click to enlarge
Here's some recently-discovered evidence regarding CRG's membership size. The figure of 1.2 million members is said to represent the total number who had joined since the club's inception (actually 1950—not 1951). If accurate, that's a minimum of 14,400,000 records sold, because each member was obligated to buy 12 records per year. But many members renewed their memberships one or more times, so the number of records sold is likely significantly higher than 14 million. (Again assuming the data given in this article is accurate.)
It is not clear if the 1.2 million figure refers only to primary CRG club (run by Stevenson's Greystone Corporation), or if it also includes the CRG franchise operated by Book of the Month Club.
In the book, I estimated annual record sales of "well over 2 million" by BOTH sources. But if the 1.2 million cited here refers only to Greystone's CRG, then the annual sales would actually be about double my original estimate.
----------
As for the 600,000 figure given for Music Treasures of the World, that is consistent with the 599,411 figure given by Milo Sutliff when he testified at a Congressional hearing earlier that year (1956).
