| 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). |
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