[78-L] Mercury Made in Czechoslovakia

[David Lennick]

Mercury had a deal with Ultraphon, to get at all those Czech parts from 
Telefunken masters. They got saddled with a lot of unsellable European 
recordings, most of which were sent back. They also had to face Capitol in 
court over rights to the Telefunken masters, which they eventually ceded since 
they had enough other European sources (Tono, German tapes etc) to build a 
classical catalog.

dl

On 8/31/2010 7:45 PM, goldenbough at arcor.de wrote:
>
> The Gramophone Company's pressing plant at the industrial town of Aussig
> became, after WWII, the Supraphon pressing plant in what was now called
> Ustí nad Labem.
>
> Supraphon was well know for custom pressings. They pressed 78s for labels
> in Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, Albania, Pakistan - at least these are the countries
> that I have 78s from which say 'Made in Czechoslovakia'.
>
> I cannot imagine that such Mercury records 'Made in Czechoslovakia' were
> ever sold anywhere else than in North America, because, for example, Mercury
> pressings with Bulgarian music always turn up in the USA, but never in Bulgaria.
>
> Czechoslovakian records exported to the USA in 1962:   $26,000, says
> Billboard.
>
> Which company would have distributed, within Western Europe, some Keynote
> material pressed on Mercury-labelled records?  In Western Europe Mercury
> was generally represented by Philips International. Exceptions were Austria,
> where Mercury material appeared on Austroton, Greece (Helladisc), Italy
> (Phonogram), Sweden (Sonora), maybe others.
>
> Benno
>