Who was M. Mahar?

[epigramophone]

Among my purchases at the CLPGS Malvern weekend were several 10.75 inch records with uncommon labels.
I have identified all the artists except this one. I cannot find any mention of him on line or in my reference books.
The artist has autographed the wax, but I cannot decipher his Christian name.
Any information about him would be gratefully received.

[Roaring20s]

My internet searches did not yield any clues.

Please post a clear picture of the signature.

James.

[drh]

Discogs has this about the label:

Association Phonique Des Grands Artistes

Profile:
(also appears as A. P. G. A. / A.P.G.A. / APGA) A Company formed in 1908 by French artists and a few Belgian and Italian singers to obtain a greater share of the profits than they were receiving from the leading record manufacturers. All the records were 27 cm. in diameter, slightly larger than the normal 10 inch size. The label showed a picture of the Paris Opéra in the background with a female figure in the foreground with one arm resting on the trumpet of a gramophone. Well know artists who recorded for the organization were Nivette, Muratore, Verlet, Ventura, Eyreams and Leon Melchissedec a great name of French 19th Century Opera. By 1911 the Company had become largely inactive and was wound up in 1913, and catalogue sold to Pathé.

A virtually complete listing of the records and article on them is to be found in 'The Record Collector' for March 1954.

Perhaps that article would be helpful, if you can run down a copy.

[epigramophone]

My internet searches did not yield any clues.

Please post a clear picture of the signature.

James.

Here you are. My guess is that it looks like Ernest George Mahan.
One oddity is that the label suggests that he was performing at the Princess Theatre, London. It closed in 1902.

Thank you drh for suggesting The Record Collector for March 1954. Infuriatingly, there was a long run of this magazine in the CLPGS Member's Auction at Malvern last week and I did not bid on it .

[TinfoilPhono]

I tweaked your picture in Photoshop to make the signature a bit more clear. I'm still struggling to decipher it.

[CarlosV]

I have some records of this label, that I bought out of curiosity some years ago, but all are by French artists - also unknown to me, but their renditions did not impress as much to make me bother looking for their biographies - they are now forgotten in a dark corner of my discotheque.

[phonogfp]

I tweaked your picture in Photoshop to make the signature a bit more clear. I'm still struggling to decipher it.

It looks like "Ernest Geo. Mahar" to me.

Geo. P.

[Roaring20s]

Here's an old article about the company.
https://grammophon-platten.de/e107_plug ... .php?35911

James.

[epigramophone]

Here's an old article about the company.
https://grammophon-platten.de/e107_plug ... .php?35911

James.

Thank you James. The article looks interesting, but I cannot get Google Translate to show it in English.
It appears to be a history of the company. There is no mention of the elusive M. Mahan.
I have played the record and he had a good tenor voice, whoever he was.

[Roaring20s]

Mahar is still a mystery. Here's the translation of that post ...

On February 1, 1905, the Paris Court of Appeal ruled that phonograms violated property rights in the same way as the reprint of sheet music or the unauthorized use of compositions. Record and reel manufacturers were therefore ordered to pay a license fee of around 10% of the sales price to the composers and publishers' representatives.

Against this background, the conductor and artistic director Paul Alexandre Salomon decided to set up a stock company in Paris. The record producers, who were keen to maximize profits, paid a flat rate for the time in the recording studio, but neither granted most artists rights to their recordings nor paid royalties. Salomon wanted to fundamentally change that. The L'Association Phonique des Grands Artistes ( APGA) was founded on May 11, 1906 with capital of 75,000 francs, which Salomon contributed as managing director. Ten artists, all well-known members of opera houses and entertainment theaters, were already there when it was founded. They received the rights to their sound recordings and a distribution of profits. By the end of 1908, additional members were added, mostly French, but also Belgians and Italians, until 80 artists were under exclusive contracts. There were "little masters" among them, but also famous opera singers such as Lucien Muratore, Léon Melchissédec, Jean Noté and Albert Piccaluga. There don't seem to be any published recordings for the APGA by quite a few members , but almost 1,500 sides of records were released from the beginning of 1907 to 1910. French-language ones appeared in the catalog number range 1000 to 2300, Italian-language ones in the range 35000 to 35200. On July 17, 1906, the share capital was increased to 400,000 francs by issuing shares in order to buy out the pressing factory of the Parisian record brand Excelsior Records (ER), which had only been built a year earlier. Link - Click here . The APGA opened an office at 16 Rue de Balzac and a few months later even increased its share capital to 1,000,000 francs. A bank became the main shareholder. The single-sided pressed records from Excelsior Records , recorded in page font, were 26.5 cm in diameter. The label and record surface were completely flat. The first records of L'Association Phonique des Grands Artistes

looked the same. However, they were excellently recorded and made of good pressed material, so they played with comparatively little background noise. The high playback speed of an average of 86 revolutions per minute was good for the sound, but problematic for many gramophones and partly responsible for slow sales. Some required over 90 turns!

Unfortunately I can't show an example of the first pressings in 1907. The illustrator and caricaturist Paul Poncet designed the label in beige, blue-green and white tones, which is one of the most beautiful in record history.

In 1908, APGA plates were already double-sided and no longer completely flat: they had a raised ring as abrasion protection for the label and, a short time later, an additional raised ring on the outer edge of the plate. There were four price categories: red (6 francs), blue (7.25 francs), brown (8.50 francs) and gold (10 francs) Link - Click here

Pressing from 1908 in the brown price category, catalog number 1626/1627. The slightly recessed catalog number is faintly visible at 6 o'clock. Invisible is an embossed "A" at 12 o'clock.

It is only on this later pressing from the end of 1908, catalog number 1624/1625, price category blue, that the true beauty of the label comes into its own. The catalog number appears faintly embossed at 3 o'clock, as well as clear and raised at 6 o'clock. The embossed letter "A" can be seen at 9 o'clock.

From the point of view of the rarity hunter, the six extremely rare recordings for the APGA by the baritone Léon Melchissédec, who was born in 1843, are by far the most interesting on this label. Melchissédec, who had a long and successful career as a singer and singing teacher, had been a member since December 18, 1906 and recorded the first four titles (1624 to 1627) at the beginning of 1907. The other two (1990, 1991) followed sometime before November 1908. You can listen to Melchissedec, who was already 64 years old when this recording was made, here: Link - Click Here The

APGA also produced funnel gramophones in five different sizes. An example is an excerpt from a catalog from November 1908 (source: link - click here )

On December 28, 1909, the share capital was increased to 2.4 million francs. However, the APGA soon ran into serious financial problems due to mismanagement and excessive production costs, and several artists sued the company for fraud.

On July 25, 1910, Pathé bought the record presses, eight of them, for 5,000 francs and began negotiations with the artists under exclusive contracts. On December 6, 1910, an agreement was signed between APGA and Pathé Frères. Pathé paid 15,000 francs and a license fee of 0.10 cents per recording, which was re-released on the Pathé label in deep script (!).

In 1911, L'Association Phonique des Grands Artistes virtually ceased its activity and eventually went bankrupt at the end of 1912/beginning of 1913.

[Edited Mon Nov 04 2019, 11:06 p.m.]