Cinch - Biography

Biography - Cinch

UK

Issued Sept. 1913 to Jan 1916. Owned by The Gramophone Company (i.e. HMV).

Cinch was the Gramophone Company’s cheap label with discs issued between September 1913 and January 1916, and sold at 1/1d – one shilling and a penny; about £0.055.

With the onset of the 1913-14 ‘Record Season’ about September, a Price War began.

The proliferation of labels and marques was such that prices had already been perceptibly falling. Now, the major companies took a hand. The Gramophone Company (i.e. HMV) and Columbia both introduced, anonymously, cheap labels. These they sold virtually ‘at cost’ – perhaps even below cost? They were determined to drive out, once and for all, the many smaller companies that had arisen, and were largely manufactured in Germany.

They were made to the same high standard as HMVs and Zonophones. Many existing masters of useful standard repertoire, dating back to 1905, were put out on Cinch. But new material was also extensively recorded in the spring and summer of 1913, ready for the first release.

The rest, as they say, is history. The Cinch sold in immense numbers, such that they may still be found today quite often. War was declared on Germany on 4th August 1914, so the German imports were stifled. They probably did make some profit on Cinch; because the label ran into 1916, the last recording session being in October 1915, as far as I (Norman Field) can tell. Columbia’s equivalent cheap label was Phoenix.

There is a complete listing of Cinch records by Arthur Badrock and Frank Andrews. See the Bookshop at www.clpgs.org.uk

Dating Information
1913 5001 - 5145 (except 5010,5015,5017,5019,5020)
1914 5010,5015,5017,5019,5020,5145 - 5330 (except 5322,5328)
1915 5322,5328,5331 - 5456
1916 5457 - 5462

See Also
British Disc Record Labels of the Acoustic Era: 1898 – ca. 1926. C.

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