Re: [ARSCLIST] Emerson Records ownership

[stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

----- Original Message -----
From: "James L Wolf" <jwol@xxxxxxx>
>    I have a kind of esoteric question. Does anyone know who, if anyone,
> owns the rights to Emerson Records, the label that operated from the
> teens to the twenties and produced 5, 7, 9, 10 and 12 inch records. I
> know from the researching (mostly on mainspringpress.com) I've done that
> Emerson was sold to Scranton Button Works in November 1924. I also know
> that Scranton was later involved in the creation of A.R.C. which was
> later sold to Columbia, now Sony. What I don't know was if the Emerson
> rights were included in the creation of A.R.C. or if they lapsed into
> the public domain with the folding of the re-organized Scranton Record
> Company sometime in the 1940's. I can't find anything which answers this
> question directly, so I wonder if any of you know. Thanks very much.
When the Emerson label reappeared with the 3000-series numbers (1925, IIRC)
I think the company was known as Consolidated Records (don't know if this
was a corporate entity). I'm not sure of the relationship between Scanton
and Consolidated; however, I think it was Consolidated, as opposed to
Emerson, when it finally expired in 1929. Plaza Music was also being
pressed by Scranton, probably on a client basis, when ARC was formed in
late 1929, and this may have been why Scranton was involved with ARC.
I've never seen any mention of the remains of Emerson being acquired
by anyone (1929 wasn't a good year to sell record firms!). If it was
a corporation, the files on its dissolution may be available in state
records.
Steven C. Barr