The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I came accross a small label on one of my records today that I bought from an american seller. I have attached a picture of it. It says "Made in England for Radio Corporation of America". If I had bought this record in the UK I would of assumed that the label was just part of the licening agreement between HMV and Victor to do with sharing masters, but this record came from the states. Did HMV really press records and then ship them back to the states?

S-B-H

Only thing I can think of is that the "Swing music series" wasn't being pressed in USA, but was available, so orders had to be imported from the UK, and the RCA label was attached prior to sale?
I know The Gramophone Co did a similar thing years before with Victor records (as below), although I assume in this case it was done with more obscure recordings that had little demand, so it wasn't considered worthwhile obtaining the masters & pressing their own.
I really would have thought both the swing & jazz series would have been available on the RCA label too, as most of the artists were American anyway.

This kind of practice of exchanging Pressing rather than the masters/stampers were apparently quite common between HMV and Victor. I've seen number of examples with pasted-over Victor Stickers or HMV stickers on the label.

Yes, but a UK pressing from an american master which was then shipped back to the states? Unless of course the Victor plants couldn't keep up with demand..but isn't this unlikely?

S-B-H

Artie Shaw was pretty big in his day and probably toured worldwide. I suspect in this case that this was a european recording done originally by HMV, even though the band was American. The label doesn't mention where the recording was made, so I'm guessing that since it is an HMV release, the default was that it was recorded in England and HMV didn't bother to mention it. There was probably insufficient market for it in the USA, so RCA merely imported a small number of pressings to meet the need. Artie Shaw was contracted to RCA during much of his career, so an automatic cross-licensing agreement with HMV was probably in effect to allow the easy marketing of the HMV product in the USA and distributed there by RCA.

I have quite a few HMV records with the same label, and even a set of similarly labeled HMV's in an RCA album. In these cases, however, the recordings are all Abbey Road products of the Busch Quartet, Fischer's Bach, etc.

I've got a mess of Glenn Miller records with that label and sticker, from a single collection that I bought all at once (in the U.S.A.) And some of Shaw's too.

The numbers in the run off groves of this HMV pressing of "It had to be you" are: 0A030736 with a diamond shape after it. The is also a "3" at the 9 0'clock position and "0" at the 3 o'clock position. I'd be curious if this is the same as is on a victor pressing of the same song.

S-B-H

The Bluebird 78 of Shaw's It Had To Be You has completely different info in the land area. Which might make it a different recording, unless it was dubbed. I don't have the HMV copy of that one.