Stinson Trading Co.

Note: Please do not use this as a label, use Stinson Records instead. This should only be used as a credit if it appears on the release itself. The Stinson Trading Company was founded in February 1933 by former Columbia Phonograph Company, Inc. exec Charles R. Stinson and Isidore “Irving” Prosky. The company was succeeded in April 1936 by the Stinson Trading Corporation and formally dissolved in the latter part of 1937. Stinson and Prosky continued as partners until 1938 in what some consider the first-of-its-kind “Bargain Bin” record store in the United States. Charles R. Stinson died in March 1938, leaving Prosky as the sole owner. Regulars to their retail store included Billie Holiday, future Keynote Recordings (2) President John Hammond, and Commodore Music Shop owner Milt Gabler. Around 1935, Charlie Stinson brokered the original Okeh and other masters to Gabler for the latter's United Hot Clubs Of America reissues. In 1939, the Stinson Trading Co. acquired the remainder stock from the U.S.S.R.'s hastily closed The New York Fair 1939 pavilion. Artkino Pictures business agent & New York theater owner Noel Meadow and his concessionaire Herbert Harris joined the Stinson Trading Co. not long after, and the company began dubbing & reissuing Artkino product to its own account. In 1941, the Stinson Trading Co. entered into a manufacturing and distribution relationship with engineer/producer Moses Asch. This relationship was formalized in early 1942 and eventually led to a complete buy-out of the Asch catalog and the founding of Stinson's own Asch Records. Irving Prosky and Noel Meadow withdrew in December 1946 or January 1947, which left the company, now re-branded as Stinson Records, completely in the hands of the Harris family. The new label's focus on reissues of the Asch jazz, folk and blues catalog was the subject of much legal action in the following years. Note: By ca. 2019, Smithsonian Folkways had acquired all of the various catalogs.