Rex Talking Machine Corporation

Small Wilmington, Delaware-based gramophone factory that produced vertical (hill-and-dale) records on the Rex Record (3) label between 1914 and 1917. The company was formed in January 1914, after taking over assets from the failed Keen-O-Phone Co.. The new company substituted its own Rex Record (3) label for the Keen-O-Phone Record label, reissuing much of the Keen-O-Phone catalog and resuming master and catalog numbers where Keen-O-Phone's left off. Following a period of financial trouble and corporate reorganization in 1915, the company enjoyed a brief period of relative success in 1916. They opened a new recording studio in New York, began a new X-prefixed master series and introduced a redesigned label. They found a new revenue stream as producer of client labels and supplied pressings to several regional and mail-order labels, including Crescent (9), McKinley Velvet Record, Empire (23), Mozart (3), Playerphone and Rishell. However, Rex was never able to compete with the more popular Pathé Frères Phonograph Co., which offered a similar product, and they continued to struggle financially. They filed a bankruptcy petition on October 9, 1916 and were ordered to liquidate in early 1917. Its assets, including its pressing plant at Vandever Ave., were purchased on February 2, 1917 by a group of Rex stockholders, who kept existing staff in place and quickly resumed business as The Imperial Talking Machine Co.