The amplifiers alone are probably worth about 20 grand... I sold a lot of ancient RCA and Western stuff to a friend of Sam Chavez in past years. Got over 5K for one very rare 20 watt Western Electric amp alone, and this was back in the late 1980's...
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Here is another installment from the booth back room of the more angry pixies variety (minus the volts/amps/lights panel which is on the inside of the booth). Several generations on display The switch panel in particular references 3 projectors, 2 spotlights, 2 double dissolvers (lower and upper), and 2 scene machines (lower and upper). The resin fiber board those are mounted too weighs so much it never left the booth area!
An era when projection and projectionists dealt with more than just projectors!Last edited by Ryan Gallagher; 10-16-2024, 09:44 PM.Comment
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Those boards are asbestos most likely. Been painted over, so as long as they aren't disturbed or broken they are relatively safe.
That next to last pic: "Franks Adams Electric, Major Equipment". I used to service the theatre on Catalina Island (Avalon, CA) and it was fully equipped with all Frank Adams electrics, including many panels throughout the entire building. It had Brenkerts similar to yours in this thread, and a Century SA with Nurotic Platter and console. I have the pictures somewhere, and a full set was originally posted on an electrical forum that may no longer have them archived.
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Here is the last batch of vintage older curiosities found inside the booth itself.
Included are some RCA/Brenkert era wall mounted controls, RCA era wall mounted booth monitor, vintage reel cabinets and reel storage, that classic RCA badged accessories cabinet, a sync control vestige from a bygone 3D era, and the back of our analog rack for good measure (CP200 DMA8Plus, CP650), and an old in wall rectifier rack that now acts as the kitchenette.
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Absolutely Slate! I had to drill a bunch of holes through one once. The drill generated mostly powder and some tiny chips. I've serviced countless old dimmer systems that were originally built that way. Most of the actual panels were not in use, but a number of them served as junction panels to connect in later solid state dimmer racks, there were usually old Electro Controls Dimmer Racks into the system. A couple had very early Strand dimmers. All this was kept in a locked electrical room.Comment
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We ran a Brenkert BX-60 on an RCA-9030 soundhead right up until the day we went digital. I couldn't make myself throw it away. It's out in the storage shed at the drive-in. For the 7 years we ran it, it never broke down. Gear train still turns smooth as butter.Comment
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Speaking of Brenkerts, please allow a bit of reminiscing here ... when I was a young projectionist (circa 1962 or so), I was really just getting started and was occasionally helping out at the Franklin Theater, in Durham, NH. Durham is a University town, and the theater had evening shows only. The main projectionist (and my tutor) lived over in Dover, NH, about 5 miles away.
There was no heat in the projection room during the winter (although there was some heat that could feed to the auditorium seating area, when occupied.) Anyway, the booth would thus get quite cold overnight during the winter months. The oil in the reservoir at the bottom end of the Brenkerts would get pretty stiff when the exterior temperatures got below about 45°. So, as the one person located nearest to the theater location, on those cold days, I'd occasionally get a call and be asked to please get to the theater in the late afternoon (around ~4pm or so) and turn on a pair of electric radiant heaters, aimed at the lower back side of the Brenkerts. This would heat up the oil reservoir so that when it came time for the 7pm shows, everything would run smoothly. There is a shear pin on the main drive shaft of those projectors, and if the oil was too stiff (because of the cold temperature), the shear pin would break off, and the projector wouldn't run. Those were the days ...Comment
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Bumping just to cross reference this other thread containing photos of the Paramount in Oakland's booth:
https://www.film-tech.com/vbb/forum/...ght-led-lightsComment
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When we cleaned out the Boeing IMAX at PacSci in February, we found an old simplex E7. No clue where it came from. We assume one of the old projectionists from decades ago brought it in from another theater that had closed down and never got around to fixing it up or junking it. Originally one of our port windows in that theater was specced for projecting 35mm out of it, but it never ended up happening. We ended up junking this unfortunately.You do not have permission to view this gallery.
This gallery has 6 photos.Last edited by Scotty Wright; 07-12-2026, 12:42 PM.Comment
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These look like the sort of breaker that a grim faced executioner would pull with Humphrey Bogart in the electric chair in the closing scene of a 1930s Warner Bros gangster movie!
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I know there was a theater at the Boeing Museum Of Flight that had a pair of Bauer U-2s for quite a few years. That gear was installed by the late Bob McRae, who was also a dealer in Seattle. This would have been back in the mid to late1980's. So the Imax likely came after that theater closed. I doubt Bob would have left that Simplex laying around there, however one of the Imax projectionists may have. I ended up with one of the Bauers and donated it to a Museum in Canada.Comment
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And in the PACCAR IMAX (which PacSci continues to own and operate 47 years after opening), we still have the original GT film system. Sadly, it was decommissioned around 2014/2015. It had been limping along for years. After digital was installed in 2011, it wasn't used nearly as much, and when it did, it had one too many problems. Why they bothered keeping this system in PACCAR, but not the newer 3D GT that was in Boeing is not fully known.
All that being said, we still have the GT in PACCAR. It's air-cooled instead of water. Has power, exhaust, and air compressor, but everything's been switched off for at least a decade. The QTRU platters were an upgrade around 2011, but 2D docs only, no features platters; originally this theater used the 2-level DJ-deck style platters that required rewinding after shows. We do still have a DTAC, but those are all being phased out now too. We even still have the old mag 35mm dubber in storage. And we have our film makeup table and a couple splicers, which come in handy for the odd booth tour or special guest souvenir. These are some 2 frame splices I made for a high school group that spent a day here last month giving presentations; trimmed up some frames of an ISS trailer that we still had. I ended up making a few extra bc the teachers got jealous lol
The last 2 pics are from parts of a print we found in storage. Back in the '60s, Cinerama made a custom install for our then called Spacearium (now Laser Dome). I bet we have most of the film, but as you can tell it's in pretty rough shape. I would love to get it down to Fotokem or Bradford where somebody might actually be able to care for it properly.You do not have permission to view this gallery.
This gallery has 10 photos.Comment
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I guess I should have come down to see the place before you guys started the remodelHere is the last batch of vintage older curiosities found inside the booth itself.
Included are some RCA/Brenkert era wall mounted controls, RCA era wall mounted booth monitor, vintage reel cabinets and reel storage, that classic RCA badged accessories cabinet, a sync control vestige from a bygone 3D era, and the back of our analog rack for good measure (CP200 DMA8Plus, CP650), and an old in wall rectifier rack that now acts as the kitchenette.
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PACCAR IMAX has been around 1979, but Boeing IMAX was built in '97-'98 and opened in Fall 1998. No idea how long that Simplex had been in back storage. My boss who had been with PacSci for 27 years had no idea it was there or how it got there. One our old head projectionists helped around Seattle, so we think he got it from somewhere locally, just no clue where or when.
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