Columbia DV 1222 or DV 1467, Matr. No. WHR 294
This is an extremely interesting record. It must have belonged to someone in a higher position in the recording industry or at least with very good connections there. As for the record itself, it comes from two original matrices (WHR 294 and WHR 295), coupled together as they were for the official 1932 edition by Columbia. The point where it gets funny is the white label: It hasn´t been glued onto the record but it was pressed into the hot shellac together with the matrices, obviously with an industrial record pressing machine. Luckily the paper is a bit translucent so one can see that it is an already printed label that was just put in upside down. It´s a label of the Swiss-Austrian record company Elite Special which had its manufacturing plant at Riedikon in Switzerland. From what shines through on both sides, I could even identifiy the title: it was "Mungo" by Horst Winter´s Vienna Dance Orchestra, published by Elite Special in 1946 as Cat. No. 8010 (even on the photo, you can still spot the big "M" of "Mungo", just directly under the hole and a bit to the right). So obviously someone had obtained two original, corresponding 1932 pressing masters from Columbia, brought them safe through the war and then had this private copy made for himself at Elite Special´s plant at Riedikon in 1946 or later.
