A not-to-be-missed photobooth buying opportunity is happening right now, as a Los Angeles-based photographer is having a moving sale that includes a 1945 Auto Photo booth. The booth, which looks like a classic rounded-end Model 9 and seems to be in absolutely mint condition, comes with a stock of paper, chemicals, parts, and a copy of the original manual. If you’ve got $16,500 to part with or make the best offer received, the booth is yours.
A piece of downtown Los Angeles history, manufactured at the original Auto-Photo factory on Santa Fe. Sit down, drop a quarter in the slot, and the fun begins. The original air compressor fires up, the lights turn on and off four times, an amazing mechanical contraption processes your portraits, and two minutes later, out slides a vintage looking b&w photo strip. Ready to use.
If only we had enough time to start a fundraising campaign for the purchase of an official Photobooth.net Photobooth — this would be the one. We’ll try to keep tabs on where this beauty goes.
Amazing booth. Coveted.
$16,500, it’s incredible
Wow… back in the late ’50 and into the late ’70s my dad and his partner owned more that 35 of these machines scattered around Buffalo, NY… airport, train terminal, Grants Stores, Motor Vehicle offices, and disvount stores.… all during grade school and high school I helped my Dad mix the chemicals that these machines needed. Once I turned 16 and could drive, I was sent out to “service” them… I did the “small’ changes, just the developer tank and the two rinse tanks after it (if my memory serves me well). Summers were spent in the garage covering the older maschines in new Formica..and stripping and refinisher the wood trim. Dad completeley reconditioning the insides. One time two old ones were shipped up from Texas…they were really a mess… and full of spiders.. the floor inside was full of crud and burried in al that were lots of quarters, which I got to keep. Lots of memories.…Dad sold some of them…but as parts became tough to get, machines were scrapped..in the end, no one wanted to buy them and the few that were left ended up in a dump in Lockport, NY