Records

Besttone

Apart from the "plain" Rifanco Brand, there are also Rifanco Canary, Rifanco Eagle, Rifanco Lion and Rifanco Marble labels. I have not seen enough of these to know what determined which of these label brands were used for what issues, or whether the same issue can be found with different label brands. The records were originally made in Prussia (as mentioned at the foot of the labels), but however, later Besttones were made in England by The Disc Record Company of Harrow, and these show "British Manufacture" on the label. Frank Andrews tells us in Hillandale News 217, that all "Lion Brand" besttones are of this type.

The label(s) used many different sources for their masters, such as Invicta, Bel Canto, Dacapo, Beka & Operaphone.

The Besttone name was also used by the company as paste-over stickers on other record labels, presumably old stock sold by Regent, or more likely due to German pressings becoming unavailable during WWI, or to disguise old German-made stock. Note that the stickers hide the place of manufacture at the bottom of the label. (See the latter 2 pictures which were Pelican and Diploma records respectively). However, I won't be listing these here as the information more correcty belongs in the listings of whatever the label underneath is.

From the information I have here, the main catalogue series started at 100 and ran up to about 400.

Subsequently, there were 1000, 1100, 1300 and 1400 series of which isolated issues are known (see below). These use Blum masters (aka "Kalliope") which are also used on such labels as Pioneer and Diploma. I don't know what label designs are used on these issues - a label scan of an example would be very useful. These different series were for different types of performance. It would appear they are split as follows:

1000- : solo instrumental
1100- : Bands
1200- : not used ?
1300- : Ballads
1400- : Comedy and popular song

Geniune Besttone records of all designs are pretty rare.

Besttone Eagle

Besttone Caanry

Besttone Marble
(courtesy Norman Field)

Besttone Lion

Pasted over Pelican label

pasted over Diploma label