Scans of British 78 rpm record labels up
to ~1923.
WORK STILL IN PROGRESS, November 2010.
Many of these labels have already been
described & illustrated in the long and on-going series by Frank Andrews in
‘For The Record’, the quarterly magazine of the CLPGS – if you’re interested in
early phonographs, gramophones & records, you really should check out their
website: www.clpgs.org.uk I
understand that the Society has a project to collect & reprint all Frank’s
articles on this topic in a book. This will be excellent, and that book will
become an indispensable source of knowledge on Early British Labels! Still, in
the meantime…
To go directly to the labels, click here. (The page is large & unwieldy & will
eventually be divided up into sections.)
Or, you may want to read the introductory text below
first…
The intention of these pages is to illustrate
as many as we can, of the bewildering variety of record labels which suddenly
began to appear in this country from about 1907 onwards. There were more and
ever more of them. Their proliferation was indeed astonishing. The noted
Discographer Dr. Rainer Lotz has estimated that
possibly four hundred different
labels appeared in
Little has been published on the origins
of this ‘Gramophone Boom’. I think it must have been a consequence of the 1906
General Election in Britain. For whatever reasons, the Liberal Party won a
landslide majority in parliament. Therefore they began to carry out their most
treasured policies. One of them was ‘Free Trade’. It meant that merchandise
made in other countries could come into
Now Germany was at this time the European
Centre of the production of gramophone records. Way back in the late 1890s,
when The Gramophone Company (later HMV) was set up – it was of course the first
company to sell disc records here – their pressing factory was not in England
but in Hanover, Germany. Other German companies soon evolved there, and so the
European record-making industry became firmly based in Germany.
As long as merchandise coming into
Britain had relatively large Import Duties imposed on it, British-based
companies had a clear field without undue competition. As far as the nascent
gramophone record trade was concerned, this meant that records and the machines
on which to play them, were, & remained,
relatively expensive. Some records were almost unbelievably expensive: certain operatic discs by the most famous
singers like Nellie Melba, Adelina Patti, and
Francesco Tamagno cost £1 each, or even a little
more. As the average weekly wage for a skilled factory worker at that time was
about £1.50, you can get some idea of the almost fabulous status of these
stars! We do have to bear in mind, of course, that there was no radio, no
television, no talking cinema in those days; the top opera singers were indeed
the first ‘World Super-Stars’.
In the first few years of the 20th
century there was just The Gramophone Company; Zonophone
(soon absorbed by the first-named); Columbia, Nicole, Pathé,
Odeon, Neophone, and probably a few other companies
who were active up until the introduction of Free Trade.
It then began to change rather rapidly!
Of course, not only cheap discs but also cheap gramophones were imported, both
in immense numbers.
On these pages, there appears a thumbnail
of the label. Just click on it to see it larger; then click the back button to
return. Some of the scans are of low quality. These may have been made some
years ago, and we no longer have the disc to re-scan. And scanners have got a
lot better too. The size of the centre hole will give you an idea of the label
diameter. All discs are 10" (25cm), double-sided and lateral-cut unless
noted. Many of the labels are ‘related’, being produced by the same German
company. Beka, Homophon, Favorite, Kalliope, and Dacapo were some of these ‘Prime Sources’. British
companies also supplied ‘client pressings’ or ‘stencils’, as they were known.
The Sound Recording Company (own label: Grammavox),
and Edison Bell (main own labels: Bell Disc, Winner) were among these. And
masters belonging to early, defunct British labels were acquired and issued by
optimistic new concerns, e.g. Nicole material came out on the Empire and
Sovereign labels.
Finally, we must re-state that we are
only enthusiasts of 78 rpm history, not experts in it. So any comments we make
alongside the labels may be conjectural on our part, and possibly wrong.
However, some expert Discographers have kindly added to, and corrected what we
have written over the years – and also donated labels scans, many extremely
rare, for display on this site. We try very hard to ensure that proper credit
has been given. If you sent us a scan which appears here, and it is not credited
to you, it is my error: please let me know & it will be rectified. Where no
credit is given, the label reposes in our own modest collection. These comments
will be added eventually.
Note: Most of the labels here are obscure ones, and to
which this page is principally dedicated. But of course, all through this time
period, the ‘major labels’ also existed, even if they were threatened by the
flood of cheap discs coming in from Germany. Therefore, these major labels also
appear below, and are noted as such. Also noted, are the ‘budget labels’ the
majors were compelled to produce – usually anonymously – in order to help them
survive this turbulent epoch in British Gramophone history. And of course,
there are still other labels, not readily definable as major or minor, which
existed at the same time, so they also appear here.
Initially, very short notes are being
added, giving an approximate date, and the source of the recordings where
known. Much is conjectural on my part & will require correction, mostly when
I accumulate a complete set of Frank Andrews’s articles. When an exact
recording date is available – principally from discs produced by The Gramophone
Company and Columbia, and painstakingly compiled from the EMI Archives by Alan
Kelly and others – it is given as e.g. ‘Rec. 10-10-08’ = 10th October 1908.
Still, this only gives us a ‘not before’ date for the disc on which that master
appears; for many masters were used again and again, often over many years.
Worse still, masters changed hands, as companies folded or had their assets
confiscated during the Great War (1914-1918); thus, they may appear on
unexpected labels! An attempt has been made to present sets of labels in
chronological order, but this is not always possible, as different series of
catalogue numbers, prefixes &c. are often employed and are inscrutable to
me. (E.g. Ariel). Lastly, even when we are on a
well-researched label (which means we can put the different label designs in a
pretty definite sequence), we have to bear in mind that a record that remained
in catalogue for a number of years, will
be re-pressed bearing whatever label was current at that time. In other words,
the same record doesn’t always have the same label!
But alas, dear reader… you must be bored
by my ramblings! To go to the large page of labels just click here.
Page revised 30th November 2010.