labelindexC

These pages are just notes about the labels which may be found on 78s. Click on the label to see a larger image. Many labels have more pictures, information and sometimes listings which may be found by clicking on the link. I have included labels from all periods, not just the 1920s and 1930s, just because I find them all interesting!
         All label scans are from my own collection unless otherwise noted. Information about the labels is from various sources, including my own researching, but Brian Rust's "The American Record Label Book" was very useful as was Don Taylor's "The English 78 Picture Book" and various articles by Frank Andrews and Arthur Badrock in "Hillandale News" and "The Talking Machine Review".
        In order to make the pages more managable (and quicker to load), I have split this section into alphabetical parts. Click on the appropriate letter below to see the section you want.

Label	Label Photo
Cameo The British version of Cameo dates from 1916 and were sold by Gilbert's of Sheffield for 1/- (5p).Masters from Regal and Edison Bell Winner were used, and they were probably all paste-over labels. Please e-mail me with details of ANY of these records. Also a label scan.
Canterbury I know absolutely nothing about the Canterbury record. It is a "paste-over" label only as far as I am aware, but I am basing this on the only example I've seen which is pictured here. The Canterbury label is only a partial one, being pasted over the upper portion of a "Valkyrie" record. As such, there is no catalogue for Canterbury.
Celebrity Celebrity Records were available during 1929 and 1930, a short lived venture by Celebrity Gramophones Ltd of 82, St Thomas Street, London, who made gramophones from 1927 until about 1932. Celebrity records used a 4300 catalogue series and used U. K. masters from Worldecho and Dominion and U.S. masters from Grey Gull and QRS. They are extremely difficult to find. Most dance records seemed to be issued as by "Celebrity Dance Orchestra". Click here to see a partial listing of the label
Cellutone Please e-mail me with details of ANY of these records. Also a label scan
Champion-Gamage This was an oversized 10" disc pressed from Grammavox masters for sale in A W Gamage's department stores from 1911. The catalogue series ran from G-1 to about G-150. Please e-mail me with details of ANY of these records. Also a label scan.
Chappell Chappell and Co were a music publishers in London. However, just before WWI, they ventured into the record business. The label bearing the company's name used masters from the Sound Recording Company and was very short-lived. Please e-mail me with details of ANY of these records.
Cinch 1913, when Cinch Records were launched, was the start of a major cut-price war between the major record companies who were trying to regain the ground lost to recent, cheaper, newcomers into the disk record market. These newcomers were the Coliseum and Scala records introduced in 1912 by the Beka Co. of Germany, selling at 1/6 (7.5p). Cinch records were manufactured by The Gramophone Company, often using existing Zonophone matrices. They were sold at 1/1 (about 6p), undercutting the German records, and offered top artists, albeit under pseudonyms in many cases (with the usual exception of the ubiquitous Billy Williams!). The advent of the first World War, which halted cheap German imports, removed the competition which had resulted in the creation of Cinch and other similar record labels, but it had become so popular that it wasn't until January 1916 when the last Cinch supplement was published. The catalogue numbers ran from 5001 up to 5462. A full history and discography has been published in 2000 by Arthur Badrock & Frank Andrews and is available from Arthur at 50, George Drive, Drayton, Norwich, Norfolk, England, NR8 6DT (or from the Birmingham Record fairs held at the Motorcycle Museum by the NEC).
Cinecord Cinecord was a product of British Homophone Ltd and many of the masters used were also available on Sterno. They were only available during 1935. With the exceptions of the first issues, the bands are anonymous on Cinecords. The catalogue started at O2 and only lasted a few issues probably up to about O21. (The first one was labelled OD1 (i.e. Odeon).) More details and a label listing
Citizen Citizen records are rare and rather mysterious. They first appeared in 1916 and were a Crystalate product using a 3000 catalogue series (no example seen). By 1920 they were being produced by Vocalion and the label changed to a light & dark mauve design (see first example) before changing to the red and gold label seen here. The Vocalion-produced Citizen records used a 3-digit series starting (probably) at 501 or 601 and running into the 800s or 900s before ceasing in the mid 1920s. As you can tell, little is known about the label, the size of the catalogue, or for whom they were produced. The Vocalion period used the usual masters, apart from UK recorded Vocalion matrices, there are Gennett and Vocalion masters from the U.S. Please e-mail me with details of ANY of these records.
Clarion The English Clarion label is primarily remembered nowadays as a producer of cylindrical records. However they made two types of disc record, an early vertical-cut groove one and the one shown here, Both are very rare. The records date from the World War I period and have catalogue numbers in a 3-digit numeric series. It is not known to which of the two types of record the sleeve belongs. Please e-mail me with details of ANY of these records.
Coliseum Coliseum records first appeared in 1912, offering popular music at a budget price. Numbering started at 100 and reached 2059 in early 1927 when manufacturing was discontinued. According to contemporary advertisements, the sole manufacturers were Cooper Brothers Ltd, of 45 & 63 City Road & 17, Clerkenwell Road, London EC 1, with branches in Manchester & Cardiff. Prices shown are 2/6 (12.5p) for the standard 10" disc. English matrices were from Vocalion and US matrices from Gennett (initially and finally) with Vocalion "in between", plus a few from Emerson.
Colonial A German made British record for export, these were pressed by Homophon in Germany from their own masters for Lockwoods of City Road, London for sale in Australia from 1910. Please e-mail me with details of ANY of these records. A;so a label scan.
Columbia The Columbia Graphophone Co Ltd was established in England in 1900 by the New York-based company of the same name. The English company, bought by Louis Sterling (formerly of the Rena Record Co) in 1922, also subsequently (a few years later) bought the American parent company. Financial problems generally forced the company in 1931 to merge with it's main rival, The Gramophone Company (makers of HMV records). The new company, EMI, kept the Columbia name going until the 1970s, still using the DB-series started in 1930.
Conqueror This was a pre-WWI record which used Nicole masters but, unlike Nicole, were pressed in standard shellac.
Conquest A rare 6" record recorded and manufactured by the Gramophone Company. The catalogue numbers started at 2001-D and seem to have ended there, too!
Coronet These were available for ashort period in 1916 and were made by Crystalate using Invicta masters. They were sold by Curwen's, the music publisher.
Criterion This was apparently a 1920s label produced by the Sound Recording Company (makers of Grammavox records).
Crown The earliest Crown record dates from pre-WWI and was pressed by Polyphon using their own masters. Please e-mail me with details of ANY of these records. Then, in the mid-1920s, Edison Bell used the name for a 6" disc which used masters from their 6" "Bell" records, but it seems to have out-lived "Bell" by a few months. Then, in 1935, Crystalate produced Crown as a 9" record sale by F. W. Woolworths at 6d (2.5p) from 1935 to 1937. With the exception of a few items which were dubbed from US ARC masters, all these Crowns use UK masters recorded specifically for the label by Crystalate. Dance bands include Mrs Jack Hylton (Ennis Parkes), Billy Merrin and Jay Wilbur's band under many different pseudonyms. Harry Bidgood recorded his accordion band (using the name "Rossini") and there were many popular singers, including Vera Lynn.
Currys Curry's were bicycle manufacturers originally, starting in 1884. I assume that, like now, they had many branches around the country. However, like many bicycle shops at the start of the 20th century, they started selling records and gramophones too. The difference was that they decided to have their own record labels too. Apart from the ones here, with their own name, they also sold "Portland" and "Westport" records exclusively as well. Whether they also sold the standard record labels, I have no idea. The first "Currys" records were pressed by Edison Bell using matrices available on their "Bell" and "Winner" label (some were just "paste-overs"). They probably date from 1911, and are likely to have been quite short-lived as they are very rare, even compared to "Bell Discs" from which they were derived. (See first example, right.) This scan kindly provided by Marita Bott from a record in her possession. From just after the end of the Great War, Crystalate started producing the Currys label, initially using Guardsman masters (see second example right) but then using their own masters (and later those from the ARC/Plaza group) and a new label design (third example). Records were usually issued under pseudonyms (almost all dance records issued as Curry's Dance Orch). The catalogue numbering started (probably) at 1, and reached over 300 before they were withdrawn. Subsequently, Curry's records use a paste-over label on Piccadilly records (see fourth example), probably to sell old stock, until around 1929. The records were probably sold for 1/- to 1/6 (5p - 7.5p). These show the same catalogue number & artist credit as the original Piccadilly issue. It is not known how many Piccadilly records were overlabelled in this manner, but from my experience, the concentration is on the earlier records - the highest I have is number 452. The scan of the first yellow Curry's label has been taken from Steven Walker's excellent "English Ragtime" discography. For anyone interested in this subject, quite apart from the well-researched discographical information, the book has some superb label scans in full colour and many monochrome photographic scans of the artists. Click here to see examples and find out how to order it. The digital photo of the Curry's sleeve (with record) shown left was kindly sent to me by Maurice Holmes	Example of the Piccadilly "paste-over" label
Curwen
Cymot An extremely rare label from the Vocalion stable from the early 1920s. Note the similarity in design to the equally rare "Adelphi" label, also from Vocalion which dates from later in the 1920s. It may be that Cymot was Adelphi's predecessor. Both being so rare, it may be that they were produced for Export only. Please e-mail me with details of ANY of these records. My thanks to Steve Walker for the label scan.