What do all these albums have in common? They all have the same recordings on them! The left two albums are the Sounds Of A Thousand Strings Christmas album (The bottom left is the original 1st pressing, and the top left is a reissue). The top right Premier record album is titled "1000 Strings At Christmas" and is credited to Al Goodman. The bottom right is a Wyncote release titled "Christmas Favorites" with the artists credited as "The International Pop Orchestra" and is a reissue of the Premier album (the Wyncote release I examined actually had the Premier XS-4 matrixes scratched out in the dead wax). Budget record labels traded and leased masters to different budget labels so that they would, in turn, trade or lease masters they could use themselves. The question I have about these releases is when these recordings were really recorded and by whom.
[Update 2023:] Contrary to what I thought many years ago, recent scholarship (or a discovery of a fellow collector online) was not Crown Records who recorded these tracks but instead on a highly obscure Christmas label (which I sadly cannot remember specifics) issued around 1958, Crown's first issue of these tracks on their label (which they likely purchased from the before alluded obscure label) in 1959, while the others were issued later in the 1960s. This set of tracks also appears in various Background Music libraries for their Christmas/Holiday music sets, so even if one did not have a copy of any of these records, chances are pretty much everywhere American background music played in the 1960s and 1970s if one was able to hear and was alive at the time, would have had to have heard at least one of these tracks at least once (if not many times)... except for those who did not listen to any media whatsoever during this time.
[Update 2023:] Contrary to what I thought many years ago, recent scholarship (or a discovery of a fellow collector online) was not Crown Records who recorded these tracks but instead on a highly obscure Christmas label (which I sadly cannot remember specifics) issued around 1958, Crown's first issue of these tracks on their label (which they likely purchased from the before alluded obscure label) in 1959, while the others were issued later in the 1960s. This set of tracks also appears in various Background Music libraries for their Christmas/Holiday music sets, so even if one did not have a copy of any of these records, chances are pretty much everywhere American background music played in the 1960s and 1970s if one was able to hear and was alive at the time, would have had to have heard at least one of these tracks at least once (if not many times)... except for those who did not listen to any media whatsoever during this time.
Overall, one fact about budget record collecting one must never forget is that recycling material was often a mult-label venture, sometime over the span of decades, often with different artist attributions and certainly in different packaging each time! It is all part of the fun of collecting these sorts of records. However, it also can be a part of the annoyance of budget releases (besides them being overpriced in record stores if they have a name artist on them or are often not in good shape and are scattered in the often hard-to-search-through bargain bins), buying something one already has but in a different package without being any the wiser until one plays it. The neurons connect that one has heard those tracks before.
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