Keen-O-Phone Co.

U.S. company, organized in February 1908. The company was initially in the phonograph business, marketing machines capable of playing standard lateral-cut discs. When this brought swift legal action from the Victor Talking Machine Company, they shifted attention to record production. Recording operations, under direction of Frederick W. Hager, began in 1912. Recordings were made in the company's own Philadelphia studios, and employed sapphire-ball vertical-cut masters. Sales to the public were not announced until April 1913. All releases on the company's Keen-O-Phone Record label appeared between mid-1913 and early 1914. In January 1914 a new company (Rex Talking Machine Corporation) was organized, and this company eventually replaced the Keen-O-Phone brand with a new label, Rex Record (3).