Hit Of The Week

US record label introduced in 1930 and discontinued in 1932. Distinctively, Hit Of The Week records were not made of the heavy, fragile shellac compound which was usual for phonograph records of that era, but of a patented flexible synthetic resin named Durium coated on a brown paper base. A new Hit Of The Week record was released every week (generally on thursdays) and was sold in newsstands across the country. The original parent company, Durium Products Corporation, can be found represented on the labels up until catalog number 1159 (rel. Aug 27th, 1931) after which the company folded and the newly created Durium Products Incorporated, New York continued operations. Catalog numbers were initially sequential (starting at 1019) but in conjunction with the company change in 1931 a new catalog number format was introduced after the release of 1160. This format consisted of a letter/letters representing the month of release (A=Jan, B=Feb etc.) and a number/numbers representing the week of release within that month (for example; Catalog number "L 2" = released the second week of December) For the UK-based European counterpart (established in 1932), see Durium Records.