMK

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Please excuse this post if I seem like a kid at Christmas, but....

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Jim (the moniker is my initials since "JimK" was already taken), and I just found this forum earlier today.

And I am excited!

My tale: Sometime before I was born my Father purchased a Rock-Ola model 1452 from a local bowling alley that closed-down, and I essentially grew-up with it. Some of my earliest memories as a child involve that machine, and I used to spend hours and hours looking at, and playing with it. Dad used to open up the top, and then push a chair against the front of it so I could stand on it and watch it work. And I was mesmerized! When I was older he would let me replace the tubes, or when the needle dropped out (which happened more than I would care to admit) he would let me crawl all over inside it, looking for the dropped needle. (Imagine letting an 8 year old kid do that in today's world!) However, one day my parents decided to finish-off the basement, and the jukebox had to go. This was in 1975 or so (I was 10), and if memory serves they sold it for $25. Broke my heart.

For 35 years I've longed to replace that old Rock-Ola, and many hours have been spent surfin' the web, looking at pictures, watching Youtube videos...

In the movie "Citizen Kane", the last word uttered by Charles Kane was "Rosebud".......Well, this Rock-Ola has been my own, personal "Rosebud" for 35 years...

Until last week, that is.

That's right, I found one. And better yet, I bought it! It was an eBay listing:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...69667&_sacat=See-All-Categories&_fvi=1&_rdc=1

I haven't picked it up yet (I'm in Minnesota, it is in West Virgina), I don't know it's "true" condition (other than what is stated in the ad), and I may have paid too much for it. But you know what? I don't care! "Rosebud" is coming home, and I'm so excited I can hardly sleep at night!

If anyone reading this is familiar with the Barrett-Jackson car auctions they will recognize the term "better than new condition". My intent, no matter how long this takes, is to restore this 1452 to "better than new condition". 1 year, 2 years, or 10 years. $1k, $2k, or $10k. I don't care. It's going to happen.

But I'm going to need help, and I hope to learn much from everyone here. I don't know where to start, or what to do, but I'm looking forward to it all!

Thanks for reading my (somewhat sappy) first post!

Jim
 
Congrats on your purchase! I hope it brings you all the joy you hope. It looks like it is in pretty decent shape. Should be a fun project. Good luck!
 
Thanks! One thing I forgot to mention....

My folks "snow bird" down in Arizona every winter, and when I called my father and told him about it he sounded excited. (I wanted to ask him, "Ok, if you're excited about this, why did you sell the other one in the first place?", but I didn't....). They should be back in town the week before Easter, and not only did Dad say he wants to come with me, if I pick it up in-person, but he wants to make this a father-son project.

The man is 76 years old, and he wants to dig into a jukebox restoration project! Gotta love it.

Jim
 
Awesome story and great pick up. I love the Rockola brand. I've got a Rockola 470 from the 70's that I picked up in the warehouse district in Minneapolis. It's been a well-tempered beast for the 6+ years I've had it.



 
Congratulations on the pick up! As to whether or not you over paid for it, who cares, as long as you are comofrtable with the price and happy with the purchase that's all that matters. Good luck with your restoration, take picks along the way.
 
Phetishboy,

It appears that you're reasonably close-by (I'm in Maple Grove). Once I get this home you are more than welcome to stop-by and give it a look-see!

And I love the 70's look of your jukebox! Talk about "taking me back"....

Pmichelsen,

Thanks, and I couldn't agree more. How can you put a price on memories? And as they say, one man's junk....

I plan on taking two digital cameras with me (one does better close-up work), and I'll upload them to Photobucket or similar once I (we?) get back.

Jim
 
Neat looking unit !!!I have a rock-ola 444 that gets lots of use.The first thing you'll want to do is get a manual either on ebay or victoryglass.com.
 
Rockola

Great find and its addicting. I bought a Rockola 1458, and now I also have 2 Rockola 474's I only wanted to have 1 jukebox but now I have three. Kinda like when I told my wife that I only wanted 1 pinball, now it is at 3 also. It has been real fun learning about jukes and how to work on them. The only problem has been finding certain parts, seems that Rockola's were not as numerous as some of the others.

Great find and good luck with the Juke.

Wally
 
Love the old jukes, kicking myself for not picking up a few during my warehouse raid years ago.

Phet, your machine is on eBay...cheap. Bit of a drive, but...

http://cgi.ebay.com/Rock-Ola-470-Ju...emQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item1c111b6b40

Get it, get it! Best Juke I have ever owned. Sound is awesome and you can't beat the look of it. I have a very nice original manual here if you need to borrow it to fix that non-returning the records to the cradle issue.
 
Congrats on the acquisition.

Give alt.collecting.juke-boxes a look, too. It's slow in there with only a couple of posts/day, but a world of old wisdom awaits.
 
The first thing you'll want to do is get a manual either on ebay or victoryglass.com.

Burt666,

I placed an order with Victory Glass for a "Service & Parts Manual" earlier this morning. Thanks for the heads-up!

I also asked them to let me know if they have any additional literature available, but so far I haven't received word. If you know of additional sources, I'm all ears!!

(Edit: And "BBQ", Thanks! I'll try to find it. I've been reading a lot of older posts here, and learning quite a bit. However, the more I learn, the more I see I have a lot to learn!)

Thanks.

Jim
 
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check with Lloyd Thoburn at coinop warehouse - he could probably help you with parts.

lloyd AT coinopwarehouse dot com

Over the years he has been a good source for vid stuff, but he is mainly into jukes.
 
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James,

Thanks for the info! I don't know what I will need yet (hopefully it won't be much!), but I've started to compile a list of potential sources.

Jim
 
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