The Bert-Co Enterprises

U.S. printing and packaging company for the record industry for decades, also known over the years as The Bert-Co Press, Bert-Co Industries and Bert-Co Graphics. Founded in 1930 by Berton P. Couturier (1912-1986), who ran the company well into the 1970's; the company originally printed matchbooks and travel brochures before they started printing 78 RPM labels for small and medium record labels in the mid-1940s. Starting in 1949, they printed center labels for RCA Victor for their West Coast pressing operations, followed the next year by handling Capitol Records and, about 1952, Columbia; their printing for these labels also extended to the respective companies' custom clients, as well as those of Monarch Record Mfg. Co. Bert-Co began printing 45 RPM labels around 1952, and 33⅓ RPM labels around 1956. In the 1950s they also started printing album jackets and picture sleeves, as well as working on center label design. Their picture sleeves for Capitol Records in the 1960s, especially of artists such as The Beatles and The Beach Boys, had four-color differences from those printed on the East Coast by Queens Litho, as well as their "tub-cut" tops as opposed to Queens Litho's "straight-cut" tops. For a time around the late 1960s and early 70s, Bert-Co was a subsidiary of the Walter Reade Organization. After the bottom fell out of the vinyl record business in the 1980s, Bert-Co branched out into packaging for CD's (and later, DVD's) and for the computer software and gaming industry, as well as printing of magazines such as The Hollywood Reporter and packaging for other products and services. In the 2000s, they expanded to a plant in Pulaski, TN, and a branch in China. As of September 1, 2016, Bert-Co Graphics, Inc. operates as a subsidiary of Edelmann GmbH. Their typesetting, visible on center labels up to about 1977, was heavy on Linotype fonts, with a few samples here: Sweet Georgia Brown / Margie Secret Love / The Deadwood Stage (Whip - Crack - Away!) West Side Story (The Original Sound Track Recording) I Want To Hold Your Hand Here We Go Again! Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Melodie D'Amour Loving You One More Time Around Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine Willy And The Poor Boys What's Going On