Columbia

Columbia's first labels, dating to late 1901, were simple in appearance. Their eye-popping (for the time period!) "Magic Notes" popular label began in 1908 and ran through 1917, in which different colors denoted different categories of music. Black marked standard material, blue marked premium, and brown and green marked "ethnic" recordings. Columbia also concurrently released Symphony Series labels (1906-1923) as high-end material to compete with the other top dog [pun!] in the market.

Below the big D in "RECORD" along the right side, you can find a list of patents. The number of patents listed can help collector nut cases date the record.

1908

1911

Columbia's Viva-Tonal labels ran from 1925-1939 and have many minute variations that help said nutcases determine the year.

1928

1928

Columbia introduced a new "microphone" label, with a microphone logo intersecting their older music notes label, in 1939. This logo ran from 1939-1958, when 78s were phased out. Popular music was denoted with a red label.

1949

1955