By Tony Locantro
When The Gramophone Company first started to operate in the UK, the discs were 7-inches in diameter and carried the title: ‘E. BERLINER’S GRAMOPHONE’.
This was soon replaced by the drawing of a recording Angel, and the Angel remained in use for about ten years. Playing time on the 7-inch discs was only around two minutes and very soon the disc sizes of 10-inch and 12-inch with longer playing times came into general use.
The above advert from 1905 shows the Angel trademark on all three disc size then currently in use.
The 7-inch discs disappeared soon afterwards, and by about 1909 the image of the dog and trumpet replaced the Angel logo as the company’s main label.
Last to come on the discs around 1910 was the wording ‘His Master’s Voice’ which replaced the words ‘Gramophone Concert Record’ and ‘Gramophone Monarch Record’ that were being used on 10-inch and 12-inch discs. Thus the familiar HMV label was established and it remained in use in a similar form for the next 70 years on 78s and subsequently LPs and 45s until the CD arrived in the 1980s.
