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At what number did Columbia go from the Flag to the black Viva-Tonal type label?edisonplayer

I'm thinking that this will be a similar situation to the one in the thread in the past few days about Victor's switch from batwing to scroll. Likely the Columbia labels were also phased in, rather than changing abruptly at a particular number. I could be proven wrong, though.

Though it doesn't answer your question, and you may have already seen it, this link gives rough dates by year, anyway: http://majesticrecord.com/labelscolumbia.htm

The Flags went out in early summer, 1925. But I would also assume that existing label stock was used up during the transition.

Cody K wrote:I'm thinking that this will be a similar situation to the one in the thread in the past few days about Victor's switch from batwing to scroll. Likely the Columbia labels were also phased in, rather than changing abruptly at a particular number. I could be proven wrong, though.

Though it doesn't answer your question, and you may have already seen it, this link gives rough dates by year, anyway: http://majesticrecord.com/labelscolumbia.htm

Right, and I think what applies in the Victor thread will also apply here- and that is that the highest number flag label would be the real break rather than the lowest number black label due to recordings that were in the catalogs for a very long time.

Case in point:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/BERT-WILLIAMS-W ... Sw37tWAX4E

This is a Columbia A series recording that's likely pre WW1, yet here it is not only on a black label- but on a black label on royal blue shellac! Black label/ blue shellac indicates a 1932 pressing, so it looks like this one was in the catalog for 15 or 20 years. This really isn't a re- issue, either... so it's a real rarity!

BUT- the point is that you couldn't look at this and determine therefore that Royal Blue pressings started with A2849 any more than you could say the black label started there, either.

Make sense?

The highest numbered Flag from what factory ?

Doesn't seem likely that a memo went out all over that said Catalog # such and such - Ed Pickle's Orchestra "Violets and Temptation Rag " will be the last Flag label. Different plants has their existing quantity of label old and new label stock.

Wolfe wrote:The highest numbered Flag from what factory ?

Doesn't seem likely that a memo went out all over that said Catalog # such and such - Ed Pickle's Orchestra "Violets and Temptation Rag " will be the last Flag label. Different plants has their existing quantity of label old and new label stock.

Does it really matter?

The highest number flag label is the highest number flag label.

Of course it matters.

Wolfe wrote:Of course it matters.

Explain. Are you saying that if one Columbia factory used Flag labels later than another Columbia factory it's not really the latest Columbia flag label?

This makes no sense.

I think maybe what Wolfe is implying is that, assuming that there was no record that went out with the explicit directive that this was to be the last release with a flag label, and assuming the various factories used their flag labels until they ran out of stock, there is no definitive last release with a flag label. Each factory would most likely have put out a differently numbered "last" flag, and then switched the same title over to the Viva-Tonal label. So while it might be possible (with enough time, resources, and determination!) to poll all existing copies of a given record for the highest number with a flag label, all we'd learn is when a given factory -- if we knew for sure which one -- made the switchover. Even that might be hazy, unless we had access to the logs showing dates of actual pressings.

It must have been a more gradual process, where different copies of the same record would have left different factories with either version of the label, at least over a period of weeks, maybe months.

[My apologies to Wolfe, if this isn't what he was suggesting!]

You got it right, Cody K.