French company sleeves

Pathé, Odéon and Gramophone in France: sleeve designs to 1945

Short notes on French company sleeves, based on where each design turns up with dated records.

These notes come from looking at dated records photographed in their sleeves on Encyclopédisque, the French discography site, plus one library study. That makes most of them observed ranges: the years in which a design is known to turn up with a record, not official first or last dates. Collectors also swap sleeves, so any single example can mislead.

Designs are described in words. Follow the links to see the photographs on the source sites. Simon’s own copies of two of these designs now have their own pages: a brown and gold version of the Odéon lighthouse (on the Odeon page) and a dark version of the Pathé cockerel sleeve (Pathé, gold cockerels).

Summary
Design	Seen with records dated	Basis
Odéon blue-and-black fan, “Disque à aiguille”	1930–1933 (one later reuse, 1946); library dating late 1920s–early 1930s	DocumentedObserved
Odéon lighthouse, “Disque à aiguille”	1931–1933	Observed
Odéon Art Deco “keyhole”	1936, 1937–38, and again after the war	Observed
“Disques Gramophone / La Voix de son Maître” framed sleeve	1930, 1934 and into the 1940s	Observed
Red “La Voix de son Maître” Nipper sleeve	1929, and also 1947	Observed
Pathé grey-buff “Le Disque Pathé”	1938, 1941, 1942	Observed
Pathé dark green and gold, cockerel emblems	From 1938 through the war and later	Observed
Pathé orange octagon, “Needle cut / Disque à aiguille”	1945	Observed

Odéon

Blue-and-black fan sleeve

“ODEON – Disque à aiguille”, with a fan or sunburst around the centre hole and text about needles.

DocumentedA study in the Revue de la Bibliothèque nationale de France dates the illustrated generic Odéon sleeve to the late 1920s and early 1930s. It notes that the generic sleeve carries the Odéon name and logo with text recommending Odéon needles.
ObservedSeen with records dated 1930–1933, plus one reuse with a 1946 record.

Lighthouse sleeve

Blue and yellow, with a lighthouse above “ODEON”, also marked “Disque à aiguille”.

ObservedSeen with records dated 1931–1933.

Art Deco “keyhole” sleeve

Brown, orange or tan, with a big “ODEON” in an arc below a keyhole or microphone shape.

ObservedSeen with Odéon 281 020, 281 033 and 281 040 (all 1936), with records of 1937–38, and again with post-war records.
InferredThat makes it the likely Odéon sleeve of the mid-to-late 1930s.

Gramophone (France)

“Disques Gramophone / La Voix de son Maître” framed sleeve

Brown or orange, with a decorative frame and a gramophone or Nipper picture.

ObservedSeen with Gramophone K 5824 (1930) and later K-series records of 1934 and the 1940s, so a long run.

Red “La Voix de son Maître” Nipper sleeve

ObservedSeen with K 5987 (1929) and with a 1947 record. The run is long and the date is uncertain.

Pathé

Grey-buff “Le Disque Pathé” sleeve

An octagonal picture of a woman holding a disc, with “PATHÉ” at the bottom right.

ObservedSeen with records dated 1938, 1941 and 1942.

Dark green and gold cockerel sleeve

Dark green with a gold border, a large gold “Pathé” script at the top and a ring of gold cockerel emblems. It looks slate-green in the 1945–46 photographs.

ObservedRina Ketty’s J’attendrai, Pathé PA 1477 (March 1938), is photographed in this sleeve.
ObservedAlso seen with PA 2217 and PA 2262 (both 1945) and PA 2361 (1946). Our notes record it with Pathé records up to 1949, so it ran on well beyond the war.

Orange octagon sleeve

“NEEDLE CUT / DISQUE À AIGUILLE” in an arabesque octagon.

ObservedSeen with PA 2313 (1945).

Sources

General

Revue de la Bibliothèque nationale de France, 2017/2, on generic record sleeves (Cairn): https://shs.cairn.info/revue-de-la-bibliotheque-nationale-de-france-2017-2-page-138
Around and Around, “Matching sleeves” (old stock used up around design changes): https://aroundandaroundcom.wordpress.com/matching-sleeves/
Around and Around, “Early 78 sleeves” (few 78s survive in their original sleeve): https://aroundandaroundcom.wordpress.com/early-78-sleeves/

Uncertainty

Apart from the library dating of the Odéon generic sleeve, none of these ranges comes from a company record or a printer’s code. They are where each design has been seen, and a sleeve can easily have been swapped by a later owner. The 45spaces company-sleeve pages on 45cat may hold more, but we could not consult them.

Researched 24 October 2026.