The Bal-Ami Jukebox Story in Pictures.

The following pictures were taken at the Bal-Ami Factory in 1956 by the British-Pathe News

This is the Bal-Ami Wallbox for the Junior 40 of 1956

Bal-Ami Identification Plate

 The beginning of the G-80-120 cabinet. (Carpenter Tony Fahy)

Creating the sound box for the Bal-Ami G-80-120 (Tom Maher)
 Routing out the section for the Horn on the Bal-Ami G-80-120

Irene Goodman (in the foreground) preparing the wireing harness for the Bal-Ami G-80
 Testing the record changer for the Bal-Ami G-120 (Len Burton)

Testing the record allignment on the Bal-Ami G-80 Mechanism. (Ken Calvy)

Testing the Grip Strength on a Bal-Ami Mechanism. Alligning the Mechanism on a G-120
 Fine tuning a Bal-Ami G-120 prior to final assembly.

Checking the sound distribution on a Bal-Ami G-120

Ronnie Palmer was the chief engineer at Balfour Marine (Engineering) Ltd he was
Responsible for the final inspection of all Bal-Ami jukeboxes before they were packed for
Shipping. The pictures below shows Ronnie and his team checking the Bal-Ami G-80
and G-120 models before they left the test area.
 The final testing of all Bal-Ami jukeboxes was conducted by Ronnie Palmer Chief Engineer at Bal-Ami.

By 1958 Balfour Marine (Engineering) Ltd had turned to making a fruit machine called the “Silver Queen”
this was a disaster for the company, and Kenyon Wilkinson an American took away the tooling from
Balfour and moved it to Nottingham where he founded the Bell-Fruit Manufacturing Company Ltd, that is
now, after more than 50 years is one of the leading fruit machine companies in the U.K.

In 1960 Balfour Marine (Engineering) Ltd was contracted to manufacture amusement games
under licencve from The Bally Manufacturing Company, a Chicago based company, they moved
their entire production to a new 65,000 facility in Harlow, and started building the Bally Jumbo
and a Bally Shuffle Alley. Sam Norman died in 1962, and Balfour Marine (Engineering) Ltd was
no longer in the coin machine business, and Bal-Ami was no more.

Bally Lucky Shuffle 1960 Bally Jumbo 1959

AMI Incorporated Inc, Automatic Musical Instruments (Great Britain) Ltd

Ami Jukeboxes in the U.S.A and the U.K

At this time John Haddock President of Automatic Musical Instruments Inc. the American parent
company of Bal-Ami, was facing increased oposition from other jukebox companies that was taking
advantage of the lifted import restrictions placed by the British Government after World War II.

AMI Incorpotaed Inc. decided to form their own company in the U. K. Automatic Musical Instruments
(Great Britain) Ltd, and ship jukeboxes directly from their factory in the U.S. they later consolidated their
European operations and ran them from Paul hunger in Switzerland.

Ami Inc. Model i-200 1958 Ami Inc. Continental 1961 Ami Inc. Model J-200 1959

Cecil Jones then sales director for the company, left and started Acustic Developments Ltd, and sold and
operated jukeboxes himself.

Automatic Musical Instruments (Great Britain) Ltd Bal-Ami and Ami Inc. Training Certificates 1957.