[78-L] Over There to Over Here

[Steven C. Barr]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Biel" <mbiel at mbiel.com>
> This thread moved from the question of importing foreign pressings of
> dance bands to the U.S. before 1923 to U.S. companies issuing foreign
> dance bands in the 1930s on American pressings.  While interesting, this
> is an entirely different question.  We KNOW that there were foreign
> dance bands and personalities issued by the American companies, but the
> question was whether the foreign PRESSINGS were imported into the U.S.
> Can anyone cite examples before the Gramophone Shop in the early 30s?  I
> have a few HMVs with upper-half label stickers saying something like
> "Imported by the Victor Talking Machine Co." but I do not know off-hand
> what genre they were, what dates this was done, and more importantly,
> what quantity did they import and how did they distribute them.
>
Here, I'm replying without looking at my Victor (et al) catalogs...so I may 
not
be exactly correct here!

Here in Canada, VTM(C) and its earlier version offered UK HMV records,
but in order to be sold, poor Nipper had to be covered over (he was a Victor
trademark but only in the Americas...?!). The Phonola operation imported and
merchandised UK Jumbo 78's; they left the record business around 1922,
though. Both Canadian Victor and Columbia pressed UK sides on specific
series rather than importing the records!

I have a couple of UK HMV catalogs which were themselves imported
by Victor; sadly, I can no longer easily lay my hands on them. IIRC, they
were used to merchandise UK HMV records in North America.

Steven C. Barr