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----- Original Message ----- From: "digest Peter Hirsch" <[log in to unmask]> > I am trying to determine the recording and issue dates of a Columbia 12" > 78. The disc has a green label and the catalog number is 55037-F. The New > York Liederkranz performs Mendelssohn's Der Jaeger's Abschied (Wer hat dich > du schoener Wald) under the direction of C.R. Fuchs-Jerin on one side. I > have searched all the usual discographies and Columbia catalogs that I have > on hand, but this one just seems to have fallen through some crack > somewhere. I assume that it is pre-1939, due to the unlikeliness of this > type record being too popular after the Anschluss. > > Anyone know anything about this one? It is in RDI, but the information is > pretty much transcription-generated gibberish. The Columbia -F series was used for foreign-language and "ethnic" records, with a different set of numbers assigned to different ethnic groups. Sadly, exact dates don't exist in most cases...the sides recorded in the US used a different matrix series than did the popular records, and those ledgers seem to have been discarded. Columbia issued separate catalogs for each group, and only a handful of the most generally good-selling items were included in the general catalogs. To further confuse things, the numeric series were, for the most part, continued through the CBS takeover of the label. There is an outside possibility the disc might be documented in Spottswood's Ethnic Discography. Beyond that you can only estimate... if the record bears a CBS-type label (the one used on "red Columbias") it was pressed sometime after the 1939 takeover, while if it has any of the earlier label styles those would at least identify the pressing (but not recording) dates. Likewise, if it bears a 6-digit matrix number (10xxxx or 11xxxx) it was recorded prior to mid-1934. Steven C. Barr