Victor's switch from batwing to scroll: at what number?

[Cody K]

Okay, this was weird, but it did happen: I was going through a stack of records tonight that I'd never bothered to play before, sorting into piles of keepers and culls. Laying in the middle of the table, pretty much by itself except for the records, was a slip of paper I ran across this afternoon while cleaning my desk, on which I'd written some long time ago: 19816 > 19817 > change from batwing to scroll. I had put it aside as an interesting milestone, though I have no idea at this point where I got that information. What was weird was, the very record I was holding in my hand at the moment I glanced at the note was Victor 19817, George Olsen and His Music's Lonesome Me, and the International Novelty Orchestra's Oh! Boy What a Girl. And that record is a batwing.

It's probably just a matter of my having found incorrect information somewhere online (it happens!) and writing it down, but can anyone tell me definitively at what number the actual switch was made? Just curious, because this coincidence was so odd. Thanks.

[victorIIvictor]

The back cover of the October 1926 Victor's catalog, which introduces the scroll label to dealers, shows 20127 (this is reproduced in Sherman's Collector's Guide to Victor Records). I don't think the scroll label appeared on too many catalog numbers lower than that.

Of course, given your question, I'm limiting my answer to Victor's black label main popular catalog series.

Best wishes, Mark

[Cody K]

Once again as with the Electradisk thread, thank you for a reply that leads me closer to the answer I'm looking for, Mark. D'oh! -- in my readiness to "ask the internet", I had forgotten that I even have the Sherman book. In it he says "The highest catalog number from the 10" popular series reported thus far with a Batwing label is #20101." I'd say that comes pretty close to a definitive answer to my question. Thanks again.

[pictureroll]

I have a Victor scroll record number 20074 which is B F Goodrich Orch and the other side is by Waring's Pennsylvania B F G is "Burgandy" and Waring's is "Cherie I Love You"

[Cody K]

Huh. Your note about 20074 sent me to the online 78rpm discography site to see what other titles in that range I might recognize as ones I have copies of. Sure enough, I have 20071, R. W. Kahn's Mountain Greenery b/w Cross Your Heart, and it, too, is a scroll. So while Sherman documents 20101 as a batwing, it's obvious that there were at least some scrolls released prior to that. Not only that, but my copy of 20101 (Hamp's Black Bottom b/w Olsen's Lucky Day) is not a batwing, but a scroll. Which suggests that either Sherman's data is incorrect or, much as we sometimes see Victor machines with elements that are anomalous for their serial number range, maybe the roll-out of the scroll label was more gradual than abrupt. Thanks for pointing that out! (So much for "definitive"!)

[Cody K]

Additional huh: Digging in the piles of what I've got lying around, the earliest-numbered scroll I've run across so far is 19838, Billy Murray's Roll 'Em Girls with Murray and Aileen Stanley doing Down By the Winegar Woiks on the reverse. Thing is, this one has "RCA Victor Company" on a curved line at the bottom of the label -- which only proves that it was pressed in 1930 or so, though it was recorded in 1925. I'm pretty sure I had a batwing copy of this at one time.

And 20071 has "Orthophonic Recording" in a single line to the left of the hole and "Victor Talking Machine Co." in a straight line at the bottom; while this is the earliest version of the scroll label, all it shows is that the record was pressed before 1928. Sherman notes that the catalog number was moved to the right of the hole and "Orthophonic Recording" appeared in two lines at the left of the hole in 1927, but these changes only appeared in the case of new recordings.

Obviously I need to be looking for the highest-numbered batwing I can find, not the lowest-numbered scroll. Of course! Some things stayed in print for quite a while and newer pressings would be given the label currently in use.

[victorIIvictor]

Sherman offers a relevant warning on page 257 of the latest version of the Collectors Guide, at the bottom of the page(which I have edited a little for clarity):

"When Victor made the transition from one label style to another, they typically Used the remaining stock of the old style until it was exhausted. This makes it impossible to assign an exact date to a particular label style transition. In later years, records were pressed at more than one location, thus adding a further degree of variability to the criterion of the "remaining stock" of a particular label style. The process of converting from one label style to another was a phasing out, rather than an immediate replacement of all labels at all pressing locations. In addition, some overlap occasionally existed, such as during 1909-1910, when both the Grand Prize label and the Patents label were in use simultaneously."

As you have already pointed out, A popular title would be printed with the label of its era upon first release, and when those stocks ran out but the recording was still in print, would be replaced with the then-current label style. This **may** explain why pictureroll's Victor 20047 bears a scroll label; perhaps it came out on the batwing label just before the scroll label was announced, therefore only a few months of batwing labels had been printed for that selection, and if it stayed in the catalogue, it would thenceforth appear with a scroll label.

That is why I responded with the announcement for the October 1926 Victor catalog; presumably Victor would announce its new label with new recordings that had not appeared previously with the batwing label. But even that information would only give you a general sense of the catalog number range in use when the transition occurred. Moreover, the transition probably occurred at different times in Camden and Oakland, and wherever else Victor was pressing its domestic popular records in 1926.

Best wishes Mark

[Cody K]

I'd missed Sherman's footnote, which corroborates perfectly well the idea that the roll-out didn't happen all at once. Actually, if I'd remembered that I had the book available, I don't think this thread would have existed! Thanks for pointing it out. As far as a definitive answer to my original question, I guess the correct answer is probably "No such animal"! Thanks for your help in this thread -- it took the long way around as it turns out, but I've learned what I've wanted to.

Best --
Cody

[Retrograde]

One thing can be said about phonographs and gramophones is, there's nothing absolute! This goes for records, machines, and parts. As sure as someone says "This is the way it is", someone else will show proof that it's not. But hey, that's what we're here for, right?

[Cody K]

But hey, that's what we're here for, right?

Exactatively!