[78-L] Canadian Columbia Double Disk promo record

[Steven C. Barr]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Biel" <mbiel at mbiel.com>
> agp wrote:
>> I was digging through my stuff today and came across a disk that I
>> have a question about. Its a Canadian Columbia disk. I think it would
>> have been a promo-special. The catalogue number is P-11
> Matrix numbers,  please.  There were two U.S. samples like this, one
> with a very LARGE label on the promo side and the other with a regular
> size label on the promo side.  They were from around 1908 and l910 which
> is probably when the Canadian one was done.  There is a 12-inch disco
> single of a Michael Bolton song which has supposedly the Canadian sample
> on the other side.  I just got a second copy of it but have not played
> it yet.  I'm still opening 3 1/2 months of mail that accumulated while I
> was in Brooklyn.
>
The first disc promoting "Double Discs" appeared, AFAIK, only in a single,
presumably US, version. IIRC, it dates from c. 1910, and the matrix for the
promotional side is in a Columbia matrix series used "internally." This is 
the
disc which opens, "The Puh-pose Of This Re-cohd is to promote the
Col-um-bi-a Dou-ble Disk Re-cohd...!"
It is the second demonstration record which exists in both US and Canadian
forms. It sold for 25 cents in the US and 30 (or 35?) cents in Canada...and
needed different ptomo sides in the two countries reflecting the different
prices. I recall having read or heard that the speaker on the Canadian disc
is the Canadian CEO of Columbia?!

To further confuse things, there was a third "sample record" issued by
Columbia in 1923 to promote the new recording process! It bears the
catalog number 1-S, has Ted Lewis on one side and also cost a quarter!

Steven C. Barr