AVPRC The Association of Vogue Picture Record Collectors

Click on any image to view a larger version.  We hope to have more images available soon, but as these records are fairly uncommon, any contributions of images that you have would be gratefully accepted.

Early Vogue Prototypes (Ten Inch)

Sav-Way produced several prototypes of the Vogue picture record in 1945.  None of the prototypes were ever released for commercial sale, although several copies have found their way into the hands of lucky collectors.  Some of the prototypes have an illustration on only one side, and at times only contained recorded material on one side.

Sav-Way appears to have experimented with two different styles for the illustrations.   The first style uses a solid-colored background with illustrations relating to the song at several places on the record, and a black-and-white image of the artist.  The second style is very similar to what Sav-Way actually used in production; an image relating to the song that fills the entire background of the record, and a black-and-white image of the artist. A 1945 issue of "Down Beat" magazine contained an ad for Clyde McCoy's "Sugar Blues" on "Vogue recordings with color".   This ad showed an artist's drawing of the record in the solid-colored background style (with a yellow background).

Side A Title and Artist	Side B Title and Artist	Side A	Side B
Rum and Coca Cola Jackie Heller	On a Little Street in Singapore Glenn Miller	(Photo courtesy of Jack Bailiff)	(Photo courtesy of Jack Bailiff)
Cocktails for Two Tommy Dorsey	Trolley Song Judy Garland	(Photo courtesy of Jack Bailiff)	(Photo courtesy of Jack Bailiff)
Cocktails for Two Tommy Dorsey	Thinking of You Kay Kaiser

Note that due to the nature of prototypes (and test pressings) it is not unusual to find different couplings of images and/or songs on the prototypes.  For example, "Cocktails for Two" (listed above) was also seen with "Thinking of You" by Kay Kaiser on the flip side.  One collector has a copy of "Rum and Coca Cola" with recordings of "My Heart Sings" (Jackie Heller?) and "I'm Dying" (unknown female country artist).

Promotional / Private Issue Picture Records

In the fall of 1945 Sav-Way produced a limited pressing of a record promoting the "New Vogue Record You've Been Hearing About".  One side contained an illustration of a wreath with the legend "Merry Christmas '45 to (blank) from Tom Saffady", while the other side contained an early printing of the illustration for "The Bells of St. Mary's".  This illustration is interesting in that it has a brown border and no "R" number; the colors also differ somewhat from the final printing used in the well-known R710.

Sav-Way originally planned to "code" the musical content of their records with different colored borders; this illustration of "Bells" shows that feature.  Interestingly enough, several collectors have copies of R710 with "Stardust" on one side and the brown border illustration of "Bells" on the other side.  One can assume that Sav-Way simply used the excess brown border illustrations of "Bells" left over from the "White Christmas" promotional pressing.  (The Sears, Roebuck, and Company 1946/47 Fall/Winter catalog ad shows the brown border "Bells" illustration.)

Sav-Way produced a Vogue picture record for the General Electric Company promoting GE's line of butyl-molded instrument transformers.  This record was not sold commercially, but was likely distributed by General Electric to dealers and distributors of their power distribution equipment.

A lesser-known and rarely-seen picture record produced by Sav-Way features the Don Pablo Orchestra performing "Miserlou" on side A and "Tales of the Vienna Woods" on side B. This record has a "cheese cake" style pose on side A and a head shot of Don Pablo on side B. Side B has typewritten text reading "Mfg. and lisc. for use by Sav-Way Ind., Inc., Det. Pat. app. for" visible to the left of Don Pablo's bow tie. It is believed that this record may have been intended for an NBC Promotion that was never released (see the NBC logo on the microphone on the B side). Only two copies of this record are known to exist. (The song title "Miserlou" is more frequently written as "Misirlou".)

One private-issue picture record produced by Sav-Way has also been reported.  This twelve-inch record features the Trinity Church of Highland Park, MI, singing "Praise to the Lord" and "Alleluia"; a black and white photograph of the church choir appears on the record.  This record was never distributed commercially.

Catalog Number	Side A Title and Artist	Side B Title and Artist	Side A	Side B
(none)	White Christmas The Don Large Chorus	The Bells of St. Mary's The Don Large Chorus
GO-1007 GO-1008	Butyl-Molded Transformer Visual Education Division General Electric Company	That's for Me From "State Fair" Rodgers-Hammerstein Nocturne String Quartet and Organ
(none)	Miserlou Don Pablo Orchestra matrix 102A-2	Tales of the Vienna Woods Don Pablo Orchestra matrix 103B	(Photo courtesy of Mark Blaesing)	(Photo courtesy of Mark Blaesing)
(none)	Praise to the Lord	Alleluia	(Photo courtesy of R.C. Leggitt)	(Photo courtesy of R.C. Leggitt)

Twelve-inch Vogue Prototypes

Sav-Way produced several prototypes of twelve-inch Vogue picture records.  None of these prototypes were ever released for commercial sale, although several copies have found their way into the hands of lucky collectors.  These records used the same style as the regular production run ten-inch Vogues; an illustration related to the song title with the familiar border and Vogue logo.

CG546 appears to have been planned for release with a "Vogue Bingo, Bango, Bongo" board game.  It is unclear what recorded material actually appeared on catalog number DCR; it may have been a test pressing for S100.

Catalog Number	Side A Title and Artist	Side B Title and Artist	Side A	Side B
CG546	Bingo, Bango, Bongo Charlene Swarthout with the Vogue Recording Orchestra Sung by John Nolton	Bingo, Bango, Bongo Charlene Swarthout with the Vogue Recording Orchestra Sung by John Nolton
DCR	Nursery Rhymes	Nursery Rhymes	(Photo courtesy of Nauck's Vintage Records)	(Photo courtesy of Nauck's Vintage Records)
S100	A Trip to Slumberland, Part I Vogue Players with the Vogue Recording Orchestra	A Trip to Slumberland, Part II Vogue Players with the Vogue Recording Orchestra

Mercury disk jockey pressings produced by Sav-Way Industries

These records appeared with either of  two different illustrations; a photograph of "Little Eddie, The Mercury Man" standing at attention in the top half of the record, or a cartoon image of Eddie with his finger on his lip standing on the left side of the record.  Because the illustrations only differ slightly - mostly in the descriptive text - and due to the relative scarcity of these records, we've only included samples of the two different images:

"Standing Eddie"

"Cartoon Eddie"

Each record included a short biography of the artist and (sometimes) a short synopsis of the song.  As was common with the Vogues, it appears that different couplings of songs were used at times - as well as records that had an illustration on only one side.