Star Record (Label)

Label produced by the Hawthorne & Sheble Manufacturing Company of Philadelphia between March 1907 and 1909. Later issues were pressed by Columbia.

Headed by two former Edison agents, Ellsworth Hawthorne and Horace Sheble, the label was founded in February 1907 as a replacement for their earlier American Record Company label, which they had to shut down after lawsuits for patent infringement from Victor and Columbia.

First releases came in a 5100 series for 10-inch discs and 1200-series for 12-inch discs on purple labels with a five-pointed star.

Around 1908, the label began to reissue Columbia matrices, still on the purple label, using catalog number blocks 2000, 2100, 2200, 2400, 2700, 3000, 3600, 4000. and 5500 (the last for comedy releases), and maybe 6000.

In June 1909, Hawthorne & Sheble went bankrupt when they lost a patent infringement suit against the Victor Talking Machine Co.. Columbia now introduced a new black label with a six-pointed star and began a new series, starting at nr. 1. In early 1910, Columbia stopped the production of new Star records, and the remaining discs were acquired by Macy's for sale in their department stores.