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Modern jukeboxes trace their origins to coin-operated phonographs. Marketed as automatic phonographs, these late-nineteenth-century machines combined Thomas Alva Edison’s (1847–1931) wax cylinder phonograph with a coin-operated mechanism. Edison patented the first cylinder phonograph in 1878 after experimenting with a device that recorded audible messages from a telegraph or telephone signal. This machine utilized a metal cylinder wrapped in tinfoil and was more of a novelty, as recordings quickly degraded after a few plays. Edison’s Improved Phonograph followed a decade later with wax cylinders that greatly increased the life-span of recordings. During the 1890s, electrically operated automatic phonographs were produced by various manufacturers under license from Edison. Nicknamed “nickel-in-the-slot” machines, they appeared in arcade parlors across the United States alongside Kinetoscopes, another Edison invention that played short movies from 35 mm film. Automatic Edison phonograph courtesy of the Joe Welch American Antique Museum. "The Automatic Age: Coin-Operated Machines" is on display, pre-security, in the International Terminal. http://bit.ly/CoinOperated This image was posted on July 25, 2018.

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