Early Cameo Label

[Rastus10]

I don't know what the precise term is for Cameo's early, multicolored "banner" label is. It is present from the earliest catalogue number, 200, up through the mid-300's, but I don't know when the change-over to the more familiar black and gold label occurred.

The highest number "banner" label (for lack of a better term) that I have is 333. Does anyone else have a higher numbered Cameo with the label pictured?

Some of the earliest issues also featured a very, very plain black and gold label. I see those rarely, but am more impressed by the aesthetics of the 1922-23 label.

Thanks.

[Harold Aherne]

There was also a "transitional" label in 1923 that retained the border around the Cameo name but otherwise looked the same as the common black Cameos:
http://www.phonostalgia.com/fields/cameo.html
(third on the top row)

and another:
http://talkingmachine.info/labels/cameo ... w&number=2

[Edit: the shading around "Cameo" takes on several different patterns now that I look closely at different specimens of the 1922-23 labels--could be a matter of how carefully the printing matrices were aligned.]

-HA

[De Soto Frank]

I call it the "hard to read" label...

[Cody K]

Heh. It really is kind of a bother to read, with that dull gold type against the relative chaos of the black and red stripes. The title you can make out fairly easily, but the composer and performer in 9pt. can be hard to divine. One lucky thing is, though, and maybe it's just me, it seems like when I'm handling records that I've had for awhile, I kind of know what they are at a glance, without having to squint at the title. The other lucky thing is, I've only got a handful of these Cameos to identify. I suspect the gold has darkened over time, and may have been easier to read when it was bright -- but no matter, those stripes do tend to lord over the design.

I always like it when one of these pops up in a pile, because compared to a lot of other labels in a given pile, this one has a lot of zip and pep. And there's some fun stuff on Cameo during this period. I guess the shellac wasn't top-notch, though, because I've seen more of these beat up than I have in nice shape.

[FloridaClay]

I have only one of those labels at the moment, #252.

Clay