In 1903, two of the major disc record companies ventured into unexplored territory: long playing records. The Victor talking machine company and Columbia phonograph company sold 14 inch records that played at slow speeds in the middle of 1903. To this day the story of these records remains mysterious, as even at the time they were sold they were shrouded in secrecy. Each of these records were priced at two dollars, so only the most elite of record buyers could afford them. They were unwieldy, large, heavy, impractical, and nearly impossible to store—yet they are worth their weight in gold to any collector of early recordings.
No scholar can figure out why Victor and Columbia started to manufacture these recordings, though it may have been under the pressure of a young Fred Hager. When these records were being made Hager was the music director at Columbia, and didn’t make any public announcements that he was also connected with Victor. Hager was boastful of his leadership to all the major labels in 1901 and 1902, but by 1903 he was on thin ice. Victor Herbert got him and the rest of the Zon-O-Phone company in trouble for using his name on their label without his permission. This suit left Hager eager for outside sources of money not connected with Zono.
By this time, Eldridge Johnson (the founder and inventor of the Victor) had invested a good amount of his stock in Zon-O-Phone,
