seeburg 200C-1 library unit

[Larry]

I saw one of these on Youtube and thought "How cool is that!!"  A 200 selection 1950's ipod.  I had to find one.  These are pretty rare because they cost an arm and a leg when they came out.  These were really toys for rich people.  I looked around for awhile and found one beat up one.  Then last summer I was joking with a guy at work about Craigslist and I just typed it in and BAM, it was one mile from my work.  I couldn't believe it.  I saw that it was listed on Monday and here it was on Friday.  I wrote the guy and it was still for sale.  I guess I was lucky that not too many people knew what this was.  I was able to get him to drop $100.00 bucks on it so I was happy.  It wasn't working, missing the knobs, just a huge mess.  I spent about three months working on taking it all apart and figuring out how to make it work.  Tons of adjustments.  Not to much out there on ripping one of these apart.  Usually people stop after tearing out the clutch.  I went all the way with this one.  Tore it down to bare bones and brought it back to life.
I found knobs from a guy who had the video on Youtube, (Seeburgrocks).  I had to buy a pre amp from him to get the knobs, but at least the tubes were included and he gave me a great price.  He also had a spare amp that was rebuilt so I bought that from him too.  I am going to rebuild my amp, that isn't too hard, but holy crap, that pre amp was something else.  He asked his buddy Chris Cuff if he would rebuild it.  I was excited by that and could not pass that up.  Chris has awesome Youtube videos and when I had my first Music Mite, he gave me some repair advice.  Great guy.  
Once it was all together, I was playing some records and mono was great, (it is a high fidelity, not true stereo machine), but stereo sucked.  I talked to a few people, mainly the two I mentioned earlier and they recommended a few different cartridges.  I ended up with a Pickering 345-03D cartridge.  I was on the fence with it because I couldn't find one cheaper that $350.00.  So what the Hell, I already had a bunch of time and money invested, lets go for broke.
I wanted to post pictures of it earlier, but its something you have to hear.  So I shot some footage but couldn't edit copyrighted material on Youtube.  I can download it fine.  You just can't edit it.  So for weeks I tried to get this video out there.  I ended up using some old software for my camera on an old computer lying around.  After a few updates, I got it to work.  The camera makes constant chirping noises, which is irritating, but the music drowns it out  .

So here is my 1954 Seeburg 200C-1,  I hope you enjoy it!!

https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=n60Q4jA9FXI

[Ltransam]

Larry Buddy  you never cease to amaze me !!!!!

First let me say  that R O C K S !!!!!!

It's frigging amazing . The sound is awesome

I love the condition it's Beautiful .

Great job as usual 

[Slider-Bob]

Great job Larry! You always find a way to do the impossible. Congrats.

[Jim]

Very Nice Larry ! ! !
Awesome work bringing something back to life!

[Larry]

Thanks.  Since it is a boring box to watch I wanted a song that had a kick to it.  I had to buy Eruption, from Van Halen, in Germany.  No US releases.  Discogs is a great internet record shop, so to speak.

These things are neat because you don't need a coin to make a selection.  You just turn it on and it plays where it left off.  When it's done, it will move over one and play the next record.  After it plays all 100 records, it reverses and then plays the other sides.  You have the option to use toggles to play either side A, sides A and B, side B, or no record at all.  The consoles came in mahogany with matching front doors and they also came in a blonde wood.  Very cool for parties.  Not much to watch because all the action is contained in the cabinet,  Basically, you are looking at the rear side of a jukebox.

I never took a Seeburg apart before.  There is a lot to it.  I just took a lot of pictures.  The nice thing is you can break it down in sub-assemblies.  Here are a few pictures.  The clutch is the first thing you take apart.  This is probably the part that could screw up a juke box the most.  One motor with the clutch scans for records, picks up records, plays records in different directions.  Very ingenious.

[Larry]

Here's the tone arm assembly. 

[Larry]

When I got to this piece I was happy.  Very easy to do, but very important.  This is the trip mechanism.

[HowDueYouDue]

Eruption sounds even better coming out it

[Creighton]

Great find and work getting it back to life!!

>"I never took a Seeburg apart before.  There is a lot to it."

Finding that out poking around the SPS2. Not happy the eBay manual is blurred at just the critical area's.

Hope all goes well.
Creighton
 

[Larry]

Found another one.  Found it with the same way with the same guy.

The first one I found on Craigslist when my coworker asked me about Craigslist.  I typed in Seeburg and bam, there it was.  A mile from my work.

The second one he was showing me Offer Up and I typed in Seeburg and bam, there was it's brother.  A Seeburg 200 C-2 about 50 miles away.  So I had to pick it up.  I didn't work on it yet, but now I have both the mahogany and the Korina versions.

These Seeburg hi fidelity home stereos sound great.  Not too many people seem to like these.  Not sure why.