A few years ago one of my neighbors asked if I could help out moving a jukebox. He got it from a friend who was moving and thought his teenage son would enjoy it.
Damn that thing was heavy and awkward to move! It took three of us to wrestle it into the house and into the teens small bedroom. It took up about a quarter of the room. But it was rather cool.
Like pinball machines, anyone who is attracted to mechanical action loves to watch the machine select a record, load it onto the turntable and play the selection.
Even with all of our Alexa, voice-selected music libraries, iTunes, Spotify, YouTube and other apps which place music at our fingertips, there is still something cool about that glowing, robotic coin-op machine that is a jukebox.
Of course, these days you have to be middle-aged or older to even remember ever seeing a jukebox in the wide. Sadly they are becoming obsolete and forgotten like those old console radios from the pre-TV days.
Heavy, bulky and obsolete, jukeboxes don’t hold the same collectibility of pinball machines methinks.
Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist is full of ads for jukeboxes in the $500 and under category. Many are even in the “take it, please” category that also includes a lot of Foosball and pool tables.
Jukeboxes are cool and if you have space in a large game room they make a great conversation piece especially when filled with some great old rock and roll 45s.
No doubt there are some models that remain highly collectible and they have their fans among collectors but it’s hard to justify owning more than one jukebox – unlike pinball machines or arcade machines. Any home game room really only needs one jukebox if any while supporting any number of pinball machines or other games.