Rock-Ola1428

(1948-49) Magic-Glo

THE

Rock-Ola was founded by David Cullen Rockolain 1927.Originally the company did produce pinballs, slot machines

and scales but stepped into the jukebox business not before 1935.

Because people often mis-pronounciated his last name David C. added the hyphen to his last name – and Rockola

became Rock-Ola.In 1940 Rock-Ola entered also into the radio-ponograph field

and produced various radio-phonograph combinations forhome use.

Rock-Ola's main head office was in Chicago, USA. But theydid produce in other countries like Mexico (INSSA, 1954),

Venezuela and Australia, too. NOVA, the general importer forGermany and Europe, did assemble some machines insteadof importing them in one piece; probably due to some cost

and custom reasons.It is remarkable that David C. Rockola and A.W. Adickes of

the German NOVA already met in 1930 for the first time andplanned to distribute Rock-Ola jukeboxes in Europe in 1939.But WW2 stopped this and the plan had to wait another 14

years for its realisation. In Denmark the Nordisk Automat Service did produce at least

three models under license.David C. Rockola passed away in 1992 at the age of 96shortly after selling the company to Antique Apparatus

(founded in 1977) in September 1992. Antique Apparatus was renamed into "Rock-Ola" at this time.