Bell Record (2)

US Shellac label. Bell Records were produced for the W.T. Grant Company dime stores between 1920-28. They were originally produced by The Arto Company, which also supplied its own Arto label, Hytone Phonograph Record, Empire (23), and a handful of other labels in the early 1920s. Following Arto's bankruptcy in 1923, the Bell Record Corporation was organized to supply records to W.T. Grant. These drew on masters from several sources, including the Emerson Phonograph Company Inc., Independent Recording Laboratories, The New York Recording Laboratories and the Regal Record Company, Inc. and duplicated material on suppliers' regular releases. Earliest releases depict a large bell with the slogan "A Bell Like Tone". This device was removed in early 1922, possibly because of its resemblance to Edison Bell's trademark, leaving the upper portion of labels almost blank. A redesigned label depicting Pan was introduced in 1923, when production of the label shifted to the Scranton Button Company. These releases are listed under Bell (4).