[78-L] Fonotipia/Odeon Query.

[Michael Quinn]

Spats wrote:

>Hi!
>
>I was just playing some new purchases; all 10.5" Fonotipias and 
>Odeons and 'speeding' them.
>
>Although there was crossover, as always, does anyone know if the 
>company used Fonotipia label for their 'higher class' artistes, just 
>as HMV created their 'Red Label' series, while keeping the brown 
>label Odeon series for lesser celebrities. It seems so to me, but 
>that's just my impression.
>
>Does anyone KNOW anything about this?
>
>Thanks...
>
>Earl.
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>  
>
Hello Earl,
    The Brown label was used  broadly for domestic issues of the 
International Talking Machine Company  throughout its various sales 
territories. The catalogue numerical series would be assigned according  
to the individual country but the label would be standardised. Thus 
important artists such as Delmas, Litvinne, Destinn will show up on 
Brown label alongside polkas and comic songs.
 Fonotipia has a much narrower reportoire and a  more deliberate 
international quality  from the beginning and a fairly widespread 
distribution by 1907. Unfortunately the sales of Fonotipia were quite 
tiny when compared with the overall sales of all the other discs 
produced by the ITMC factory in Berlin.
    
Some records issued originally as 39000 series Fonotipia were  reissued 
in Italy with Brown Odeon labels in the 59000 series e.g. De Luca, De 
Macchi etc.
I've seen choral items coupled with solos on Fonotipia where the choral 
item receives an Italian Odeon  37000 number and the important side has 
a Fonotipia 39000 number but both sides sport Fonotipia labels.
French Fono titles sometimes ended up with Odeon labels in later years 
though most early Paris Fonos seem to disappear entirly from the catalogues.
Unlike the Gramophone Company there isn't a  large international 
celebrity catalogue with the Odeon label though you do have the special 
Blue Lilli Lehmann series in Germany around 1907. In France there was  
the very rare white label Odeon Simplex  and later Odeon de-luxe all 
with higher prices attached.
Best Wishes
Mike Quinn