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The very successful English advertising and book illustrator John Hassall, has one of his graphic images on this record sleeve. I tried searching Henry's gramophone and cycle store, but found nothing. The font used for "Henry's" seems to be from the 1900-10 range.

Was Henry's a large gramophone store?
What timeframe were these sewn sleeves produced?

Thanks,
James.
Some of his other images ...
https://www.google.com/search?q=john+ha ... s-wiz-serp

I write a regular series of articles on interesting record covers for the CLPGS magazine. I have seen one of these illustrated covers before, but like you I have been unable to find any background information about this dealer.
The cover probably dates from the 1920's, when many UK dealers had cardboard covers printed as a form of advertising. As the decade progressed, the sewn edges were replaced by adhesive tape, as here :

I've never encountered the taped edge style.
I have seen many of the stitched type.

Was the one you saw, (like mine) was it from the same dealer?
This artist was well established by 1920, and it's a stretch that an individual dealer that he cannot yet find would pay to have it made. I'm assuming that the art was in the printer's arsenal of graphics.

I have not found the image on-line either. I found him by the signature.

Thanks,
James.

I've seen many with paper tape, glued to both sides, generally brown or in colours (red, blue, green). There was a time when I bought many records from the UK, and have a hundred examples of these record sleeves, paper tape glued and others stitched. Certainly i had never seen before such an art piece as this, so they must not be very common... In a different style, but they remind me of Norman Rockwell...

Roaring20s wrote: Fri Jun 14, 2024 9:48 pm
Was the one you saw, (like mine) was it from the same dealer?

Thanks,
James.

I remembered where my cover was. Most unusually it is for a lady dealer and was filed with the few other lady dealers covers which I have, in readiness for a future CLPGS magazine article about these ladies.

All very interesting!

I continued searching and found something on ...
https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/

Here's a 1931 hit for Henry's ... Here's a 1928 hit for Mrs. Ashley (down the street a bit at #37) ... James.

Looks like the OCR software was having a bad day in the previous post.
I'm not too far from Croydon and know the road, there used to be a couple of record shops along that stretch in the 70's Mr Fox comes to mind.
Geographically Croydon and Hammersmith are about 10 miles apart but fun covers.

Newsprint is not the easiest OCR scan.
Cool that you're in Croydon.
I remember during Mrs. Ashley address search, one business next to her's stated that it was directly across from a theatre. Not sure if Henry's had a theatre near it.

James.

There used to be many cinemas in Croydon , as for theaters there were probably a few small ones of this era.

Notably there was the Davies theater which closed late 50s/ about ½ mile south of this shop there is now just one large theater , the Fairfield halls.

I am surprised that the record shops thought that their sales would be boosted with a beggar / busker in their advertising !

epigramophone wrote: Sat Jun 15, 2024 5:55 am I remembered where my cover was. Most unusually it is for a lady dealer and was filed with the few other lady dealers covers which I have, in readiness for a future CLPGS magazine article about these ladies.

I have the Mrs S. Ashley one too. I'm sure I have another cover with the same picture, but a different dealer, but no idea where it is!

(Just found it - It's a Henry's, so nothing different)