[78-L] Harvesting the Coral label

[Han Enderman]

The last known issue (i.e. known to me) in the popular 60000 series with the 
"tilted disc" in the Coral logo (type 2) is 61336 (Whiteman: Mississippi Mud; 
does someone have good label pictures for me?).

Then there are a few issues with the name Coral in an arched form but without the sunrise motif. 
These are known to me in the range 61315-61362 (the earlier numbers being repressings).
US labels of 61381-61947 have the sunrise logo.

In the series Gart (ARLD) makes no distinction between 78s & 45s. 
The last 78s in the series known to me are are: 
U.S. 61947 (Buddy Holly) & Canadian 62111 (Neal Hefti); U.S. 64177 and 65102.
In the Canadian Silver Series I have a label picture of a single 78: 65504 by Georgie Auld.

Han Enderman
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>>> 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
---
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
---
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 eries"..
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
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