Beka - Biography

Biography - Beka

Germany

In November 1903 Bumb and König GmbH was formed to produced Beka records, the label name coming from the company founders' initials as pronounced in German (Beh - Kah).

The parent company, the Bumb and König Institute for Modern Inventions, had been involved in the import of Zonophone discs and machines from the USA to Germany since 1900 through its Zonophon Gmbh subsidiary. When a factory to produce International Zonophone records had been set up in Germany, Zonophon remained the sole German distributor. In March 1903, Zonophon lost this concession, and by June International Zonophone had been acquired by the British-based Gramophone & Typewriter Company (HMV).

Beka records were announced in the press in March 1904, with a catalogue of around 250 20.5cm (8”) single-sided discs. In October, a Beka Records GmbH was formed to handle foreign distribution and appointed agents for Austro-Hungary, France, and Switzerland. By January 1905, records were also being sold in Denmark and Italy.

In May 1905, a Beka International Record catalogue was published as a result of recordings made in Europe, North Africa and the Near East during a tour made between July 1904 and March 1905. By July, around 3000 different records were available, in addition to 10” Beka Grand and 11” Beka Symphonie discs. Beka also announced in July that it would start recording British material. A fuller account of Beka in Britain is given in the UK label biography UK label biography. In August, the Beka trademark – a flamingo looking into a gramophone horn – was first published.

In January 1906, the Odeon records patent for double-sided records was overturned in Austria, and by April Beka discs were being pressed as both single- and double-sided in 7-, 8-, 10- and 11-inch sizes. 12-inch Beka Meister discs became available shortly thereafter.

Around mid-1907, Beka adopted a new numbering system in which the old face numbers (a simple increasing number sequence) were replaced by blocks of numbers allocated to each different country (see here). By autumn 1908, many discs were also being issued with a single catalogue number, rather than a face number for each side.

In August 1910 Beka was taken over by Carl Lindström AG (est. 1904), which had formerly only produced cylinder records. The 7-, 8-, and 11-inch discs were immediately dropped from the catalogue, and no new additions were announced to the Beka Meister series, which was renamed to Parlophon in March 1911.

In December 1912, Lindström's new factory in Hertfordshire, England, began to press discs, including those of the newly acquired Fonotipia group of labels. Lindström eventually had over 10 factories throughout Europe. Many were acquired by takeovers of other companies.

During 1913 and 1914 increasing competition from other disc companies in Germany and the UK forced record prices to fall.

During the 1914-18 War, Beka continued to produce discs in Germany, but the UK factory was put under the control of a holding company, The Hertford Record Company Ltd.

Beka records continued in Germany after the end of the war, but all exports were handled by the Trans-Oceanic Trading Company in Holland, which Lindström set up after the war. Eventually the 10" records were released under the Parlophon brand, just as the 12" Meisters earlier.

The British factory was transferred to the ownership of Columbia records, but by 1923 was owned by UK Parlophone, part of the Lindström group via Trans-Oceanic.

Source: Frank Andrews and Bill Dean Myatt; "Beka Records"; Reference Series 11, CLPGS 2011.

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