1899 – 1931
Zonophone
The cheap label both giants used to fight the price war
Universal Talking Machine Company / The Gramophone Company · New York, then London
The house
Zonophone began in New York in 1899 as a rival disc maker and ended up as a weapon. Victor bought the American operation in 1903 and used it as a budget line; in Britain the Gramophone Company did the same, and Zonophone became the shilling label against Columbia's cheap issues.
Because it was cheap, Zonophone recorded a great deal that the premium labels would not: music hall turns, dialect comedy, brass bands, hymns, and enormous quantities of regional repertoire for export markets.
The label survived into the 1930s under EMI, latterly as a home for dance bands and comedians rather than the bargain bin it started as.
What it sounds like
Pressed on cheaper stock than the parent labels, so surfaces are noisier, but the masters are often from the same sessions. The British issues are the strongest surviving record of Edwardian music hall.
On the shelf
Pulling sleeves…