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Coca-Cola Topnotchers

US radio program

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 2, 2025
Entity authorityQ22095642 ↗
Source-derived summary

Coca-Cola Topnotchers is an American old-time radio program starring sportscaster Grantland Rice and announced by Graham McNamee who, at the time, was regarded as "the [radio's] most recognized national personality in its first international decade."

The late-night program featured interviews with well-known sports celebrities and personalities of the era and sometimes included special instances during which McNamee spent several minutes reporting the latest in sports-related news. A 31-piece all-string orchestra provided music to supplement the verbal segments.

The program was broadcast live every Wednesday evening for its entire run from March 19, 1930, until May 25, 1932. It originated in the studios of WEAF in New York and was carried nationally over the NBC Red Network.

Some content from the program's broadcasts was released on Victor recordings CVE-59833 through CVE59839.

Editorial summary

“Coca-Cola Topnotchers” enters the record as uS radio program. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Coca-Cola, Topnotchers and radio can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1930, 1932—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Coca-Cola, Topnotchers and radio.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Coca-Cola Topnotchers” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Coca-Cola, Topnotchers and radio provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 2, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q22095642. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1930 and 1932.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Coca-Cola Topnotchers”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Coca-Cola Topnotchers primary sources, Coca-Cola Topnotchers archive and Coca-Cola research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Coca-Cola Topnotchers”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Coca-Cola Topnotchers” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.