[78-L] Wartime importing (Was: Skokiaan was: London -- Made in England?)

[Michael Biel]

On 8/20/2011 9:44 AM, Mark Bardenwerper wrote:
> On 8/19/2011 11:12, Michael Biel wrote:
>> On 8/19/2011 7:12 PM, Mark Bardenwerper wrote:
>>> On 8/19/2011 9:05, Han Enderman wrote:
>>>> I have label images of 1491 stating Made In U.S.A.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Can you imagine people risking their lives in sub infested waters to
>>> bring them here?
>>>
>> There were still sub infested waters in 1954??!!!
> Eeek!
> Misread. Dyslexia and ADD at the same time. Saw 1491, read 1941, thought
> it was the year!
>

I figured that but had to tweak you a small bit as well as make sure 
that everyone did realize we were talking about post-war imports.  
Wartime imports happens to be a very important topic itself because this 
was a major point of discussion at the time.  First of all, even prior 
to the war it was rarely done -- we occasionally see HMVs with little 
stickers saying it was imported by the Radio Corp of America, and the 
Brits occasionally see Victors with similar stickers, but this was still 
unusual.  Some specialty stores like Liberty Music Shop did imports, but 
mostly classical.  Classical sets before the 1940 price drop were 
expensive enough, and the imported sets must have been VERY expensive!   
But there WAS a two-way trade in metal parts between the affiliated 
companies -- but during the war much of even this stopped!!!

There are some interesting letters and articles in The Gramophone 
magazine during the war reporting on some of the new releases of 
classical recordings seen by the writers in American record stores, and 
occasionally there were comments about hopes that they might eventually 
get issued in the U.K.  The shellac shortage was discussed as one 
factor, but they did have comments about the lack of shipment of metal 
parts.

British Decca importing classical pressings after the war to sell at 
nearly regular prices was big news.  Of course this was a promotion of 
their FFRR system, but since I have World Western Electric Wide Range 
Vertical recordings from ten years earlier I have never been too 
impressed with FFRR!  The albums were manufactured here and the records 
had normal red Decca labels until there was a falling out between the 
two Deccas and they had to start using the London name.

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com