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I am having trouble finding anything about a novelty record I have on the Canadian Apex label, which was owned by Compo, a Quebec company that pressed records for many Canadian labels..

Side A: the catalogue number, 704 A, is also in the area outside the label along with a matrix number 1832E.
Side B: the catalogue number, 704 B, is also in the area outside the label along with a matrix number 1834F.
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apex_Records

Apex Records was a Canadian record label owned by the Compo Company which lasted as late as 1980.

Compo established the Apex label in July 1921 in Toronto. It released American recordings from Okeh Records and Gennett Records, among others. It also released recordings by Canadian artists for both the Anglophone and Francophone communities.

There is a Youtube video that suggests that the recording of Shall I Have It Bobbed or Shingled dates to 1924 and that The Diamond Trio were a Montreal dance band from the 1920s that also recorded on the New York Domino label as The Three Dominoes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8q8UR0w0_Y

The Three Dominoes' recording of Shall I Have It Bobbed or Shingled on the Domino label is not a re-recording of the tune; it is exactly the same recording as that of the Apex label, not even a different take, I think. I do not know what is on the A side of the Domino release. If The Diamond Trio were a Montreal group, it seems likely that the Domino label licensed (or pirated) the recording from Apex and released it with a "house-band" sounding name for the artist.

The Apex record has every appearance of being a 1920s disk. There are no run-out grooves. It also sounds very 1920s both stylistically and technologically. So the Youtuber may be right about the date.

Can anyone add anything else here?

Thanks.

Look in the 78rpm digital discography (Adams & Settlemier)
You may find the songs in original US Domino records...
https://www.78discography.com/
I learned all this trying to locate the original recordings in Apex 735, during many months...
Finally I dumped all the original txt files on this discography in a common excel spreadsheet, and it is heavy and slow, but ideal for these mad investigations... The Adams-Settlemier files were first published in the form of txt files, organized by label and record number and other series by matrix numbers. Also they were provided in a giant database, all together.
The files on the website have been somewhat updated in these odd 25 years. They can be saved in mht form from the browser and opened directly in Excel, where you can join all them in a single sheet to be able to filter, search, etc. I find it pretty useful for these mysterious recordings.
I never will thank these guys enough for this enormous work. There have been other contributors, I believe, but the original files in the 1990s were by Steve Abrams and Tyrone Settlemier.

Inigo wrote: Mon Aug 21, 2023 4:32 pm Look in the 78rpm digital discography (Adams & Settlemier)
You may find the songs in original US Domino records...
https://www.78discography.com/

Thanks. There is no listing there. I used my browser's "find in page" tool to look for keywords from Domino record, it came up with nothing on any of the pages for Domino.

Domino was a very short-lived label.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domino_Records_%281924%29

The Wikipedia article says that 'budget label" Domino records were pressed on red shellac until midway through 1927, so the release, on black shellac, of The Three Dominoes disk is not likely before this date if the Wikipedia author is correct. This does not rule out 1924 as a date for recording, however.

Interesting.

Domino records were issued in Canada, probably pressed by Compo, I would guess.
Also interesting is that the layout of Apex label and Domino label for The Diamond Trio/Three Dominos is pretty much exactly the same, same font, same size, etc.

There were a number of different Domino label styles. Any record that I can find dated which has the representation of a domino at the top seems to date to the later 1920s. Curiously one on EBay claiming to be from 1928 is on red shellac which it should not be if the Wikipedia author is correct.

Inigo wrote: Mon Aug 21, 2023 4:32 pm Look in the 78rpm digital discography (Adams & Settlemier)
You may find the songs in original US Domino records...
https://www.78discography.com/

Thank you again for this resource. While it did not help me with The Diamond Trio, it did help me with a 1920s record of Hawaiian guitar music which was issued both on Domino and Apex. It got me a recording date.

Aha!!! And also check Steven C Barr's The Almost Complete 78rpm Dating Guide. It will shed light to understand the Apex origins and connections, where their matrices came from, etc, to know where to look for the original recordings. Apex/Domino had connections with other labels too. Steve is Canadian, and the Guide has a section devoted to Canadian record labels.
The Guide is also online, in archive.org
https://archive.org/details/almostcomplete7800barr

Thank you again, Inigo!