World Record Club

The World Record Club Ltd. was a company in the United Kingdom that issued long-playing records and reel-to-reel tapes, mainly of classical music and jazz— through a membership-based mail-order system during the 1950s and 1960s. In addition to releasing titles licensed from recording companies such as Everest Records and Westminster Records, which it obtained through franchise, it produced a series of recordings featuring international artists, using its own engineering staff. Although these recordings were often of significant musical interest and of acceptable technical quality, they did not appear in shop catalogues of the times, as they were not distributed through conventional record shops.