Perfect Record Company

The "Perfect Record Company" is the name under which the Pathé Frères Phonograph Corporation, starting in Fall 1922, produced its budget label, the Perfect label, one of the most popular and longest-lived dime-store record labels of the 1920s-1930s. Although these records credit production to the "Perfect Record Company" during the 1920s, they were in fact produced by the Pathé Phonograph & Radio Corporation. Pathé did not publicly acknowledge its connection to Perfect, despite identical addresses and catalogs, until September 1925, when Pathé president Eugene A. Widman described Pathé's new electrical recording process in "The Talking Machine World" (p. 188) and announced that it would be used for "both Pathé and Perfect Records." Couplings on Perfect records before 1930 were nearly always identical to those of Pathé Actuelle, and original Pathé catalog numbers can be seen clearly pressed into the runouts of Perfect records. However, Perfect records bore different catalog numbers than those of its parent label. In 1927, Pathé merged with the Cameo Record Corporation, and in 1929 both companies merged with the Regal Record Company and the Scranton Button Company to form the American Record Corporation. The Perfect label survived the upheavals of the depression but was discontinued in April 1938 along with other ARC dime-store labels. The earliest Perfect records bore black labels surrounded by an an octagonal golden frame; they were sold for 50¢. In 1923, this was replaced with a label that featured two kneeling female nudes worshipping a rising sun. Around 1924, in order to compete with the 35¢ Cameo (3) and Domino (2) labels, the price dropped to 39¢ or 3 discs for $1. During the ARC era, Perfect discs sold for just 25¢. In Spring 1924 black shellac was discontinued in favor of "red" (reddish-brown) shellac.