Talk:Victor Talking Machine Company

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Article is unsourced[edit]

Per Wikipedia policy WP:V and how-to WP:CITE this article needs to cite its sources. Thanks! Mattisse(talk) 20:28, 23 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Founding date[edit]

According to the linked JVC page, it was founded in 1927. Which is correct, 1922 or 1927?—Preceding unsigned comment added by Special:Contributions/142.177.225.180 (talk) 04:44, 21 April 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Roland Gellat in "The Fabulous Phonograph" states that the sale of Victor to Seligman & Speyer was signed on 7 December 1926. The David Sarnoff Library Online lists the date as January 1927. However, the same source lists John C. Jay, (Partner J & W Seligman & Co.), Director, 1926-1928 and DeWitt Millhauser, (Partner Speyer & Co.), Director, 1926-1928
So,1926 appears to be the correct date. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.115.3.60 (talk) 08:09, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The JVC website lists the founding of the Victor Talking Machine Company of Japan as 1927. Other sources list it as 1922. According to the David Sarnoff Library in 1927 Victor Purchased additional interest in Canada. Also Southwestern Victor Distr. Co., Dallas: Calif. Victor Distr. Co., San Francisco: Northwest Victor Distr. Co., Seattle; and Victor Talking Machine Co. of Japan. Ltd. In 1928 Victor sold 32% interest in Victor Talking Machine Co. Of Japan. It would seem that JVC was in existence before 1927. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.115.14.174 (talk) 06:50, 28 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Muokkaa?[edit]

This article (as well as Victor) is showing the word "muokkaa" instead of "edit" for the heading edit links. (I believe it's Finnish, but I'm not sure how it got there.) 161.11.130.249 (talk) 19:49, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The contents menu is also messed up.68.161.25.228 (talk) 03:34, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've now noticed this in four articles: Ä, Distillation, Victor and Victor Talking Machine Company.68.161.25.228 (talk) 03:40, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's Finnish for "edit". Something must have got goofed up. (That's a technical term). Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 04:12, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Taking away this stuff at the bottom of the article fixed it:

de:Victor Talking Machine Company ja:ビクタートーキングマシン no:Victor Talking Machine Company pt:Victor Talking Machine Company fi:Victor Talking Machine Company sv:Victor (skivbolag)

Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 04:13, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, but it also removed all the links to the article in other languages. I put them back and now it's fixed! Go figure! 68.161.25.228 (talk) 13:37, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I knew that. I figured someone would Finnish the task. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 13:51, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

victor was born mrach 11th 1900 , he yet is still alive and is about to celebrate his 120 bday

Would someone please fix this?[edit]

"From the start, Victor pioneered manufacturing processes and eventually gained notoriety by using artists." I assume the author meant "pioneered innovative manufacturing processes". The second part literally means "Victor got a bad reputation by taking advantage of its artists". What, exactly, was going through the writer's mind? WilliamSommerwerck (talk) 22:37, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A Low Tenor Voice??? =[edit]

Did Caruso have a "low tenor" voice? I have never, till now, heard that term. He was a tenor. He was a "dramatic tenor", a "spinto", not quite a "heldentenor". Low is not the right word and certainly it is not a recognised term for any tenor. Caruso sang high B-flats and High Cs, but it is true that he had a 'dark' timbre. The term, "high baritone" is occasionally used, and "deep bass", etc... but these are not really proper terms. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.71.8.39 (talk) 12:15, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Versions of machines should be listed[edit]

I have a Victrola machine i inherited from my grandfather and cannot find the age of the machine. All i found on it was the words "Golden Throated - Claxtonola" which could refer to it's version, but since versions are not listed here..it is not helpful. I think listing the various machines/versions would be useful on this webpage — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.201.164.50 (talk) 22:54, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I added a bit of info i found on another wikipedia page and on this website:

http://www.victor-victrola.com/

It has quite a bit of info on versions and stuff, and put some rudimentary in the list, as well as some info. This list is far from complete though. Also, i tried to put external referenced and such in the changes, but for some reason, it is malfunctioning everytime i do it. Not sure what is the cause of it.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.201.164.50 (talk) 23:51, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Later RCA and RCA Records history[edit]

The edit regarding the Victor Talking Machine Company's sale to RCA and its later history was changed back to an earlier edit due to false info. In 1986, General Electric took over RCA and split up the company. GE sold its half of RCA-Ariola International Records to its partner Bertelsmann and it became BMG Music. Later, BMG and Sony entered into a joint partnership so BMG Music and Sony Music merged to become Sony/BMG Music. Sony bought Bertelsmann's half of the joint venture so Sony Music owns RCA Records now. Steelbeard1 (talk) 12:56, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Steelbeard1 is presenting information that is factional until recent developments in the mid and late 2000s. Modern RCA Records maintains perpetual licenses from Technicolor to operate RCA-Victor, however BMG's shortlived relaunch of the Victor label occurred during and after the sale of its 50% share of RCA Records. With BMG opting to maintain its own archive of Victor Talking Machine Co. related masters, and internal documents- an archive that was maintained previously by RCA/Ariola, RCA Records, and finally Victor Talking Machine Co. Gramophone Man — Preceding undated comment added 07:10, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Without any supporting documentation from official or journalistic web site, Gramophone Man's claim does not hold water. Sony Music Entertainment owns the Victor catalog with citations to back that up in the article. Steelbeard1 (talk) 14:54, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Victor Talking Machine Company is NOT an active company[edit]

When RCA bought the Victor Talking Machine Company, it became the RCA Victor division of RCA. Looking at the USPTO trademark TESS database, an individual named Alexander Smith (aka Graham Alexander) applied for trademark status on Victor Talking Machine Company. The Victor name for phonographs is today owned by RCA Trademark Management S.A. in France, owned by Technicolor. It manages the RCA trademark now used by several companies to market RCA branded products. Therefore the Victor Talking Machine Company is not an active company by that name and must be used in the past tense, the unrelated Victor Talking Machine Company founded in 2014 as shown at [1] notwithstanding. Steelbeard1 (talk) 13:22, 27 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Steelbeard1, you very much need to be better at researching this matter. First off, Alexander Smith & Graham Alexander are two different people. Secondly, RCA Trademark management licenses Victor to Radio Corporation of America for Phonographs (which the modern revival has yet to execute in product as of March 2015)- Radio Corporation of America is headed by Graham Alexander. Additionally, Alexander Smith (an office manager of the modern incarnation of Radio Corporation of America) is the listed owner of Victor Talking Machine Co.- an additional trademark filed in order to better protect the full identity of the record company. Radio Corporation of America also maintains *Victor Talking Machine Co." as a legal corporate entity DBA in the state of NJ- an acquisition made in 2008. BMG retained Victor (but not the license to use RCA-Victor) which was completed in sale with Sony's acquisition of BMGs half of RCA Records. During BMGs ownership, (which to this day includes trademarks from the RCA Records portfolio (that were not included in the sale).....Much of Victor's back catalog was planned to be re-issued for digital release (a plan that was eventually scrapped shortly after the relaunch of the label *See "Avenue Q" Broadway Cast LP issued on Victor in the early 2000s*- These remaining files, metal masters, and reproduction rights on such were transferred in 2008 during Radio Corporation of America's purchase at auction of the remaining Victor catalog from BMG (minus several "main" artists from which RCA Records maintained masters- and subsequent re-issues. The current Victor Talking Machine Co. maintains the same files, and master recordings as its BMG owned predecessor- and finally its RCA Corp. owned predecessor, and its Radio Corporation of America predecessor, and finally Victor Talking Machine Co. Gramophone Man

It does not matter. Just like the CBS Records of the past which now calls itself Sony Music Entertainment and the more recent CBS Records (2006), the incarnation of the Victor Talking Machine Company which evolved into RCA Records and the current incarnation which calls itself Victor Talking Machine Company are NOT related in any way. Steelbeard1 (talk) 12:47, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You are correct- besides the majority of the master recordings and internal documents- the modern Victor Talking Machine Co. is as related to Victor Talking Machine Co. as modern RCA Records is related to RCA Records...You aren't using logic- and your points are erroneous. Gramophone Man — Preceding undated comment added 02:32, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

No, your points are erroneous. Once again, Sony owns the Victor catalog just like it owns the RCA Records catalogue. See from [2] this quote: The Library of Congress presents the National Jukebox, which makes historical sound recordings available to the public free of charge. The Jukebox includes recordings from the extraordinary collections of the Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation and other contributing libraries and archives. Recordings in the Jukebox were issued on record labels now owned by Sony Music Entertainment, which has granted the Library of Congress a gratis license to stream acoustical recordings. At launch, the Jukebox includes more than 10,000 recordings made by the Victor Talking Machine Company between 1901 and 1925. Jukebox content will be increased regularly, with additional Victor recordings and acoustically recorded titles made by other Sony-owned U.S. labels, including Columbia, OKeh, and others. Steelbeard1 (talk) 03:20, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Once again, your points are erroneous in that they only account for the 10,000 or so masters Sony controlled via their acquisition of earlier incarnations of RCA records- and their re-issues of Victor Material. The Majority of Victor's 300,000 masters- are not owned by Sony...and Sony's license to The Library of Congress is on the most popular selections from earlier RCA-Victor and RCA Re-issues- accounting for a very small percentage of Victor's catalog. Gramophone Man — Preceding undated comment added 03:29, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Without proof backed up by links, you do not have a leg to stand on. Steelbeard1 (talk) 03:40, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I am putting this to others to improve later -when the information becomes more readily available to you via Google im sure they will be able to do more than I can in negating your ..."research". Good luck Gramophone Man — Preceding undated comment added 04:12, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Remember that blogs and personal web pages do not count as citations. They must come from official web sites or journalistic sources. Steelbeard1 (talk) 12:57, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Just a note, Grammophone Man's argument does not make sense. Very, very little of what appears from the Victor label on the National Jukebox has ever been reissued in any format, by any label. Silas Leachman, anyone? It is possible that the new VTMC acquired rights to the historical masters, but I don't see any reliable citations that they acquired either metal parts, or the reissue rights for all of Sony's Pre-RCA Victor recordings. Extraordinary claims require extrodinary sources. 78.26 (spin me / revolutions) 14:44, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for pointing out Silas Leachman. I found just two tracks from Amazon and that is just a digital download at [3]. OTOH, the National Jukebox has a lot of recordings made more than a century ago by Silas Leachman. You can access them at [4]. Steelbeard1 (talk) 15:21, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You've just proved the point precisely- "Very, very little of what appears from the Victor label on the National Jukebox has ever been reissued in any format, by any label." < exactly the purpose of acquiring the masters. They haven't been reissued, or released yet from the remasters because they weren't popular enough to issue past their initial issue on Victor. RCA didn't see them profitable, but still kept a majority of their masters - until a chunk of them were destroyed in the early 60s. Past that, re-issues were only made of the most *important* artists- ignoring the majority of artists from VTMC....and this collection passed later to BMG for their intended historic Victor relaunch- which never quite wound up happening the way they'd planned. I'm sure someone will have the time to correct this at a later date- until then...you'll have to hold on to this current page. Gramophone Man — Preceding undated comment added 03:26, 31 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

But, once again, backed by citations, the unavailable tracks ARE under the LEGAL OWNERSHIP of Sony Music Entertainment. Comprende? Steelbeard1 (talk) 10:42, 31 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Roughly 10,000 Master discs are under the LEGAL OWNERSHIP of Sony Music Entertainment. Truth ^ - not the remainder of them, however. Not my place to debate that. Good luck-! Gramophone Man — Preceding undated comment added 06:21, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

No supporting citations = a lot of bull. Here is yet another citation to back up Sony's legal ownership of the Victor recordings.[5]. Steelbeard1 (talk) 17:46, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You should probably read that source. Not only is it outdated, but it also makes no commitment to the assumption of master recording ownership- only general thoughts regarding the grey area in which such recordings fall (which you and I aren't privy to). Till more sources appear, the argument is pretty fruitless. so again- auvoir ! Gramophone Man — Preceding undated comment added 01:24, 6 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

RFC: appropriate level of detail[edit]

In response to his reversion of my attempts to excise what I regard as disruptively tangential minor details, I posted the following on Ghmyrtle's talk page:

Do you really not see that the little-known names of the conductors of the small orchestras accompanying Caruso, or the matrix number of an early puzzle record and other such minutiae, although they might be perfectly appropriate and valuable information in a book-length history of Victor, are a grossly disproportionate level of detail in a six-paragraph summary of the company's first twenty-five years? The average reader of this article is likely to be only dimly aware of who Caruso was, let alone interested in the names of Victor's faceless house musicians. Such tangential details will only succeed in providing "WTF?" moments for all but the most phono-geeky readers. They stop the narrative dead in its tracks. IIRC, you reverted a similar attempt to excise some of this disruptive detail a few years ago, and IMO you are therefore effectively obstructing the improvement of the article. All sorts of things can be called "encyclopedic", but that does not mean they should be shoehorned into every article to which they have some connection. I suppose at some point this will have to be hashed out on the article's talk page; I have little doubt what the consensus will be. 66.81.221.28 (talk) 12:50, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Let the hashing out begin! Input from one and all would be appreciated. 66.81.221.28 (talk) 13:42, 21 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There seem to be two points at issue - the inclusion of a reference to Caruso's orchestral conductors made in this 2008 edit; and the inclusion of a reference to the 1901 puzzle record that was added in this edit in 2009. I was not involved in either of the original edits. My opinion is that they add information to the article without in any way disrupting the flow, and are (I assume) uncontentious. Neither seems to be well-referenced, but I do not understand or accept the point that they are "disruptively tangential", "grossly disproportionate", or "obstructing the improvement of the article". I don't see any good reason to excise that material - but essentially that is a matter of opinion, and other opinions are welcome. Ghmyrtle (talk) 14:58, 21 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Really only one point: that such details are inappropriate and distracting clutter in this context. In this particular instance, Victor's 1901 puzzle disc is esoterica which is a perfect fit for the Unusual types of gramophone records article but sheds no light on the matter immediately at hand, and information about Caruso's accompaniments would be much more appropriately and usefully located in the Enrico Caruso article. As often seems to be the case, judging by the edit history these tidbits were good-faith contributions by drive-by editors who tended to view the article simply as a depository for miscellaneous facts and failed to consider the impact of their additions on the coherence of the whole, or on the attention span of the reader. Given the very deep well of material there is to draw from, if carried to its logical extreme, the unchecked piling on of such additions would eventually bloat the article to elephantine proportions and render it thoroughly incoherent. The judicious use of a pair of pruning shears from time to time seems reasonable and desirable. 66.249.173.27 (talk) 18:05, 21 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Uncited material in need of citations[edit]

I am moving the following uncited material here until it can be properly supported with inline citations of reliable, secondary sources, per WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:CS, WP:NOR, WP:IRS, WP:PSTS, et al. This diff shows where it was in the article. Nightscream (talk) 15:07, 28 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Extended content

History[edit]

Berliner had helped found several companies in various countries to make and sell gramophones. Legal wrangling with Frank Seaman, a former partner of Berliner in the UK's Gramophone Company cost Berliner lost the right to sell gramophones in the United States.

Marketing[edit]

Victor had acquired the Pan-American rights to use the Gramophone Company's now-famous trademark of the fox terrier Nipper quizzically listening to a gramophone, an image that came from an 1898 oil painting, His Master's Voice, by Francis Barraud in 1898.[citation needed]

Dozens of copies of "His Master's Voice" were painted by Barraud, several of them commissioned for executives of the Gramophone Company and Victor, though Barraud apparently would paint copies for anybody who paid him for one.[citation needed]

The original painting is in the archives of EMI Records (successor to the Gramophone company in the UK), now owned by Universal Music Group.[citation needed]

Acoustical recording era (1901-25)[edit]

Before 1925, recording was done by the same purely mechanical, non-electronic "acoustical" method used since the invention of the phonograph nearly fifty years earlier. No microphone was involved and there was no means of electrical amplification. The recording machine was essentially an exposed-horn acoustical record player functioning in reverse. One or more funnel-like metal horns was used to concentrate the energy of the airborne sound waves onto a recording diaphragm, which was a thin glass disc about two inches in diameter held in place by rubber gaskets at its perimeter. The sound-vibrated center of the diaphragm was linked to a cutting stylus that was guided across the surface of a very thick wax disc, engraving a sound-modulated groove into its surface. The wax was too soft to be played back even once without seriously damaging it, although test recordings were sometimes made and sacrificed by playing them back immediately. The wax master disc was sent to a processing plant where it was electroplated to create a negative metal "stamper" used to mould or "press" durable replicas of the recording from heated "biscuits" of a shellac-based compound. Although sound quality was gradually improved by a series of small refinements, the process was inherently insensitive. It could only record sources of sound that were very close to the recording horn or very loud, and even then the high-frequency overtones and sibilants necessary for clear, detailed sound reproduction were too feeble to register above the background noise. Resonances in the recording horns and associated components resulted in a characteristic "horn sound" that immediately identifies an acoustical recording to an experienced modern listener and seemed inseparable from "phonograph music" to contemporary listeners.[citation needed]

From the start, Victor innovated manufacturing processes and soon rose to pre-eminence by recording famous performers. In 1903, it instituted a three-step mother-stamper process to produce more stampers than previously possible. After improving the quality of disc records and players, Johnson began an ambitious project to have the most prestigious singers and musicians of the day record for Victor, with exclusive agreements where possible. Even if these artists demanded high fees or royalty advances which the company could not hope to immediately make up from the sales of their records, Johnson shrewdly knew that he would get his money's worth in the long run in promotion of the Victor brand name. These new celebrity recordings bore red labels, and were marketed as Red Seal records. For many years, Victor Red Seal records were only available single-sided: not until 1923 did Victor begin offering Red Seals in more economical double-sided form. Countless advertisements were published, praising the renowned stars of the opera and concert stages and boasting that they recorded only for Victor. As Johnson intended, the majority of the record-buying public assumed from all this that Victor Records must be superior.[citation needed]

The Victor recordings made by world-famous tenor Enrico Caruso between 1904 and 1920 were particularly successful and were often used by retailers to demonstrate Victor phonographs; Caruso's powerful voice and unusual timbre highlighted the best range of audio fidelity of the early audio technology while being minimally affected by its defects. Even people who otherwise never listened to opera often owned a record or two of the great voice of Caruso.[citation needed]

Victor had many of the world's finest classical musicians under contract, including Jascha Heifetz, Fritz Kreisler, Victor Herbert, Ignacy Jan Paderewski and Sergei Rachmaninoff in recordings at its home studios in Camden, New Jersey and in New York. Rachmaninoff, in particular, became one of the first composer-performers to record extensively; he recorded exclusively for Victor from 1920 to 1942. Arturo Toscanini's long association with Victor also began in 1920, with a series of records conducting members of the orchestra of the La Scala Opera House of Milan. Toscanini recorded for the company until his retirement in 1954.[citation needed]

...and established jazz as popular music.[citation needed]

Electrical recording era (1925-present)[edit]

Victor quickly recorded a series of discs by the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski at its Camden, New Jersey studios and then in Philadelphia's Academy of Music. Among Stokowski's first electrical recordings were performances of Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saëns and Marche Slave by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Frederick Stock and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra made a series of recordings for Victor, beginning in 1925, first in Victor's Chicago studios and then in Orchestra Hall. The San Francisco Symphony Orchestra conducted by Alfred Hertz made a few acoustical recordings early in 1925, then switched to electrical recordings in Oakland and San Francisco, California, continuing until 1928. Within a few years, Serge Koussevitzky began a long series of recordings with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Boston's Symphony Hall. Toscanini made his first Victor electrical recordings with the New York Philharmonic in November, 1929.[citation needed]

The origins of country music as we know it today can be traced to two seminal influences and a remarkable coincidence. Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family are considered the founders of country music and their songs were first captured at an historic recording session in Bristol, Tennessee (also known as the Bristol Sessions) on August 1, 1927, where Ralph Peer was the talent scout and recording engineer for Victor.[citation needed]

Post-acquisition (1929-present)[edit]

It then became known briefly as the Radio-Victor Division of the Radio Corporation of America, then the RCA Manufacturing Company, the RCA Victor Division and in 1968, RCA Records. Most record labels continued to bear only the "Victor" name until 1946, when the labels changed to "RCA Victor" and eventually, to simply "RCA" in late 1968, "Victor" becoming the label designation for RCA's popular music releases. (See RCA and RCA Records for later history of the Victor brand name.)[citation needed]

Johnson and Victor's inner circle became extremely wealthy by the 1920s and in doing so were able to expand Victor's markets outside of the original Camden base of operations. Having established a hand-shake agreement with Emile Berliner in forming the Victor Talking Machine Co, Berliner was sent from the United States to manage the remaining holdings of the Gramophone Company (a company in which Victor owned a significant portion in part due to patent pooling agreements, and Victor's success in its first two decades). Eventually, this meant that Victor (in addition to owning studios, offices, and plants in Camden, New York City, Los Angeles, Oakland, Chicago, Montreal, Mexico City and South America) also owned controlling interests in the Gramophone Company in England, as well as the Deutsche Gramophone Co. in Europe. Soon, Victor formed the Victor Company of Japan (JVC), founded in 1927. As Radio Corporation of America acquired Victor, the Gramophone Co. in England became EMI giving RCA a controlling interest in JVC, Columbia (UK), and EMI. During World War II, JVC severed its ties to RCA Victor and today remains one of the oldest and most successful Japanese record labels as well as an electronics giant. Meanwhile, RCA sold its remaining shares in EMI during this time. Today, use of the "His Master's Voice" trademark is split amongst several companies including RCA (in the Western Hemisphere) JVC (in Japan) and HMV (in the UK).[citation needed]

Products[edit]

In September 1906, Victor introduced a new line of talking machines with the turntable and amplifying horn tucked away inside a wooden cabinet, the horn being completely invisible. This was not done for reasons of audio fidelity, but for visual aesthetics. The intention was to produce a phonograph that looked less like a piece of machinery and more like a piece of furniture. These internal horn machines, trademarked with the name Victrola, were first marketed to the public in September of that year and were an immediate hit. Soon an extensive line of Victrolas was available, ranging from small tabletop models selling for $15, through many sizes and designs of cabinets intended to go with the decor of middle-class homes in the $100 to $250 range, up to $600 Chippendale and Queen Anne-style cabinets of fine wood with gold trim designed to look at home in elegant mansions. Victrolas became by far the most popular type of home phonograph, and sold in great numbers until the end of the 1920s. RCA Victor continued to market record players under the Victrola name until the late 1960s.[citation needed]

Other Victor products included the Electrola (a phonograph with an electric motor), Radiola (a radio often paired with a phonograph which was a joint venture with RCA prior to their acquisition of the company), and musical instruments (including the first electronic instrument, the theremin).[citation needed]

Archives[edit]

Victor kept meticulous written records of its recordings. The files cover 1903 to 1958, including the Victor Talking Machine Co. and RCA Victor eras. These written records are among the most extensive and important sources of available primary discographic information in the world. There were three main categories of files: a daily log of recordings for each day, a file maintained for each important Victor artist, and a 4-by-6-inch index card file kept in catalog number order.[citation needed]

There are about 15,000 daily log pages, each titled "Recording Book", that are numbered chronologically. Each recording was assigned a "matrix number" to identify the recording. When issued, the recording had a "catalog number", almost always different from the matrix number, on the record label.[citation needed]

As of 2010, the remaining pages available at the Victor archives go only up to April 22, 1935. Victor's original pages after this date were apparently discarded or lost at some point. However, EMI has more recent pages, thanks to Victor's ties with EMI in England, and at Hayes, Hillingdon, in London. These pages were sent at the time they were first written and therefore do not have the annotations made afterwards.[citation needed]

Most, but not all, daily log information for recordings made for synchronization with motion pictures were kept separately, and the separate synchronization recording information is missing from the Victor archives.[citation needed]

Victor also issued annual catalogs of all available recordings with monthly supplements announcing the release of new and forthcoming records issued throughout the year. These publications were carefully prepared and were lavishly illustrated with many photographs and advertisements of popular Victor recording artists.[citation needed]


Victor trademark ownership[edit]

Since 2022, the Victor brand has been owned by Talisman Brands, Inc. d/b/a Established.

https://www.technicolor.com/license https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2022/05/31/2453618/0/en/Technicolor-Closing-of-the-Sale-of-Trademark-Licensing-operations.html Vlada Established.inc (talk) 10:36, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]