Clausophon

German Shellac record label (Clausophon Record) located in Berlin, founded by Walter Claus and producing records between 1926 and 1937. The first records appeared in early 1926 on a red label with the logo Clausophon Record in gold script (the label design was patented on Jan. 25, 1926). From August 1926, the design changed to the so-called Banner Label (patented Aug. 2, 1926), in which the logo Clausophon Record appears on a black banner attached to a flagpole with cross beam. Recorded in a studio in Berlin-Lichterfelde, Kommandantenstraße 18 and pressed in Thalheim in the Ore Mountains (Erzgebirge), the label released mostly pop and dance music, including songs by the Jazz-Kapelle Norbert Faconi and the Savoy Syncops Orchestra of Arthur Briggs recorded in 1927. The label's house orchestra was directed by Jack Presburg, also from 1927. The label also released English dance music via an exchange of matrices with the British company Vocalion Gramophone Co. Ltd., London, for 15, 25, 30, and later also 18 cm records. The British recordings were released anonymously under the heading "Tanz-Orchester" (dance orchestra) or under fantasy names such as "Charley's Jazz Orchester" and "Sam Lanin's Tanzorchester, London." Clausophon was not a member of the price convention, which required a sales price of RM 3.50 for a 10-inch (25 cm) record. In 1928, Clausophon records went for RM 2.50 or 3.00. In the same year, the company introduced green labels ("Grün-Etikett") for the new Clausophon Electro recordings; it continued releasing older acoustical recordings on a blue label ("Blau-Etikett") under the logo Clausophon Original Vollton. Other labels released by the Clausophon company were Eva, Nimbus, Audiphon (for the Schocken department store in Zwickau), Jupiter, Schweizer Musikhaus and V.D.M. Volksverband der Musikfreunde. In the fall of 1928, the Clausophon Gmbh Berlin established a partnership with the Adler Phonograph AG, one of the largest German phonograph producers, who had struggled to acquire a license for electrical recordings. Both companies formed the Orchestrola-Vocalion AG and began producing Orchestrola and Adler Electro records. In the summer of 1929 the Adler Phonograph AG sold its shares of the Orchestrola-Vocalion AG to the Küchenmeister Konzern (Ultraphon). When Ultraphon and OVAG split, production of the Clausophon brand labels is stopped. Instead, records appear under the labels Pallas, Rot-Blau, Juwel, Fama, Rot-Gold, and Herzplatte. Record production in Thalheim only ends in 1937.