Halcro,
Just because you asked... ...there is a back story...
JVC/Victor of Japan was originally owned by Victor (US).
Victor was formed when Emile Berliner (inventor of the gramophone and then first owner of The Gramophone Company) lost a suit brought by Columbia and Zonophone early on, and wasn't allowed to make records anymore. The guy (Mr. Johnson) who was making gramophones (I think on an OEM basis) for Gramophone Company filed suit to allow him to sell the gramophones he had made, he was victorious in court, and he named his company Victor Talking Machine Company. That company partnered up with the original British Gramophone Company to sell gramophones, and the British company found the painting, got it changed slightly (from wax cylinders to discs). EB asked the original artist to grant the US picture rights to VTMC. That was 1901. As a result, they also got some other jurisdiction rights by default it appears. A few years later, VTMC started exporting equipment to Japan. In the 20s, after the great Kanto Earthquake destroyed most of Tokyo (1923), Japan raised import taxes dramatically, causing VTMC to decide to set up a local manufacturing and sales company, called 日本ビクター (Japan Victor). Then RCA took over Victor TMC in 1929 and RCA's corporate philosophy was to run overseas businesses on a RCA-local JV basis, so they JVed with Tokyo Electric (at the time a company in the Mitsui keiretsu, but better known now under a different name, created when it merged with Shibaura Electric Mfg - Toshiba). When relations between Japan and the USA got worse in the late 30s (as Japan was embarking on its Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere efforts), RCA no longer wanted to be involved with a Japanese JV so sold the rest of Japan Victor to its JV partners. After the war, during which Toshiba and Victor had both suffered greatly (in the bombing of Tokyo and 'burbs), but had significant debt remaining, and GHQ decided that banks couldn't own big parts of companies anymore, both Victor and Toshiba needed new partners. RCA raised its hand, but so did a long-time fan of talking machines, records, and the "HMV logo", the president of Matsushita. He decided he wanted to be in the record-making business and put up a boatload of money to buy out the debts of Victor from banks. Later Matsushita Konosuke would actually be chairman of Victor. In any case.... in Japan, most people referred to the company as "Victor" rather than "Japan Victor" and the brand used in Japan was, in the 60s-80s, "Victor". When Victor started selling VHS machines globally in the early 80s, they used the "JVC" brand outside of Japan. Later, "JVC" as a brand was re-imported and all the Victor-brand A/V products made by the Japanese company were branded JVC. And that's all she wrote... Back to armpods!
