The Columbia Phonograph Company of Canada
By Brian Boyd
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This is the second in a series of articles authored by
the late Brian Boyd. a well-known and respected collector and discographer, and a member of CAPS.
Brian,
who died on February 26th 1991,
built up over many
years an extensive collection of
"personality" records,
mostly of popular vocalists of the 1920's and 30's. He
was a regular speaker at CAP meetings.
Brian dictated the articles in January
1991
without
access to his collection; he relied on memory alone.
Brian wanted the reader to know that for some of
his statements he had no concrete proof.
Rather,
they are the product of years of careful study of
the records. He hoped that
the. articles would
stimulate other collectors to engage in research
and publish their findings.
The Editors are indebted to Jack Litchfield for his
cooperation in making possible the publication of
these articles.
The record labels used to illustrate
this particular article are from Jack's own collection
and that of Colin Bray.
The Columbia
Graphophone
Company
of Canada was
established
in Canada around the turn of the
century to compete with the cylinder manufacturers. As
far as
I know, it was a subsidiary of the American
company. After the introduction of the disc
record,
Columbia played a fairly important role in Canada,
because they had the lateral-cut patent in conjunction with
Berliner
in Canada. and could manufacture
records to compete directly with the Berliner
product. They did so somewhat aggressively,
although
they didn't have the stellar classical catalog and
the artists that Victor did.
Columbia tried to play a unique
role in Canada
during the first
World
War.
There were various patriotic
records with the Union Jack label that
promoted the
war effrot.
(Fig.
1) They also had an interest in
trying to market recordings by French
Canadian
classical or light classical artists. So they weren't
taking second place, any more than they had to, to
a company like Berliner.
Columbia
disc records were
probably pressed in
Canada almost from the introduction of the disc
record.
How would you distinguish a Canadian
Columbia
pressing from an
American
one from
around
World
War I?
In general,
I can't say.
I just
don't have enough records in my collection from
that period. The standard popular series for
American
Columbia and Canadian Columbia
in the
teens was the "A" series
— an "A" followed by a
four-digit number by the time of the First
World
War. In Canada there was also an
"R" series.
I don't
know if it was European or French Canadian
material, or whether it extended to British-imported
masters, or
Canadian recordings by various
Canadian artists. But the "R" distinguishes it as a
Canadian-only product not marketed or sold in the
U.S.A.
There were
improvements
in the
American
lamination process, so that by late 1924 the laminated
surfaces on the American pressings was
virtually as
good as the later Viva-Tonal
surfaces.
In my Marion
Harris collection, which includes mostly
American
records, the last half-dozen issues have a glossy
perfect laminated surface,
equal to the surfaces
used during the Viva-Tonal era. But
I just don't
have enough records from that period to be able to
say whether there were
enough substantial
improvements
in the surface of Canadian pressings.
Columbia introduced what is
popularly
known as the
flag label
in 1923, but it was not a success as a
label. It didn't have the coated finish like the later
Victors and Columbias,
and the colours were not
easily seen or read from a distance; the copper
colour in the flag design was really something of a
failure. Still,
it appears that the flag
label was used
slightly
longer
in Canada than in the
U.S.A.
Perhaps
that is because the Canadian outfit was a subsidiary
of the American
one and corporate changes took
longer to filter down.
It wasn't long before the American
Columbia instituted the Viva-Tonal process and
label.
However this
change was not, at first, indicated on the label
—
the Canadian
company shortly followed
suit.
In 1925,
Columbia,
like Victor began to sell
electrically-recorded
records.
But they made no attempt
to show that the records were "new process" until
1926. Their main concern was to get rid of their
acoustic stock. The Berliner company in Canada had
big sales in the spring of 1925 to reduce its stocks,
because they knew that they were going to be advertising a much
improved product and they didn't
want to be stuck with the old product.
Fig. 2
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Fig. 3
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I'm most
familiar with the period
beginning
in the
mid-'20s.
I am quite convinced that the Columbia
company
in Canada continued to press records in
Canada and to retail them through Canadian distributors and dealers. The records were not imported
from the United States,
as many people have
assumed (because the labels on the Canadian
records are
indistinguishable
from American labels).
The masters, of course,
originated in the United
States,
but the records themselves were
made here.
There were some interesting differences between
the American
and Canadian Columbia pressings,
both at this time with the transition to the black-and-gold label,
and right through until 1828. The
Canadian records were being pressed on old presses
that nobody seemed to have the
inclination
to
upgrade. It appears that Canadian Columbia was
continuing to use equipment that it had already
been using for its acoustic pressings and for the
flag label pressings.
There are other
smaller physical features of note.
The
Canadian records often have a slightly uneven
finish
— they look a little like some of the Brunswick pressings that don't have a perfectly flat
surface, with little rises and dips
in them. They are
also
lighter
in weight, as a rule,
than equivalent
American
pressings.
However they
were laminated
records so it's not as though they were being
made
differently.
You can
distinguish a Canadian
pressing
from an
American
one by noting certain
physical differences,
almost from the introduction of the
black-and-gold label,
such as indented ring,
roughly three
centimeters
in diameter, around the center hole and
pressed right into the label
itself. That was a consistent feature of American
Columbia pressings right
up into the 1930's. This is not true of the
Canadian
pressings. (Fig. 2.) The indented ring on the Canadian
pressings does not appear until 1928,
when
they
undoubtedly
obtained the same pressing
equipment as American
Columbia.
(Fig. 3.)
Up until late 1927/early 1928, the Ruth Etting records owned by Jim
Kidd,
had that perfectly flat
label with no indented ring.
To my knowledge they
were all purchased in Canada by a Canadian
collector.
I think that
confirms
my theory that these were
Canadian records,
pressed
in Canada by
Columbia,
and not imported from the U.S.A.
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Fig. 5
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The highest
numbered record that
I can think of in
my own collection which doesn't have the indented
ring is a Paul Whiteman potato-head record on
Columbia
1464-D.
Do other collectors have such
Canadian
Columbias with a higher number?
There's another
important
characteristic,
which
I
can't claim
is definitive
but certainly indicates that
a particular Columbia record is a
Canadian
pressing.
That's the
information embossed in the wax at the
top of the record outside the label
in the roughly
twelve o'clock position. The
American pressings
have three letters and
numbers.
The first
is the
take number, the second is a letter which
I believe
represents a metal
mother,
and the third character
on the American
issues
is a stamper
number.
A
number of stampers would be made up from a particular metal part in order to press the number of
copies necessary for sales and distribution in the
U.S.A.
In Canada there were only two characters.
There was the take number
followed
by a letter,
which represents the metal mother. For one reason
or another (maybe because they didn't often go to
a second stamper) the Canadian issues never show
that third character.
Things become a bit dicey when you reach the
period
around
1930-31.
Columbia sales were falling
drastically in the
U.S.A.,
They were in virtual bankruptcy and in fact, they did go bankrupt in 1932.
Similarly
in Canada, sales were extremely
low.
Some of these characteristics are less consistently
followed. Many of the American issues now have
just the take number and the letter representing the
metal
mother,
and
no stamper number appears.
I
think that is just an indication that there wasn't a
need for multiple stampers when sales were so
very,
very,
low.
In Roland Gelatt's book
The
Fabulous
Phonograph,
he states that
"a total of six
million records were sold in the United States
during 1932,
approximately
six percent of the total
record sales in 1927".
A big seller for Victor, even,
was 40,000 records in the U.S.A. Many records sold
5,000 or 10,000
copies.
They didn't need a lot of
metal parts
to press such a small number of
records.
In the United States, the Columbia
Company was
taken over by Majestic
Radio,
which was backed by
the
Grigsby-Grunow
Company,
which
made
refrigerators in addition to radios. From the time of the
bankruptcy of the Canadian company,
all
Columbia
records sold in Canada right up until the late '30s
were
imported from the United States
— probably
commanding
a higher price because they were an
imported product. Sales were so
incredibly
low that
it just didn't make any sense to try to manufacture
them
in Canada.
Interestingly,
Columbia
is one of the few lines that
Compo didn't acquire.
When
Brunswick
went
bankrupt,
Compo got the
Brunswick trademark name
in
Canada and pressed its version of Brunswick
records.
Idon't think
rights to press Columbia were
ever given to Compo.
I don't know
if there were
copyright or patent problems, or whether there
simply wasn't a market. By 1933/34 the Columbia
label wasn't even important
in the U.S.A. But people
still remember those blue wax surfaces and the
wonderful recordings they
provided.
Compo never
seems to have pressed
ARC-owned
Columbia masters,
which began around
1934 using the ARC series
rather than the old Columbia
"W" series for the
assignment of the master (matrix) number.
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Fig. 7
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I believe that in the late '20s and early '30s Columbia produced a French series which had a five-digit
number
followed by an
"F". There were other
European-inspired series.
Although they look like an
American product,
I think they were only issued
in
Canada. There wasn't a market for that
material
—
the French material in particular
— in the United
States.
I haven't enough copies to be able to
confirm
this by examination of the pressing
characteristics,
but
I think it's an interesting avenue
that bears pursuit.
In Canada,
Columbia pressed two of their budget
labels.
Harmony was pressed for a brief period
in
1925 and 1926. Some labels had a price that was
followed by "West of the
Rockies"
(Fig. 4.) and
some "West of the Great Lakes"
(Fig. 5.) But I
don't know what
legends are used
in Canada. For
some reason, the Harmony
label didn't survive
in
Canada.
Maybe there wasn't
enough of a market
—
smaller
population
and fewer chain stores to carry
the budget labels
— or maybe Columbia decided to
concentrate on their full-price product.
In 1829, the Velvet Tone label was introduced in
Canada.
Although
I think the initial Velvet Tones
used the standard
American
label
(Fig. 6.), there
also appeared a slightly smaller sized
label
reading
"Reg. in Canada" below the Velvet Tone trade name
(Fig. 7.).
I think that's an indication that the name
hadn't been
previously registered
in Canada, and
there was a need to show this was protected for
trading purposes. The Velvet Tone label appears to
have been made
in its original
form, almost to the
very end
of the American
Columbia company,
which
was
probably
sometime
in the very first part of
1932. The
Canadian company went bankrupt at the
same time as the American company, and never
again existed
in Canada as a separate entity until
Columbia
Records was established by CBS Radio
in
the late '30s using the Sparton works
in London,
Ontario,
for their Canadian pressings.
One piece of evidence that the Velvet Tone label
was pressed almost to the very end
in Canada is
the jazz record that Jim
Kidd found
in Montreal,
which was
purportedly never issued
in the U.S.A. It
is Velvet Tone 7121-V. The 7000 series was a jazz
and hot-dance series. Yet a pressing was found
in
Canada - it didn't accidentally slide across the
border from the United States.
Probably
it had
already been pressed when word came down to quit
pressing records because the company was going
out of
business.
Corporate communication is always
a little slow,
and
I think that's a reasonable
explanation of why that unique copy was found
in Canada.
It's obvious why the Diva label was never pressed
in Canada. It was a house
label for the W.T. Grant
department stores. Clarion was a very late entry in
the budget label
market by Columbia,
and, again
I
think the sales in the U.S.A. didn't warrant coming
up with a Canadian
version.
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