Seven Inch Eye Candy

[VintageTechnologies]

I am mostly a "hill and dale" kind of guy, but over many years I have slowly accumulated some early lateral records, such as the seven inch Victor and Columbia disks. I am working to complete a series of each brand and still have some gaps to fill. Some of these are rare enough that I suppose some collectors have never seen one, so I am posting a couple of pictures. The Columbia records may look pretty worn, but they all play reasonably well; I found a stack of them for $2 each at a flea market. I paid considerably more for the Victors.

[victorIIvictor]

Eye candy, indeed! Do any of your Climax Records bear a "VTM" stamp?

[VintageTechnologies]

Yes, some of them do. If you click on the pictures, they can be enlarged and you will see the stamp on a couple of them.

Climax produced disks for Columbia before Columbia began making their own. I read somewhere that when Eldridge Johnson parted ways with Berliner in 1900, he started two companies - Consolidated Talking Machine Company and Climax. Consolidated was eventually renamed to Victor in 1901, and Climax was sold to Columbia in 1902 in a lawsuit settlement. The legal battles between Berliner, Johnson, Frank Seamon (Zonophone), Joe Jones and Columbia were quite complicated.

[Lucius1958]

Have you ever seen a 7 inch pre-dog Victor with the 'Monarch' label? I have one...

[FellowCollector]

I am working to complete a series of each brand and still have some gaps to fill.

Very nice, Keith. I have had a passion for early 7 inch records for many years. I have an example of every label in the 7-inch Victor label series as well as the 7 inch Zonophone label series. I'm still missing the Columbia 7 inch broken ring label in my Columbia 7 inch series. There are some other elusive 7 inch single sided labels you'll have fun locating like the 7 inch blue American Record with the Indian smoking a peace pipe. Every time I have found one of these records it has been whipped from play with a heavy reproducer and worn needles!

Have you ever seen a 7 inch pre-dog Victor with the 'Monarch' label? I have one...

I have a few of these and they are hard to find. The 7 inch Victor Monarch Record label was released in 2 versions: 1 with the "lease" agreement and 1 with the dog. The latter 7 inch label that has Victor Monarch Record with the dog is the most difficult to find IMHO.

Thanks for sharing the pictures. I have a video on my YouTube channel I posted just for fun that features a few of the early 7 inch records from my collection. The link to the video is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoRYEh1PHAw

Doug

[phonojim]

Nice batch of records!

Jim

[Viva-Tonal]

The Burt Company was a maker of billiard balls and other moulded products that started a company called Globe Record Company (thus the 'G.R. CO.' on the very early Climax discs) which produced records under the Climax label for Columbia. (The very first Climax records have no paper label and have embossed label data like unto Berliner discs.)

The VTM stamp on many late Climax records comes from events following when Edward Easton, then head of Columbia, went on holiday in 1902 in the midst of the patent lawsuits with Victor. While he was away Eldridge Johnson was able to buy the Globe part of Burt for $10000 and this included all the metal matrices of all Climax/Columbia product. Immediately Johnson ordered all the metal parts transferred to Victor storage facilities where they were embossed with the VTM stamp.

Easton was in shock when he learned what had happened....Johnson basically had Columbia by the proverbials, but he offered a settlement. He would sell Globe back to Columbia for what he'd paid for it, matrices and all, on the condition Columbia would drop their numerous patent infringment lawsuits against Victor. Johnson would drop in kind all lawsuits pending against Columbia, and thereafter they pooled their patents.

[VintageTechnologies]

Have you ever seen a 7 inch pre-dog Victor with the 'Monarch' label? I have one...

Yes, I just bought one.

[Edisone]

"Little" discs have the advantage of easy portability and storability (is that a word?), too - not to mention cuteness. Disadvantage is that they were more easily played to death than the larger diameters.

Love the colorfully labeled Emersons, Busy Bees, etc too.