Columbia
Record Club was formed in 1955 by CBS/Columbia Records as an
experiment to market music directly by mail, spurring sales
to rural consumers and heading off competition from mail-order
companies from outside the record industry. New members to the
club were enticed with a free record just for joining.
Titles in the club's catalog were only made available 6 months
after retail release, and retailers who helped recruit members
got a 20% commission. By the end of that year, the club had
125,175 members who had purchased 700,000 records.
There is a lot of different sleeves for the Columbia Record
club singles over the years, from the 1950's through early 1970's.
They could house any of the CBS family of labels, Columbia,
Epic, Date, Okeh or CSP (Columbia Special Products) - or no
specific label at all, no label name, just label copy. Each
month with your received order, you would get a small bonus
premium. This could range from a promo single, a specially pressed
promo, a sampler EP, or even a sampler pressed at 33 1/3 rpm.
If they didn't have specially printed picture sleeves, they
would get the record club sleeves.
In the early 1970's, Record Club and Promotional givaway
were the Playbacks. The Playbacks would come with a return mail
postcard with a questionaire inquiring as to the artists likability
and so-on. Usually the Record company would also reward you
with a gift - another promo item usually - just for taking time
to answer the postcard. |
