Columbia Records

Columbia Records is the oldest brand name in recorded sound. Founded in January 1889 in Washington DC as the by Edward D. Easton, the company first sold phonograph cylinders and later disc records.

For 78s that have "Exclusive Artist (At Pressing)" on labels add "Exclusive Artist" in the release notes and/or Free Text field (see [g6.1.5]).
For all unofficial/bootleg copies of this label please use .

It opened a British operation shortly afterwards. This was sold in 1922 to its own management, and then the independent Columbia Graphophone Company Ltd. itself purchased its almost bankrupt former parent in 1925. This was then merged with The Gramophone Co. Ltd., which had been set up in the UK in 1896. This company was incorporated as (EMI) in 1931. US anti-trust laws forced the UK company to divest itself of its US operations that year.

The label was introduced in Japan in 1931 by the Nippon Phonograph Co. (also known as ) which was a subsidiary of In 1935 EMI sold its stake in Nipponophone, but Nipponophone kept ownership of the Columbia brand for Japan. After World War II, the label became part of Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd.

For the next few decades the Columbia imprint (trad