Classic Mode

Music Trade Review

Issue: 1895 Vol. 21 N. 23

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW.
Chickering & Sons, that they will hereafter
handle other pianos in connection with the
Chickering at their warerooms in this city.
It is that spirit of progressiveness and
modern enterprise which to-day permeates
the Chickering business, that has brought
this new change about.
Occupying the eminent position in the
trade in this city and throughout the coun-
try as the house of Chickering does, it is
but fair to presume that such a method on
their part will cause others to emulate their
example.
There are stores on Fifth avenue which
have for years followed the plan of Chicker-
ing & Sons, viz.: Selling no other pianos
than those of their own make.
Now the Chickering firm come out boldly
and say that while the Chickering piano
will occupy the same position that it always
has in the past in their warerooms—the
"leader"—yet pianos of other makes will
be pushed with just as much persistence
and energy as their own instruments.
In other words, if a customer has a musi-
cal taste, but not a Chickering purse, that
taste may be gratified by a piano purchased
in their establishment which bears another
name than that of Chickering upon its fall-
board.
This move is a move weighty with mean-
ing, as it will have a far-reaching effect
upon the retail piano business of New York
and elsewhere as at present conducted.
We have no doubt during '96 that in
nine-tenths of the warerooms in this city
customers will not be turned away from
establishments simply because they have
not the price for a Chickering, a Weber or
other makes.
There will be in this city more and more
music emporiums in the fullest sense of
the word.
The piano business will be run nearer on
the lines of other manufactures than here-
tofore—at least it seems to us to be rapidly
gravitating to that.
Modern methods of commercialism are
already applied to the conduct of the piano
business, and as an iron wedge is driven
with force into yielding wood by the power
applied, so the piano business will yield to
the pressure of modern and progressive
ideas that characterize business dealings in
all other manufactures at the close of this
century.
sale for a limited time, giving residents of
those cities wherein they had taken tempo-
rary warerooms, an opportunity to purchase
their wares direct.
Of course, the local dealers are very much
injured by such a course, but no one can
dispute that such methods are along the
lines of modern business principles.
A man has a perfect right to sell his
goods in any locality wheresoever he wishes.
This method has been adopted also by
an Eastern firm in a locality where they
have had no representation.
All such principles cause one to think
that the entire business is undergoing a
change—such a change as we have pre-
dicted above.
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0
The outlook for 1896 is particularly bright
for piano manufacturers.
As an argument in substantiating this
statement, let us ask what year for three
years has there been so many orders by
telegraph for pianos?
Do not such messages show a general de-
pletion of the stock in the retail warerooms?
Does it not show that dealers have been
buying sparingly, have preferred really to
sell from the factory rather than carry
stock in their warerooms?
And does it not show that there will be a
steady demand during the first months of
the year?
We will predict that there will be less of
the stagnancy which usually prevails during
the first two months of the year, than for
the past half dozen years.
Stocks are low, the people must have
goods.
Dealers will not lay in large stocks, which
is really much better, but their demand
will be steady—continual—sure.
It seems as if we have had a succession
of blows which have seriously retarded
business, but after all, there is that under-
lying faith in American institutions which
causes this country to rise above all obsta-
cles, tariff tinkering, Debs rebellion, Cleve-
0 0 0
landism, everything.
Some of our local contemporaries have
The general business of the country has,
according to careful estimates, advanced to been giving much space to the "West-
a position of twenty per cent, above that ern scare," claiming that soon the advance
guard of the great Western firms would
of '94.
If it had been the other way, showing a cross the Alleghanies, planting their banners
decrease of twenty per cent., it would be in the great cities of New York and Boston,
exceedingly alarming; but as the tide is and completely annihilating the local trade
the right way, we should all celebrate the in those cities.
What rot.
holidays in the good old-fashioned way.
Arrant rot.
0 0 0
Manufacturers have existed and con-
The President's message on the Venezu- trolled warer.ooms in the East for many
ela matter threw the country into a tremen- years, before some of the Western men first
dous panic, resulting in the loss of some saw light.
hundreds of millions in two or three days.
They will continue to maintain business
The reaction, however, has set in in a establishments even though the West "in-
good healthy manner, and there has been a vades the East."
lively scramble on the part of investors to
For our part we have condemned most
get back some of the good things which in heartily such messages and warnings from
their timidity they let slip from their hands the New York press.
at the first announcement of the "war
We believe in healthy competition, that
scare.''
kind of competition always stimulates trade
The improvement in prices, and the —makes business better for everyone.
present healthy tone of the markets, show
We gladly welcome the onward march of
how absurd was the disturbance, and how our Western brethren, whom we most
unnecessary the alarm which precipitated heartily admire.
the sudden decline in stocks.
Let them come; there's room for all in
If our national finances are in a bad way, this great big country of ours, and while
they are certainly not past mending, and they are selling their wares in the East, we
there is no doubt but that our national leg- do not think that Eastern wares will be en-
islators will do their full duty in this re- tirely excluded from lands west of the Ap-
0 0 0
palachian chain.
spect.
In other words, Eastern men will con-
Also there is another method, which was
Of course, if alarmists continue the "war
first adopted by the great Kimball firm in scare," and the tariff tinkerers go on with tinue to do business in the West as well as
the West, that house which has left its im- their work at Washington, why we may ex- in the East.
Western men, sturdy and progressive,
print over the broad territory west of the pect disrupted and unsettled business, but
Alleghanies, and that in localities where just at present the conditions are encourag- will steadily advance their lines toward the
East, but as far as this "wiping out"
they were not represented to hold a special ing.
Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW.
cess goes, we cannot concur with our es- an opportune time in which to extend
teemed contemporaries, who have selected thanks to our friends and supporters who
warerooms, arranged the preliminaries for
have made our success possible.
the arrival of our Western friends, whom
our thanks to honest critics, who through
we have thought quite able to manage their
their suggestions have caused us to im-
own affairs without the advice or interces-
sion of newspaper men.
This is quite a town we have here.
It has many things of interest, and it is
quite broad enough to contain, besides its
Extend
THE pipe organs manufactured by the W.
W. Kimball Co., Chicago, are in great
who have always encouraged us. We ex- vogue. They have now in process of con-
tend thanks to one and all. Greeting.
struction six organs for churches in and
Renewed prosperity and better things around Chicago. • . . . • . • - •
prove our departments.
To our readers
for the year yet unborn.
own manufacturers and dealers, a hearty
sprinkling of Westerners.
Death of an Old Piano Man.
Our present Mayor is a Western man.
H
ENRY J. NEWTON, the noted spirit-
ualist, was run over and instantly
Advertising, too, has been more carefully
killed by a Lexington avenue cable car, on
studied during the year now closing by the Broadway and Twenty-third street, last
piano trade than ever before.
Monday evening. Mr. Newton was seven-
ty-two
years old, and in the years agone,
This we affirm as experts who make a
about
1848,
was one of the founders of the
careful study of the art of advertising.
firm of Lighte & Newton, which subse-
We say that piano trade has placed more
quently became Lighte, Newton & Brad-
intelligently and in a more comprehensive bury. For the past thirty years he has not
manner, notices of their manufactures be- been connected with the piano trade. He
fore the trade and before the public than at was rated as a millionaire. A widow and
one son survive him.
any time heretofore.
'-
e
o
©
• • . • • • •
This is the age of new ideas in business
advertising, and those who keep in close
A Christmas Greeting.
touch with the press will certainly stand in
line to reap a benefit for their outlay.
Those who make their ads readable and
speak the truth boldly, people will appreci-
ate more than those who mislead.
The reward of the faithful advertiser is
certain.
0
O 0
The trade press, too, has improved won-
derfully.
The music trade to-day has papers of
which it has a right to feel proud.
T
HE Keller Bros. & Blight Co., Bridge-
port, Conn., have always been noted
for their artistic advertisements and litera-
ture, and the neat and timely Christmas
greeting which we have just received in
the form of an eight page folder is in touch
with everything emanating from this
house. Its cover contains a floral relief,
and in the inside pages appear cuts of their
new styles of uprights and "Hearty Greet-
ings and Good Wishes, a Merry Christmas
and Happy New Year from the Keller
Bros. & Blight Co. " We cordially recipro-
cate this kindly greeting.
They give better service in every way
PROF. J. WEIGAND has been joined by his
son, J. Weigand, in promoting the interests
of the Kranich & Bach piano in Augusta,
Ga.
RETAIL trade with mostly all the ware-
rooms was unusually brisk Monday and
Tuesday of this week. The majority of
sales were for cash.
F. J. SCHWANKOVSKY, of Detroit, Mich.,
has taken the agency for the Norris & Hyde
transposing keyboard piano. This ener-
getic dealer will make a "big thing" with
this instrument.
THE Huntington Piano Co.'s new factory
at Huntington, Conn., will soon be ready
for occupancy.
C. F. BURCHARD, of Behr Bros. Co., spent
the closing days of last week in the West
on business connected with his house. His
special point of destination was Detroit.
THE Behning piano is sold in Boston by
the new firm of Gardner & Osgood.
IT is said that I. N. Hockett, of Hockett
Bros.-Puntenney Co., Columbus, O., who
left that city recently for the purpose of
opening a store in Los Angeles, Cal., has
disposed of his entire stock, which is worth
about $10,000, to Gardner & Zellner, of
that city.
THE shipments from the factory of Chick-
ering & Sons, Boston, for the past month
have averaged more than fifty pianos a
week.
THE demand for the Gabler pianos shows
an upward and onward growth. This pleas-
Mrs. Sutro Much Grieved.
While we hear some men grumble about
ing condition of things has been helped
the number of music trade papers, yet if
by the production of instruments which
RS. THEODORE SUTRO, who has
are carefully constructed, and meritorious
they glance over the list to-day they will
been so prominently identified with
find the number has not been augmented the work of women in music and law in from a musical standpoint.
THE new style Vose upright, with the
during the past six or eight years.
this State for the Woman's Exhibit at
rainbow
panel, is one of the greatest suc-
In the matter of trade papers we do not Atlanta, is not pleased with the way the
cesses
of
this house. It has won instant
wish to be personal, but we can take some exhibit has been handled, and expresses
favor
with
the trade.
herself as being very much grieved at its
pride and satisfaction in the work of THE
not being catalogued. In fact, part of the
THE Fall River (Mass.) branch store of
MUSIC TRADE REVIEW for the past year.
exhibit has been locked up in cabinets to Geo. H. Champlin & Co. will be under the
As a trade paper is to a large degree a which the public had no access. Among
management of Josiah Emery, who has
reflex of that trade of which it is an ex- the exhibits which Mrs. Sutro collected been connected with this house for over
ponent, then THE MUSIC TRADE RKVIEW as were 1,400 musical compositions, seventy-
ten years.
a representative trade paper reflects through six printed books relating to music written
THE business men of Chicago are making
by women, a large variety of musical in-
its advertising, editorial, and reportorial
strenuous efforts to have a reduction made
struments, together with the photographs
in the freight rates between that city and
columns a good healthy condition of the of violinists and other musicians.
Southern points. The rates from this city
trade.
are 32 cents per hundred lower than from
Its news service never was better.
IN the San Antonio (Tex.) Express of re- Chicago.
It always fights fair.
cent date there appears a long article on the
THE holiday opening of Robt. L. Loud's
It aims to be right.
popular and reliable firm of Thos. Goggan new warerooms in Buffalo, on Dec. 17th,
It aims to be just.
& Bro., of Galveston, Tex., and the import- was a great success. Some ten thousand
While casting a glance backward over ant part which they have played in the re- people visited the warerooms, which were
our work for the past year, we consider it tail musical instrument trade in Texas.
beautifully decorated.
than heretofore.
M

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