I'm a newbie over here.
I considered myself as a part time, non hardcore record collector.
But this thing always spirals up, as curiosity never ends.
Needing to learn more about labels and records release dates, I landed in this famous "The American Record Label Directory and Dating Guide 1940 - 1959 Galen Gart" in the Internet Archive.
Inside, I found some tables I can't understand 100% .
i.e.:
Dating guide: 101 4/45 4000 ca. '51
123 3/46
147 3/47 5000 2/55
157 1/48
100 4/48 45-100 ca. '51
Can somebody help me to answer this questions:
Does the catalog number is supposed to appear somewhere in the record itself?
Does every line represent one single record release?
What is the meaning of the numbers or letters and numbers to the left of the date?
Ok, I'll give it a shot. The easy answer is yes, all major record companies printed the catalog number on the labels of commercially released records. In the case of 45s and LPs with hard covers, the catalog number is printed on those as well. Now for the tougher answer. I'm not at all familiar with the guide you're referring to, so it's difficult to interpret without the actual context. It looks to me as if there's two sets with two columns each. For instance, catalog number 101 was released in April 1945. Catalog number 4000 was probably released sometime in 1951. What label does the information you're curious about refer to?
Same here--not familiar with this publication. You say you're looking at it in "the Internet archive"; could you provide a link? Maybe if we could see it ourselves, we could come up with better answers.
One thing it appears to lack is matrix numbers and take indicators. For most labels, each record would have two numbers, a catalogue number and a matrix number. The former is how a customer or dealer would order the record. The latter is the company's internal number for the original metal part from which it produced the record, or that side of the record. Take indicators denote different takes issued under the same catalogue number at different times, even with different performers. For example, Edison issued baritone Mario Laurenti singing "Voila donc la terrible cite" from Massenet's opera Thais as no. 82235-R, but its matrix number, printed at the bottom of the label, was 7740, and my copy has, in the deadwax between the groove and the label, "7740-C-3-7," which indicates that it was take C and produced from particular stampers that are generally not of any interest. The overside of this record, 82235-L, is the same singer in "Salome! Salome!" from Massenet's Herodiade; that has matrix number 7722 on the label and, in the deadwax, matrix 7722-B-3-6, indicating take B. Until fairly recently, I didn't pay much attention to matrix numbers, but a couple of big, intensive cataloguing evolutions have made me into a true believer in their importance. A customer or dealer wanting that record would have ordered it as 82235, but at the factory the guys pressing it would have put matrices 7740 and 7722 into the press. For us collectors today, knowing the take included with the inscribed matrix number helps if we're completists and in all events can make a difference in what recording date applies to a particular record. In the case of Victor, at least, sometimes different takes assigned to a given matrix number were separated by years and involved different musicians--say, a violinist accompanied by one pianist in an earlier take and then by a different pianist in a later one, or a singer might be joined by the same pianist but a different flutist--yet Victor issued them under the same catalogue number.
Note that recording date (when the artists cut the record) and release date (when the record company put it on sale) are never the same, and although labels usually tried to get records into circulation promptly after making recordings, sometimes the release can be very long after the recording. In general, neither has much correlation to pressing date, the date on which your specific record was manufactured. *Some* Edison diamond discs include a date code, but otherwise you're generally left to puzzle that question out, if you are concerned about it, by reference to label styles, lead-in/lead-out groove configuations, and the like.
OK, I've had a look at the source material, and I think this is what's going on. I've appended a copy of the sample from the original posting, but with my own markings superimposed. What you're seeing there is not a group in the blue box with some sort of explanatory data in the green one. Rather, what you're seeing is that the label in question issued records in different numerical blocks, as shown by my circles in black, and the guide gives dates at waypoints as shown by my circles in brown; they've been put into double columns, presumably to save space in what was a printed paper book. Thus, the label here had a block of records in the 100s that started with 101 in 4/45, reached 123 by 3/46, 147 by 3/47, 157 by 1/48, and 158 by 4/48. Therefore, if you have record no. 152, by interpolation you can surmise that it probably was issued sometime in late 1947.
Now, making the probably safe assumption the label didn't issue enough records in the 100 series to get above 200 by the date shown for 202, the label also had a 200 series, and the only date shown for it is no. 202 in 3/50; if you have 203, you know it's no earlier than 3/50, and if you have 201, it's probably no later than 3/50.
It also had a 500 series, with number snapshot points working exactly as did for the 100 series; there were also a 4000, 5000, 45-100, 20-1016 (more likely 20-1000 series, but the only entry known to the authors was 20-1016), and DJ 100 series, each of which has only a single entry shown in the guide. That may or may not mean that only one record appeared with a number of that sort.
Record labels from the very early days often have divided up their catalogues in this way. To take Edison's discs as an example again, there was a 50000 series, which was mostly popular material; an 80000 series, designated "light classical"; an 82000 series, more "heavy" classical; various individual blocks for ethnic material (one for German, a different one for French, yet another for Scandinavian, etc., etc., etc.); and so on. Victor, Columbia, and many others did much the same, including "race" records in their own number blocks aimed at the Black community. That practice is what's behind the profusion of different numbers you see in the example.
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