| 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 The catalogue numbering started (probably) at 1, and reached over 300 before they were withdrawn.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.
The digital photo of the Curry's sleeve (with record) shown left was kindly sent to me by Maurice Holmes |
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