[78-L] Harvesting the Coral label

[David Lennick]

Coral also was set up to operate like an "indie" so Decca could get a piece of 
the action that Mercury, MGM, National and other new labels were grabbing, and 
initially wasn't distributed by Decca though it was pressed by them. In Canada, 
Coral wasn't even pressed by Compo for the first year or so but was done by 
Musicana, and had white labels with brown print for the popular records and 
white labels with green print for the "Brunswick Series"..all the surviving 
80000s went over to Musicana for a while, then everything went back to Compo 
when either Musicana folded or Decca US purchased Compo in 1950. One thing we 
never had in Canada was an orange Coral label..it was dark brown once Compo 
began pressing it and stayed that color till the black/rainbow style came in.

dl

David Lennick wrote:
> November 1948, per Gart, for the first issues in the 60000, 64000 and 65000 
> series (Popular/Reissue, C&W, R&B respectively). Other series were 65500 
> (Silver Star, 45 rpm only) and childrens (69000). Last number in each series: 
> 62565, 64187, 65102, 65619, 69045.
> 
> Coral was being used as a budget reissue line in the seventies in Britain and 
> Canada as well..here it replaced the other cheapo LP labels like Carnival and 
> Point.
> 
> dl
> 
> Harold Aherne wrote:
>> I have a few questions about this Decca subsidiary, and some of the subject matter
>> might veer into the microgroove era, but I suppose there are more off-topic 
>> things that have been discussed here.<grin>
>>  
>> As far as I can tell, there were four label types:
>>  
>> The first label was quite plain; "Coral" was in a tall sans-serif font and I 
>> don’t recall any real decoration. The second label (introduced around 1951?) 
>> used a serif font for “Coral” and had a tilted abstract record behind the “R”. 
>> The third label (introduced in 1954 or 55, I think) used a thick, wide, serif font 
>> arched over a sunrise motif (which was absent on 45s). The last design 
>> (used from 1963 or 64 to the label’s retirement) resembled the Decca rainbow 
>> pattern used at the same time, although with different colours and a concave 
>> shape. The second and fourth designs can be seen at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_Records. 
>>  
>> Does anyone know exactly when the first Corals were issued? Some sources
>> give 1949 for the year of introduction, but William R. Daniels's dating guide 
>> gives November 1948 as the first month of release.
>>  
>> I've never been quite clear when Coral issues stopped. The GlobalDog listings
>> for Coral singles (which are linked at the bottom of the above Wikipedia article)
>> end in 1970, by which time there was just of trickle of releases on the label, and it
>> was probably a redundancy within the MCA group. Still, MCA sometimes 
>> used the Coral name on LPs, usually with vintage material. More than
>> that, I don't really know.
>>  
>> -Harold
>>