I suppose it's stating the obvious, but Scotia was a Scottish concern. Unsurprisingly, most Scotia products seem to have featured standard traditional Scottish material. The company responsible for the label was S.M.D. Recordings, of Paisley, Renfrewshire, which was set up by Jim Wallace shortly after the Second World War - S.M.D. stood for 'Scottish Master Disc'. According to 'Music Week' of the 6th of March 1976 Wallace registered the name 'Scotia' in 1946, so presumably there may be some 78 rpm Scotias out there. The earliest Scotia 7" records that I have been able to find date from the mid '60s. Numbering seems to have been something of a mish-mash, and the absence of dates on the labels of most of the records doesn't help the would-be discographer. I can only say that Scotia singles and EPs can be found in a variety of numerical series, including SMD-1700, SCO-1800 and SMD-1900 (which may have run consecutively), SMD-5000, SMD-0 and SMD-000. In addition at least one early '70s issue by Bill Barclay seems to have deserved its own BB-00 numbering, and a couple of issues that I have seen listed have had the artist's initials or a letter identifying them in place of a number - in the case of SMD-GG, an EP by the Minstrels, the 'GG' appears to refer to the fact that the record was made for, or by, Girl Guides. As far as singles are concerned I haven't seen anything on Scotia from after 1972, though there was at least one LP released in 1973; another followed in 1976 after the label had been dormant for some time. The cover of Colin Smith's 'Just A Closer Walk With Thee' (SMD-5002) says that it was Scotland's first stereo single, which gives the label a claim to fame. The 'Music Week' article referred to above says that a distribution company had set up in Edinburgh and had registered the name 'Scotia'; the company had run into difficulties with S.M.D over the use of the name but was hoping to come to an amicable agreement.
S.M.D operated another label, Moonbeam (q.v.) which was owned by Jim Wallace's son Bill and which bore a strong family resemblance to Scotia. Most Moonbeams seem to have been issued from c.1973 onwards, so the label may have ended up replacing Scotia, but given the lack of evidence I can't say for certain. S.M.D. were also responsible for the Bluebell (q.v.) label, for part of its existence. Presumably most Scotia records are still north of the Border, and it would seem that the vast majority of them haven't found their way on to google as yet. The few seven-inchers that I have managed to track down are listed below. The label came in several colours but one basic design: the first and fifth scans shown above are here by courtesy of the 45cat site. A second Scotia label (q.v.), dating from 1979, had no connection with this one. Thanks to Mike Gill for his information about S.M.D., and to Stephen Small for discographical input.
