Trying to date a record

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bart1927
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Trying to date a record

Post by bart1927 »

Being a fan of Laurel & Hardy, I immediately picked up this record when I spotted it at a local 78's dealer. It's a 12" HMV record featuring the "Light Opera Company" (when issued on HMV the word "Victor" was usually dropped) in Gems from "Bohemian Girl" part 1 and 2.

The catalogue number is E.B. 9, matrix numbers are A 17507 (followed by a triangle) and A 17508 (triangle). There's also a second number in the runout area, namely 0114507 and 0114508.

The triangle indicated that the Western Electric sound system was used, and based on the sound quality I guess this record is from the late 1920's or early 1930's.

Does anyone here know the exact recording date? Thanks!

gramophoneshane
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Re: Trying to date a record

Post by gramophoneshane »

I don't know the exact date, but I think it might be a 1935-36 recording??
In Australia, the 10" EA series started to be pressed in late 1926 along with the 12" ED series.
The EB series didn't start here until 1937. Normally it took from 3 to 12 months or longer, for us to get the masters from England. Then again, it might be earlier still- I don't know how long it took Victor to send the masters to HMV before HMV sent then here. Bohemian Girl is listed in the 1930 catalogue on 35819
I was searching Victor Light Opera Company the other day looking for similar info, and apparently there's a book you can get that lists all the vocal gem/light opera recording by Victor, and includes recording dates etc, and even lists the members of the company for each recording, as this often changed.
Hopefully someone will know the exact date. I've got this disc too & wouldn't mind knowing myself :)

** I just looked up Victor 35819 at the Online 78 Discography project. and they don't have a listing for that title. They do have 35816 as Feb 21, 1927 & 35820 as March 9, 1927, so it was probably recorded around early 1927.

http://www.78discography.com/

Interesting that it took 10 yrs before being pressed here in Australia :shock:
I wonder how long it took before HMV UK got the master.

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bart1927
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Re: Trying to date a record

Post by bart1927 »

gramophoneshane wrote:I don't know the exact date, but I think it might be a 1935-36 recording??
In Australia, the 10" EA series started to be pressed in late 1926 along with the 12" ED series.
The EB series didn't start here until 1937. Normally it took from 3 to 12 months or longer, for us to get the masters from England. Then again, it might be earlier still- I don't know how long it took Victor to send the masters to HMV before HMV sent then here. Bohemian Girl is listed in the 1930 catalogue on 35819
I was searching Victor Light Opera Company the other day looking for similar info, and apparently there's a book you can get that lists all the vocal gem/light opera recording by Victor, and includes recording dates etc, and even lists the members of the company for each recording, as this often changed.
Hopefully someone will know the exact date. I've got this disc too & wouldn't mind knowing myself :)

** I just looked up Victor 35819 at the Online 78 Discography project. and they don't have a listing for that title. They do have 35816 as Feb 21, 1927 & 35820 as March 9, 1927, so it was probably recorded around early 1927.

http://www.78discography.com/

Interesting that it took 10 yrs before being pressed here in Australia :shock:
I wonder how long it took before HMV UK got the master.
What a coincidence! Upon closer inspection I found out that my copy is also an Australian pressing! Fancy finding it here in the Netherlands! It is possible that this record is from 1937, but that the actual recordingh is from 1927. Maybe it didn't take 10 years for this record to be released in Australia, it could be a re-release (or whatever they call it in the record business"). I have a couple of Victors from the 1930's (catalogue numbers in the 24000's) that contain recordings from the 1920's, but issued again in the 1930's with a different catalogue number.

gramophoneshane
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Re: Trying to date a record

Post by gramophoneshane »

Gee, it is a long way from home.

After pulling out my copy, I discovered the label is the same style as used in your avatar (with change of address), and that label was only used here from 1927 until about 1932-33.
The label then changed to the style pictured below.
The most obvious difference is the manufacturing info at the bottom was removed, and patent & radio restictions were then put around the whole circumferance of the label.
It then changed again to a single colour ink on white, with gold lining, about the time WW2 broke out.
So this got me thinking that the disc HAD to be pressed here before about 1933.

The source I use to date Aussie pressing is Adam Millers online discography- http://www.78rpm.net.nz/

This site doesn't list every record number & when it was pressed, but rather in some cases, gives you the month & year of a single catalogue number that was pressed in Sydney for each year. Other lists give a monthly catalogue number within a given year (if you follow me).

After further investigation, I've come to the conclussion that the sites "EB" block is very incomplete- ie: the first 10 yrs are missing!.

It starts by listing EB-98 as being released in August 1937. At first glance, I took that to mean that everything up to that number was probably pressed earlier that same year.
Looking again, I noticed the years that followed. EB-111 was 1938, EB-132 was 1939 etc.
It turns out that after 1937, only about 10 or so EB series discs were pressed each year on average.

So, I pulled out all my EB series records with the first style label, and the last 2 I have are no's 43 & 51.
EB-43 is "The New Moon", which is listed in the 1930 Victor catalogue (35969)
EB-51 is "Sunny Side Up", but is not listed, so it must have been recorded sometime after the 1930 Victor catalogue was printed, but pressed here before 1933.
I'm guessing that because these have the pre 1932/33 labels, that Bohemian girl was actually pressed here in 1927 or early 28.
If I start in 1927 & assign about 10 EB record numbers per year, & allow for less during the depression,it more or less takes you to EB98 in 1937 as listed on the site.
I'm not sure why the first 10 yrs are missing from the EB series, but I might contact Adam and ask :)
Most of the other 10" and 12" series are listed from the start in 26-27.

Anyway, it was recorded March 1927, so I'm pretty confident it was actually pressed here sometime between mid 27 and early 28, and NOT in 1937 as I first posted.
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bart1927
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Re: Trying to date a record

Post by bart1927 »

gramophoneshane wrote:Gee, it is a long way from home.

After pulling out my copy, I discovered the label is the same style as used in your avatar (with change of address), and that label was only used here from 1927 until about 1932-33.
The label then changed to the style pictured below.
The most obvious difference is the manufacturing info at the bottom was removed, and patent & radio restictions were then put around the whole circumferance of the label.
It then changed again to a single colour ink on white, with gold lining, about the time WW2 broke out.
So this got me thinking that the disc HAD to be pressed here before about 1933.
Actually, it's not the same at all. The label in my avatar is from a 1927 Roger Wolfe Kahn record. This type of label is red/brown and the text is in a different font. The picture of Nipper on the Bohemian Girl record is a little bigger, part of his right ear is missing. Furthermore the colour is purple/pink. Of course I don't know if HMV used the same colours in all parts of the world, I have an italian HMV record with a light green label!
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gramophoneshane
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Re: Trying to date a record

Post by gramophoneshane »

No, they're not exactly the same, but they are the same general style- meaning the colour trademark on a "plum" label, with only the manufacturing info around the bottom. The font lay-out is the basically the same on both Oz & UK labels of the same title, although the font type is slightly different, as shown on the first two labels below.
The small font on the "Bohemian Girl" label was also used on the UK labels, when the 'part number' appeared as part of the title, as on the third label below. If the part/side number appears below the title, the larger font was used for the title.
The UK labels are generally of better quality, and the actual ink colours are a little different, but both are the Plum label used for standard issue records in UK & Oz.
The Plum label was the cheapest, followed by Black, Red, Buff, Pale Green, Pale Blue & White for double sided discs.
Single sided records started at Red, followed by Pale Green, Dark Blue & White.
I'm unsure if any other countries followed this same colour/pricing system other than Australia & England.

I'm guessing the Italian green label you speak of is the "Disco Grammofono" label?
I'm not sure if green was used for their standard lower priced discs or not. All the ones I have are green too, so I have no idea if colour variations occure.
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bart1927
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Re: Trying to date a record

Post by bart1927 »

gramophoneshane wrote:No, they're not exactly the same, but they are the same general style- meaning the colour trademark on a "plum" label, with only the manufacturing info around the bottom. The font lay-out is the basically the same on both Oz & UK labels of the same title, although the font type is slightly different, as shown on the first two labels below.
The small font on the "Bohemian Girl" label was also used on the UK labels, when the 'part number' appeared as part of the title, as on the third label below. If the part/side number appears below the title, the larger font was used for the title.
The UK labels are generally of better quality, and the actual ink colours are a little different, but both are the Plum label used for standard issue records in UK & Oz.
The Plum label was the cheapest, followed by Black, Red, Buff, Pale Green, Pale Blue & White for double sided discs.
Single sided records started at Red, followed by Pale Green, Dark Blue & White.
I'm unsure if any other countries followed this same colour/pricing system other than Australia & England.

I'm guessing the Italian green label you speak of is the "Disco Grammofono" label?
I'm not sure if green was used for their standard lower priced discs or not. All the ones I have are green too, so I have no idea if colour variations occure.
Yes, the italian record with the green label was a "Disco Grammofono". I don't know why they didn't use the HMV name on those. However, in the lower right corner of the Nipper picture it says "la voce del padrone". Same thing with several French HMV records that were labelled "disque gramophone", but I'm sure I've also seen "La voix de son maitre" labels.

Thanks for the detailed explaination on my Bohemian Girl record, at first I thought that it was a later issue because the label looked a little different from the British HMV labels I'm familiar with, but now I understand that that's just because Australian HMV labels look a little different.

Speaking of differences between labels, did you ever notice that the Revelers are billed as "the Revelers" on Victor records, and as "the Revellers" on HMV's?

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