Clarion Records (1930-1932)[edit]

Clarion Records was a Dimestore Record Label owned by Columbia, along with Velvet Tone, Diva, Harmony, and a few others.

Clarion was specifically designed as an "Ultra" Budget Label, and for over half of the labels existence, only one song a record would be copyrighted (costing 2¢ per record in royalties). and for almost a year, the other side of the record would be completely non-copyright material. mostly being performed by the bands of Lou Gold, Ed Kirkeby, Lloyd Keating, along with many bands under Aliases.

eventually Clarion did end up starting to release records with both tracks under copyright. starting with Clarion 5319-C.

Clarion had a relatively basic label design, having a green background with a gold outline and gold text. along with a herald playing a long and straight horn that was also colored gold.

Clarion had a very similar design to another record label, Challenge, challenge also being made up of green and gold, and having a knight holding a sword.

Clarion had multiple series, the 5000, 9000 (children),

11000 (double track, with two songs on one side, similar to a puzzle record) and the 11500 series, which is somewhat similar to the 11000 series. with the records runtime being five minutes of runtime instead of the normal 2:30-3:30 you could get on the normal 10" 78 at the time. other Columbia dime store labels did this as well, such as Velvet Tone & Harmony.