[78-L] Victor 101

[J. E. Knox]

Greetings from FixitLand!

Clifford Bolling wrote:

> Just found an early Victor batwing with catalog # 101-A /101-B.  Never seen that before.  It is a course in Morse code, part 1 & 2.
> 
> The 78discography Victor section starts at # 1000.  Guess the numbers smaller than that are for correspondence courses?

Not necessarily. The Laura C. Moulton recordings, such as those in Set P-10, have low numbers (have label scan of Victor 84-A "War Song" [Malinke Tribe]). Children's 7-inch records are in a three-digit series. The Morse-code training set (Marconi-Victor Wireless Telegraph Series) was 101 through 106, six records in an album, recorded 5 May 1917 in Camden NJ (B 19800/11) with one side remade 26 May 1917 (B 19898-2) and it was in print for years. Look carefully at your Batwing labels. If the patent info is in narrow type running nearly to the batwings, it's an early pressing. If the patent data comes up only to about the top of the center hole, mentioning only patent 896,059, it's a mid-1920s pressing. Copies exist with a later Batwing label also containing the 1937 boilerplate text found on Rings-label Victors, and "RCA Manufacturing Co., Inc."

And there are certainly single-face Victors (7", 8", 10") and Monarchs (10") with numbers under 100, but you probably knew that. Those aren't correspondence courses...! Browse the EDVR, starting at page 361 in the "Browse Discs" listing.

Take care,


—
Joe
—
Cats: I've got 'em right where they want me.