This page
shows a glimpse of the steps to restore my Seeburg 201
Along
with a little history along the way
A little background story on this jukebox. I purchased this jukebox
more years ago then I care to remember. One weekend,
we rode out onto Long Island's east end. I stopped at a dealer
that sold arcade games, pool tables, and jukeboxes. When I saw he a had
a few older jukeboxes in his showroom, I asked if he had any others.
Since my interest is primarily in Seeburg's I asked about them in any
condition. He said , yes , I do have an unrestored one you might be
interested in.
He then took me across the street to an unheated large shed like
building that may at one time been a garage. There, among a lot of
misc. things was this Jukebox.
How long it had sat in this unheated building I had no idea, but it was
obvious it was many years.
I made the deal and borrowed a truck to move it. This was the second
jukebox project I purchased. At the time I had a small home, with a
full basement that I hoped would become a game room and be the place
for this.
When I got it home it sat covered on my car port, I had no garage.
I evaluated the condition of it carefully. I also removed the
electronics for further evaluation and restoration. Being a technician,
I looked forward to the challenge of restoring them. However, when I
connected the units through a variac and slowly increased the voltage I
heard crackling from the transformers which were obviously rusted and
had been wet. Testing the windings of all the transformers I found 3
defective.
I decided to try and hunt down better specimens to restore. Eventually
I found a restorer had both units restored in excellent shape, so
we made a deal.
This saved me a lot of work and gave me known good working units. With
the new electronics I was able to test the mechanism's condition.
Life got in the way to go further, and there it sat on the carport for
more than a year, waiting for the time and money I could put into it to
take it further.
After about a year or so we decided to move. The jukebox went into
storage until the new house was finished at which time it moved to it's
new home in our new garage. Along with a DS160 project purchased just
before the move. Eventually joined by a third project a HF100R.
The person I bought the first jukebox from (hf100G) told me this was a
sickness.....I guess he was right. Luckily my wife enjoys them as well.
The next jukebox restore after some arcade games was the Hf100R shown
elsewhere on this web page. Then came the DS160. However the 201 still
wasn't done.
The cost was a bit prohibitive and so it waited.
More time pasted and another move was planned this time out of state to
Florida.
The 201 along with most other games and jukeboxes made the move as well.
Now, some 9 years after purchasing the jukebox, I decided it had to be
finished. So I started the cabinet and mechanism restoration....it was
going to get done!
The chrome plating was over $1500 alone. The grill came out terrible.
Thankfully, in all this time that had gone by, someone had made a
reproduction!
So, around another $300 and I had all the "jewelry" to make it shine.
Then came replacement glass, a mechanism cover, a Pickering cartridge,
speakers reconed, etc etc.
Finally it was done! and it's beautiful and sounds great as well. It is
the most costly restoration to date.
Here it is:
If you don't want to go through all this contact Zuddie
Smith! He is a blue ribbon winner many times over.
In my opinion the best restorer out there.
I will update this page shortly to show more of the process but for now
here is the finished jukebox.
Original condition (good side)
Restored
Jukebox
Here is a photo of a 201 in a episode of Perry Mason (The case of the
Lurid letter)
Return