I understand a little more about the DGG 78 timeline I was so fuzzy on,but it still does not really explain to my satisfaction about DGG's use of Nipper on the labels until the end of the war.DGG 78 pressings in the war years,and immediately afterwards are on a mish mash of labels.My copy of the 1938 von Karajan Zauberflote is on a Siemens label.I found it on YouTube on a Polydor pressing. I have later tulip pressing 78s of Furtwangler that were first cut in the early 30s.I have blue Nipper DGG 78s dated 1944.It seems they may have just been using whatever labels they had on hand for their 78s at the time given the chaos that was going on there during this time,it would make perfect sense.
 
Roger



________________________________
From: Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Friday, November 23, 2012 9:05 AM
Subject: [ARSCLIST] Interesting history of DGG-Polydor-Polygram-Berliner Studios-SACD-etc

http://www.emil-berliner-studios.com/en/chronik1.html

I'm not vouching for 100% accuracy, but Peter Burkowitz is not ill-informed or ignorant, so I'd give him the benefit of the doubt.

Another interesting written piece by Berkowitz is his 1977 AES Journal article, "Recording, Art of the Century?"
http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=3311

In the timeline linked at the top, interesting vector of how the classical music business went off the rails in the 1995-2005 period. First they glutted the market with product, then started nickel and diming all the most-qualified people to death, then the megaglomeration and resultant consultants (ie "fire anyone who costs anything, in other words anyone with experience or historical knowledge" and "why do you have all those slow-selling old CDs in print? cut them out" -- which shows a complete ignorance of the lucrative "long tail" aspect of a classical catalog), then the outsourcing (what is now called Decca Classics no longer oversees its own archives, no longer owns mastering facilities and no longer owns manufacturing plants, so it's more a production company than any traditional notion of a record company). Sony has followed very much the same route, but I think they own at least some of their manufacturing still, and they do have remastering
 operations, small-scale compared to the 90's, in NYC and Japan. EMI has had a similar but somewhat less drastic trajectory (we'll see if Abbey Road and Capitol Studios end up staying under the UMG umbrella). The result is much less new product, but a last-ditch bonanza for collectors of back-catalog (all of those wonderful $2-or-less-per-CD box sets of recent years).

-- Tom Fine