Columbia House

For records with "CRC" codes issued prior to 1971, please credit Columbia Record Club.
Direct-mailing distributor of major label releases for many music labels. Columbia House was born 1971, but originally began its existence as CBS Direct Marketing Services in 1966, which was formed as parent of (and due to the growth of) Columbia Record Club (which started in 1955 and is still reflected by the legacy "CRC" code that is used by Columbia House on the non-vinyl releases they manufacture & distribute). Columbia House did not offer CDs before 1986.

In the CD era, most CRC releases either had no barcode, or used the retail barcode, through approximately 1990.* Note that circa 1990, some releases changed to this unique longer version: 0 20831-xxxx-2 xx (mostly US, sometimes Canada - CD), 0 20831-xxxx-4 xx (mostly US, sometimes Canada - cassette), 7 7749-xxxxxx x 02 (only Canada - CD), 7 7749-xxxxxx x 04 (only Canada - cassette). This may be the only indicator of Columbia House involvement, but most will also include the common CRC or "Manufactured By" language somewhere on the release.

Many Reel-To-Reel tapes manufactured for or by Columbia House are indicated by a 1R1 or 1R2 catalog number.

*Alternately, Canadian releases sometimes utilized a "xxxxxxT code" - sometimes as the barcode, sometimes elsewhere - not in combination with the numbering from above (the "T" may or may not have a space preceding it). Dates for this are currently unknown.

Columbia House declared bankruptcy and ceased operations in August 2015. It was revived 4 months later.

TO ADD COLUMBIA HOUSE RELEASES TO THE DATABASE:

Please do NOT add this company as a second label unless it is specifically branded as a label on the release.

Instead, please add Columbia House as a company, with the applicable company role as mentioned on the release (usually this would be Manufactured By, Distributed By and/or Licensed To) and enter its unique cat# in the associated field. Very often the release will not mention Columbia House, it is identified by the specifics described above - in these cases use Record Company as a role. The "Club Edition" tag should be added to the Format of Columbia House releases.

Note that Canadian releases with barcodes starting in "7 7749" are most likely Columbia House releases, and that there will most likely be a retail version of the same release with a different barcode.

Note: DIDY codes printed on the label side of CDs should be added to the Other Identifiers field only; they are DADC Codes, not Columbia House catalog numbers. Click here for the forum thread about this topic.