The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

The Hagley museum has make available on-line ten volumes of the Executive Committee and the Management Committee weekly minute books of the Victor Talking Machine Company and its successor RCA Victor. The volumes span the years 1912-1931

These Victor Talking Machine Executive Committee and Management Committee volumes were discovered some time ago but there doesn’t seem to be much discussion on the Forum. They provide an inside look into what Victor (and later RCA-Victor and RCA) was up to during the 1912-1931 time period.

These are very important primary source documents and will serve us well. They can augment many of our Victor discussions. There is much to be learned from these ten volumes. Why make guesses about Victor and Victor products when often the answer is documented here in real time and in the words of the Victor executives.
Want to hear the inside story of Victor’s dire struggles in 1924 and the recovery after the introduction of the Orthophonic line? It is all here in these weekly meeting minutes! And much more!

There are no illustrations and many topics only reference model numbers so you may want to keep a copy of Bob Baumbach’s Look for the Dog book nearby.
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Here is the link:

https://www.hagley.org/librarynews/manu ... ters-voice

After this page opens click the Finding Aid link at the bottom to explore and study the collection.

Mark

Oops never mind, I figured it out.

Thanks!
Would love to find something so useful for following the history of HMV in the UK, Europe, France and .. Spain...!!! These mysteries about the models created and how was it managed...

This thread has been rather quiet. Either all of you are busy studying this treasure trove of Victor information or I have hidden the links so thoroughly that no one has found the Minute books!

Here is a more direct link. When the page opens click the image of the book for the years of interest.

https://digital.hagley.org/2658

Here is what the page should look like.


Peter F will conduct a short test (multiple choice) on some of information found in these volumes every Friday throughout 2023.

Happy Reading and Happy New Year.

Mark

This promises to be rather interesting, many thanks. Although it will take hours to read, not the least to make a good database of relevant facts, perhaps with key words in some columns, and dates, to be able to filter, sort, etc Best would be if they are OCR and can be imported directly to Excel, for instance. Then we'd have a true searchable calendar database...!

I am EXTREMELY interested to see if Brunswick is mentioned- they were the direct competitors throughout 1925.

Hi Gun,

Im glad you find this interesting! It is extremely easy to find this information using the search feature available on each page.

There are two mentions of “Brunswick” in the 1924-1926 Minute book.

Here are some tips on using the search. Enter the search term at the top, the instances appear at the bottom, you can quickly locate that page by selecting the yellow marked instances or by advancing the bar below.

Have fun. There is much to learn!

Mark