The first Pickofall records announced were in two catalogue series; 800 for instrumental recordings and 900 for vocal. The initial 900 series batch seem to all use former Bel Canto masters with a 5000-series master number. A subsequent issue in this series uses Dacapo masters which have a master series starting at E-1. The labels show the masters to be in an E-90000 range, the numerical part of which is the Dacapo master number enclosed by the catalogue number. Or nearly, I should say. If you look at the second image, right, you will see the master number shown as E-98538. This is 988, with "53" (the actual master number) in the middle. The only problem is that the catalogue number is 987 not 988. Who said discography was straightforward?

The 800-series use masters in a 3000 series. I understand these are from the Russian-based Metropol Records (based in Aprelkova, Moscow). The company later changed its name to The Dacapo Record Company after forming an association with the German Dacapo Record Company, and this was presumably how the masters came to be in Germany.

12" Pickofall records were announced in May 1913, but none have been reported to me, though Norman Field has a test issue, with a blank Pickofall label on one side, shown on his website.

After this time, Pickofall records started to be issued without Catalogue number, but just with face numbers. These are believed to have been manufactured by the Turmalin Werke in Berlin. Two types of these have been found: ones with the 3000 numbers, previously issued in the 800 series; although this new batch had no catalogue numbers, the couplings were the same as those in the 800 series.

The others had a rather convoluted series of face numbers which started with a two-digit number, either 34, 35 or 36. This was followed by a 4-digit number in the 4000 range. This number is made up of the last 2 digits of the 5000-series master number, prefixed by a 4, then with the last number duplicated. The two-digit prefix is 34, for master numbers between 5000 and 5099, 35 for 5100 - 5199 and 36 for 5200-up. Some masters (in the 41000 series) were from Beka/Lindstrom. For these, Pickofall used a 33 prefix, and the suffix is the last three digits of the master number, with the last digit duplicated in the same way as the others. (All that must have kept the office-boy busy.) It is believed that all these had already been issued with 900-series catalogue numbers. A 38-series prefix was used for masters from other companies, such as Favorite.

All Pickofall records I've seen have the legend "PRESSED IN PRUSSIA" on the labels, but Liebowich continued to advertise this label long after the outbreak of WWI. According to reports at the time, Liebowich had huge stocks of German-made Pickofall (and other) records when war broke out. He continued to sell these, reduced in price to 1/1 and presumably with the country of manufacture scrubbed out or covered over on the record labels.

Despite Pickofall records being available from late 1912 until at least April 1916, they are very rare, and I suspect much of the information below has come from advertisements rather than viewing of the actual records, always worrying when trying to produce a label listing of any accuracy.

Thanks to Bill Dean-Myatt for providing the first label photo. The other one is from my own collection