Custom Fidelity Records

Label from Pasadena, California (USA), founded in 1958 by Custom Fidelity.

The label mostly released works by local artists recorded on location or in-house. Pressing runs were usually small (as low as 50) and produced immediately after recording. The records were intended for sale and distribution by the artists themselves.

The catalogue numbers start with the prefix CF (for mono recordings) or CFS (for stereo recordings), followed by a 3-digit number (for 7"s) or 4-digit number (for LPs).

The label matrices have the date encoded: the first number stands for the month, with 1 = January to 12 = December; and the subsequent letter for the year, with D = 1961 to S = 1974. (There are no I or O to avoid confusion with 1 and 0, so J = 1966 and P = 1971.) The last number after the side designation is the production number of the record. So e.g.

Dorsey High Music 1974 with matrix A5SA3780 was the 3780th record produced and released May 1974.

This system appears to have been abandoned by 1975.