The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I recently bought a box of records and when I was looking through the records I came across Old King Tut and Barney Google but the label is a Columbia Flag label which I have never seen this song on a columbia flag label only on a Columbia Gold Band label and when I tried to look up this song on the flag label only the gold band came up. Is the song old king tut/barney google rare on the columbia flag label?

I don't know, depends on the cutout date, I suppose.

The short period that flag labels were used from '23 to '25 will encompass pre-flag records with flag labels and flag label records that became black label records, including early electrics.

By the time the "flag" label was introduced, Columbia was facing hard times. Not only had they suffered from the January 1920-July 1921 recession (as had the rest of the phonograph industry), but an investor/hype artist managed to purchase a great deal of Columbia's stock, manipulate the market so that this stock was grossly overvalued, and then sold early, making a tidy profit. Shortly thereafter, the market "corrected" the value of Columbia's stock and the company was in desperate financial straits. It was at this time they sold off their English affiliate and their profitable Dictaphone line.

Probably the disc you have was a good seller, and therefore still in the catalogue when Columbia changed label designs. Because, for the reasons described above, Columbia was selling less records, this later issue on the "flag" label is undoubtedly less common than the earlier issue on the "gold band" label.

By the way, if you don't know what a "hype artist" is, read up on Joseph P Kennedy (specifically his time in Hollywood and even more specifically his time running Robertson-Cole Studios, FBO, Pathé Pictures, and his involvement in the formation of RKO Radio Pictures). Nobody did "hype" like "Bootlegger Joe."

The record was a popular title for Billy Jones & Ernest Hare and was released on Columbia in the spring of 1923.

So if it stayed in the catalogue there's likely many copies floating around on the flag label, though I can't recall seeing one out of the squagillion Jones & Hare records to pass through my hands.

Those two titles were the A&B sides of A3902 as by The Georgians, originally on a late gold band label, but could have been in print into the flag label period.

Viva-Tonal wrote:Those two titles were the A&B sides of A3902 as by The Georgians, originally on a late gold band label, but could have been in print into the flag label period.

Jones & Hare had those two sides on A3876 too.