Ultraphon

německo-české hudební vydavatelství

Originally German label, later Czech label. Motto: Ultraphon spiegelt den Ton (in Czech: Ultraphon věrný tón) The name Ultraphon first appeared in Heinrich J. Küchenmeister’s Heinrich J. Küchenmeister & Co. KG in 1925 and later with Deutsche Ultraphon Aktiengesellschaft (aka Duag). Since April 1929 Duag was under control of N V Küchenmeister's Internationale Ultraphoon Maatschappij Berlin-Amsterdam (aka Intraphoon). After Duag declared bankruptcy in 1931, the German catalog was acquired by Telefunken. The Czech label branch was bought by Ravitas, spol. s r.o. in 1932, who was already producing and distributing Ultraphon records in Czechoslovakia since 1929. In 1933, Ravitas was transformed into Ultraphon, akciová společnost pro průmysl a obchod gramofonový based in Prague. Company owned the rights to the Ultraphon (only in Czechoslovakia) and “Supraphon” trademarks (worldwide exception of the Netherlands and its colonies). Ultraphon was nationalized in Czechoslovakia in 1945 (Beneš decrees - 100/1945 Sb.) and incorporated into a new company Gramofonové Závody, národní podnik based in Prague. After that new label Supraphon U was created where "U" means Ultraphon. The Czech Ultraphon catalog consists of well over 3000 shellac records. It was incorporated into Supraphon after the World War II, with many historical recordings eventually being transferred to tape and reissued on vinyl LPs until the late 1980s.