I live in Regina Saskatchewan. As a hobby I repair, restore, buy and sell antique phonographs (gramophones), pinball machines as well as jukeboxes.

How did I get into such a hobby?

I have always enjoyed music and have been fascinated with gramophones and jukeboxes. When we got married in 1995, my wife Linda and I used some of our wedding money to purchase our first gramophone from a local antique store. When it needed some adjustments and minor repairs, I was given some contact names from the store owner. As I am mechanically inclined, I was able to do most of the repairs myself with a few phone calls to the individuals.

Antique Phonographs

This led to my joining the Canadian Antique Phonograph Society (CAPS) and meeting many more gramophone enthusiasts. For several years, my wife & I attended the society's meetings in Toronto. As our lives got busier, we stopped attending. However, I still keep in touch with several of the members.

After working on my own gramophones (yes, the first purchase led to others), I worked on other people's as well buying and selling machines. The owner of the antique store where we purchased our first machine seemed happy to have a repairman nearby rather than having to ship machines elsewhere.

Of course one needs records to play on a gramophone. This led to checking flea markets, yard sales, antique stores and shows for 78rpm records to add to our collection. Fortunately both my wife and I enjoy big band music. And as we are children of the rock'n'roll generation, we would also pick up rock & roll records from the 1950's. Of course, we risked damaging records of that vintage if played on the gramophone with its heavy tone arm. Solution: JUKEBOX!!!

When visiting a record collector in his home, I became fascinated with his Rockola 1422 jukebox and decided that was the model of jukebox I would like to own one day. So the hunt began, as well as saving money to purchase a machine once I found one. My wife had introduced me to eBay and I sold various gramophones and parts as well as records to build up my "Rockola 1422 fund".

Pinball Machines

My wife also enjoys pinball machines. A couple of months before her birthday, I saw an ad in the local paper for pinball machines. When I contacted the seller, he had one left: Pro Football. Although she is not a sports fan, she had previously said she didn't care about the theme of the machine. The price was right, so I bought the machine even though it was not in running order. The seller gave me some advice and within a few weeks, I had the machine functioning properly. This led to purchasing, repairing and selling of other pinball machines as well as doing repairs for others. I eventually decided I wanted my favourite pinball machine: Star Trek [the one from the original series, not the Next Generation]. I was able to find and purchase such a model at a Coin-Op show in Toronto where a friend and I had a jukebox table.

Jukeboxes

When I had purchased the Pro Football pinball machine for my wife, I mentioned to the seller that I was interested in finding a Rockola 1422 jukebox. As it turned out, he had been involved with jukeboxes out at various locations. Although he was no longer actively involved in that line of business, he still had sources. A couple of months later, he contacted me to say that he knew of a couple of jukeboxes at a good price which could be repaired, restored and sold to help build up my "Rockola 1422 fund". So I bought the two jukeboxes with that intention; however, one of the machines was a Seeburg 100C which my wife insisted on keeping as 'her' jukebox. Her rationalization was that the Rockola 1422 would be for 78rpm records and as we had a lot of 45rpm records between the two of us, we needed a jukebox to play those as well.

I eventually tracked down a Rockola 1422 at a price I could afford - which of course means that it needed to be restored. Between those two machines, I gradually learned how to do the various mechanical repairs. Just as I had done with gramophones and pinballs, I started doing repair and restoration work for others.

Terry