Philips Records Ltd.

British record company, operating between April 1959 and December 1971. Philips was introduced as a record label in the UK as a division of Philips Electrical Ltd. in January 1953. From April 1959, all phonographic activities were transferred to the newly-established Philips Records Ltd. This division handled Philips Phonografische Industrie's labels in the UK, such as Philips, Polydor, Fontana, Vertigo, and from the middle of 1967, it was also manufacturing and distributing the releases of Liberty Records Limited. It was the first company to introduce the CBS label in Europe. Between April 1959 and March 1969, the company also operated a vinyl pressing plant in Walthamstow, East London under this name. The plant pressed for all Philips labels, and, among others, also records for Mercury, Atlantic and Stax. Vinyl cuts are usually identifiable by the separator "//" followed by a "▽" and "420" in the stamped matrix. There are occasional exceptions to this rule as some of these identifiers may be omitted. Additional IDs, such as 1F/2F, 1Y/2Y, 1L/2L etc. before or after the "// ▽ 420" (e.g. 267921 1F // 420) are side and format identifiers: F after the side identifier (1/2) stands for 7" 45 RPM Mono (until 1969, and since 1970 for 7" 45 RPM in general) L after the side identifier (1/2) stands for 12" 33 1/3 RPM Mono (until the end of the 1960s) W after the side identifier (1/2) stands for 12" 33 1/3 RPM Stereo (later replaced by 1Y/2Y) Y after the side identifier (1/2) stands for 12" Stereo (regardless the speed - LP and 12"). Apparently (and unusually for the UK), during the '60s the Philips plant already produced dinked 45s, usually equipped with additional 'spider' plastic centre adaptors for the large centre hole; these titles require separate entries in the database, distinguishing them from the push-out or solid centre editions. After an initial trial in 1966, full cassette duplication and manufacturing facilities were added in January 1967. Installed were four fully automated master playback machines feeding eight slave recorders. The plant manufactured musicassettes and virgin tape cassettes. Company timeline: January 1953 - 29 April 1959: Philips Electrical Ltd., Gramophone Records Division 30 April 1959 - 31 December 1971: Philips Records Ltd. After 01 January 1972: Phonogram Ltd. Plant timeline: 08 July 1957 - 29 April 1959: Record Pressers Ltd. (earlier UK Philips records were manufactured by National Plastics Ltd. at an adjacent Walthamstow site). 30 April 1959 - 20 February 1969 (registered 18 March 1969): Philips Records Ltd. After 18 March 1969: Phonodisc Ltd.