Jump to content
Soul Source

Bell Records

Posted

Hi what is the deal with the different bell records and designs ! East West / Coast or reissue... ???? ... some bell records do have that inner black circle and metallic feel (same as Lou Johnson Unsatisfied Big Top) others are normal vinyl releases ???

  • Replies 14
  • Views 2.1k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Most active in this topic

Most Popular Posts

  • Swaggy
    Swaggy

    not 100% but i know the pressed lables not paper lables were pressed from the 50s to 1969 by Bestway of New Jersey

  • Garethx
    Garethx

    Bell owned the Bestway plant at one time. Those Bestway records with the label print direct on to the styrene are probably the best styrene ever made: the fidelity can be awesome. The Bestway factory

Posted Images

Featured Replies

not 100% but i know the pressed lables not paper lables were pressed from the 50s to 1969 by Bestway of New Jersey

Bell owned the Bestway plant at one time. Those Bestway records with the label print direct on to the styrene are probably the best styrene ever made: the fidelity can be awesome. The Bestway factory also produced styrene records with glued labels at the same time. I have no idea why some orders were for paper labels and some for screen print onto plastic for the same titles at the same time.

Bell pressed at several other plants throughout the country: Monarch in LA, ARP in Michigan, Plastic Products in Memphis etc. In 1969 Columbia bought Bell and the records were pressed at Columbia plants as well as still at Bestway and the other places mentioned.

Morris Chestnut's Too Darn Soulful was pressed at Bestway and Monarch. Most of the Bestway promos have labels on the wrong sides. On the Monarchs they are the correct way around. There is a Monarch issue of TDS but I have yet to see a blue label issue pressed at Bestway.

Edited by garethx

Should add that Bestway also produced vinyl 45s too. I can think of a few vinyl 45s on Bell distributed labels like Sansu, Jet Set, Goldwax and others where there is a 'BW' as part of the master number, like on this one by Art Neville:

post-1080-0-03682100-1337782226_thumb.jp

Edited by garethx

Another useless bit of info is; The process of printing the labels directly onto the record goes back to the days of the original Bell label back in the early fifties. When Bell was set up it was designed to sell cheap cover versions of current hits with the records being sold through supermarkets, book shops etc. - they were priced at 35 cents which was half of the normal price of a single so they cut corners like saving a few cents by not using printed paper labels. Thats why over the years the print gets eroded by rubbing against other records which is why most releases on Bell from that time have unreadable or part unreadable areas on them.

  • Author

Cheers guys I just love soul-source for the banter and for the tons of information :thumbsup:

At a slight tangent, with Phily Groove releases I've seen: W/D's, standard Red and the Blue labels of releases such as: Delfonics - Ready Or Not and Didn't I Blow Your Mind. I've only seen W/D's of the Coupe De Villes releases so have always assumed they got no further.

But for Mary Holmes I've only seen W/D's and the Blue label, does anyone have or seen a standard red release of Mary Holmes - I Need Your Lovin', or was it only pressed at one plant (blue press) due to it not picking up interest, as it must have sold quite well on De Valliant for Philly Groove to give it national distribution.

post-4493-0-17727700-1337789454_thumb.jp post-4493-0-01809700-1337789463_thumb.jp

Bell owned the Bestway plant at one time. Those Bestway records with the label print direct on to the styrene are probably the best styrene ever made: the fidelity can be awesome. The Bestway factory also produced styrene records with glued labels at the same time. I have no idea why some orders were for paper labels and some for screen print onto plastic for the same titles at the same time.

Bell pressed at several other plants throughout the country: Monarch in LA, ARP in Michigan, Plastic Products in Memphis etc. In 1969 Columbia bought Bell and the records were pressed at Columbia plants as well as still at Bestway and the other places mentioned.

Morris Chestnut's Too Darn Soulful was pressed at Bestway and Monarch. Most of the Bestway promos have labels on the wrong sides. On the Monarchs they are the correct way around. There is a Monarch issue of TDS but I have yet to see a blue label issue pressed at Bestway.

A couple of years ago I took the "Too Darn Soulful" copies and noted the details on each.

>>> <<<

Takes a bit of following but something went on with the release details at the time causing confusion at both Pressing Plants & Printers.

I've only seen W/D's of the Coupe De Villes releases so have always assumed they got no further.

I have a Coupe de Villes record on the red issue Philly Groove label :)

  • 2 weeks later...

Get involved with Soul Source

Go to topic listing

Advert via Google