Music Trade Review

Issue: 1896 Vol. 22 N. 11

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW.
In the current issue of that interesting
publication, Printers' Ink, Chas. Austin
Bates pays a merited compliment to Mr. A.
G. Cone, treasurer of the W. W. Kimball
Co., anent his recent achievements in the
advertising field. He also has many good
words to say for the book issued by Mr.
Cable, entitled "The Evolution of the
Piano."
J. W. GUK.RNSKY of Guernsey Brothers,
Scranton, Pa., and G. L. Reimann of A. H.
Rintelman & Co., Chicago, have been in
town during the past week.
THE Philadelphia, Pa., Press, under date
of April i, says: "Fire destroyed the Mt.
Pleasant Hotel, Peterson's music store, and
Kuhn's business block. Loss, $2,000."
C. JANKE & Co. (incorporated), of Gal-
veston, have purchased the stock of musi-
cal instruments of W. C. Stansfield, and
will operate a branch house in Houston,
Texas.
ARTHUR L. THAYER has entered into
partnership with M. C. Perkins, music
dealer, Rockland, Mass., and after April
1 the style of the firm will be M. C. Per-
kins & Co.
THE D. H. Beck Company has been or-
ganized, under the laws of the State of
West Virginia, for the purpose of dealing
in musical instruments, music, etc. The
principal office is to be in Wheeling, and
the capital stock authorized is $<^o,ooo. The
incorporators are F. W. Baumer, Minnie
Baumer, Ida M. Baumer and F. J. Danner,
of Wheeling, and D. H. Beck, of Belmont
county, O.
THE Wissner piano was used at the second
concert given by the Brooklyn Symphony
Society in conjunction with Theodore
Thomas and his Chicago orchestra on March
26th.
THE W. W. Kimball Co. have opened a
branch store in Owossa, Mich., with J. M.
Beckwith and C. C. Eaton in charge.
W. F. CHESHIRE, music trade dealer,
Rockford, 111., intends to secure larger
quarters on Seventh street, where he now
resides. This step has been taken owing
to increased trade. His new establishment
will be fitted up in metropolitan style.
HELD for review—the new catalogue of
the Braumuller Co.
LACK of space prevents us from making
extended mention this week of the new
special style F upright, now on exhibition
at the warerooms of Chickering & Son.
HOUGH & DUNHAM is the name of a new
music trade establishment which has opened
up at Nashville, N. C. They will handle the
W. \V. Kimball line of pianos.
SANDERS & STAYMAN, of Washington, are
making arrangements to move into their
new store. Their removal will be formally
celebrated by a grand opening.
Neither do some manufacturers favor the
idea of sending out traveling men, and
would like to do away with that expense,
too, if they could. Neither do they like to
issue catalogues or advertise, and would
very much like to do business without that
expense, too, if they could.
This would be a glorious world if busi-
ness could be done without expense, if it
were all "take in" and none "pay out."
Now, wouldn't that be too nice for anything?
People who would like to have business
come to them without any ot the aforemen-
A great old character is Scotty. He tioned expensive efforts had better wait for
hangs about lower Park Row and is known the millennium. It can't be done in the
of many men.
present generation.
Scotty has things to sell. If you want
* *
diamonds the pockets of his shabby old
* in the old Mormon
The monster organ
clothes are filled with fine stones wrapped
in white tissue paper, and it is a cold day if church, at Salt Lake City, which is going
Scotty can't suit you and give you a price to be reconstructed by that progressive firm
to boot, which makes you suspect that they of organ builders, the Farrand & Voley
Co., has 2,704 pipes, each 32 feet long and
came to him by the underground route.
large
enough to admit the body of a man
If it is a horse for which you are ready to
of
ordinary
size. Besides this, two towers
offer your kingdom, Scotty has a friend in
arise
at
either
side to a height of 42 feet.
the business who has just what you want,
It
was
built
in
the early days when all
or ought to want, which is just as good.
freight
was
hauled
from Missouri River
But it is in the matter of pianos that
points
across
the
plains
with ox teams.
Scotty plays his trump card.
One
man
put
in
1,014
days'work
on it, and
"I'm a little bit of an artist myself," he
received
provisions
only
for
his
labor.
It
will tell you, "and when I recommend an
has
been
undergoing
improvement
for
the
instrument be assured, boy, I know what I
am talking about. I could give Paderewski past thirty-five or forty years.
points on the purchase of the noble instru-
*
ment."
Mistakes will happen. Even editors are
Scotty has music teachers and heaven not infallible. They have frequently to
knows how many other secret agents on the bear on their shoulders the errors of the
lookout for piano victims, and his wiles and festive typographer. A case in point: Our
guiles are many when he has a possible cus- esteemed contemporary, the Musical Cour-
tomer on a string. He finds the wrong side ier, in its musical department this week
of a bar a splendid coign of vantage for the comments on the unmusical compositors
use of persuasive arguments, and a little old employed in the daily papers, and meta-
rye a splendid salesman.
phorically pats its own typos on the back;
Last week by skillful manipulation he had yet, in the trade department of the same
taken a victim into a certain well-known paper, we notice the Courier's compositors
cafe* in the shadow of one of the big news- display a lamentable ignorance of the edi-
paper offices.
tor's name—it is printed Marc A. Blumberg.
"What?" said Scotty, "get that piano for Meanwhile, mistakes will happen.
$175? Nonsense, man; I'll not believe it.
* *
*
Why, that would be a bargain for a prince."
"But I can get it," said the victim.
Yesterday I met a man from the town of
"Billy Jones can get it for that from a party Bath, in this State, who is the only manu-
who is going to Europe."
facturer in this country of jewsharps, says
"I'll never believe it," said Scotty, shak- a writer in the "Commercial Advertiser."
ing his head. "It's too good to be true."
He has made jewsharps for thirty-five years.
"I'd like to bet you something," said the Twenty years he worked at the business in
big fly buzzing in Scotty's web and never England, and nearly fifteen in this country.
knowing it.
He first started in Troy, but believing the
"Tell you what I'll do," said Scotty. location would be more healthful in Bath
"I'll bet you $5 even that you can't get that he removed to that village about nine years
noble instrument for any such price."
ago.
The jewsharp was classed as a toy
"It's a g o , " said the victim. And away up to a few years ago. It is now placed
he went to buy the piano, little dreaming among musical instruments. For centuries
that it was Scotty's own instrument and it was known all over Europe. It is also
cheap at half the figure.
known as the Jews' trump. While there is
* *
no decrease in the demand for jewsharps in
*
this country there has been during the last
In the present controversy, pro and con few years a gradual moving of the demand
expositions, the one great fact has been westward. Orders have increased in Chi-
brought out that many of the manufacturers cago in the same proportion that they have
of America do not favor the idea of exposi- fallen off in New York. There are twelve
tions, and would prefer to do away with
different styles of jewsharps, ranging in
them altogether, says a trade paper in the
price from $3 to $25 per gross. They are
furniture line.
put
up and -shipped in boxes of twelve gross
We do not doubt that at all, nor are we
lots.
surprised at it.
Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW.
From a Traveler's Note Book.
MR. CONWAY S REPLY THE KIMBALL MOVE THE SAME OLD RUMORS TRADE IN CHICAGO
STRAY SHOTS HERE AND THERE WHICH SHOW THE PULSE OF THE TRADE.
HIS week when I asked E. S.
Conway what there was in the
report published that the with-
drawal of the Weber and
Decker interests from the
trade chessboard would cause
the W. W. Kimball Co. to make a rapid ad-
vance on New York, he looked at me in a
semi-quizzical way, and replied:
"Just as much as it has meant heretofore. "
"Then definite plans are not
"
"Existing only in the brain of newspaper
men who have been kind enough to lay out
all the preliminaries for us, thereby saving
us untold annoyance."
And there you are.
Just the same old Kimball rumors that
have been flying hither and thither for the
past thirty-six months.
When news is a little difficult to find, some
of the papers will drag out from the dark
recesses that old Kimball skeleton, polish it
up a trifle, varnish it with some new rhet-
orical flow and set it in motion with an in-
troductory yawp in scare head lines—-"Kim-
ball in the East."
I think some have gone so far as to locate
the wareroom in the Constable Building on
Fifth avenue.
Secure managers, salesmen, tuners and
office boys for them.
Of course, when the great Kimball Co.
really decide to plant their banners on Man-
hattan Island they will first call a meeting
of New York trade editors, tell them of
their plans and invite their criticism of the
move.
It is precisely in keeping with the tradi-
tions of the house.
They have always been prone to emblazon
the doings of the inner councils of the com-
pany upon the outer walls so that he who
runs may read as easily as the ordinary
trade "ped."
It is just like them.
In the meantime it is too bad that they
have slighted New York by passing around
it to the easily conquered town of Provi-
dence, in the land of stall-fed turkeys and
appetizing clam-bakes.
Still New York, our own proud Go'.ham,
lingers on the eastern shore, sleeping under
the benign influence cast by our one and
only Tedrly Roosevelt.
The air of spring is balmy and produces
a somnolescence which soothes, but can not
intoxicate, only on week days.
There is nothing apparently of more than
ordinary conditions above or below, to at-
tract or detract. Chicago has the Metro-
politan Opera Co., but we have her Theo-
dore.
The appearances would seem to bear out
the statement that if all is not well it has
not gone to the dogs.
Ye gods, hear that yell!
It has a sort of a Marco Bozzaris ring to
it. The sleep of the Turk when his slum-
bers were rudely broken as he lay in small
hours of the morning, by the early arrival
of the Greek, was bliss compared with that
howl which now and then disturbs the
slumbers of the Gothamite.
Kimball, he comes, he comes!
What was it? you ask.
Only the regular periodical yawp—yawp
is a mighty expressive word—of the New
York trade editor who is desirous of throw-
ing the trade into spasms over the arrival
of Kimball.
In the meantime W. W. Kimball sojourns
in the land of the festive alligators
where malaria is no respecter of persons or
potentates.
Likewise A. G. Cone.
And E. S. Conway—he of the stalwart
frame and piercing eye-—stands on guard
and plots those deep, dark Kimballian plots
on unhappy New York.
* *
*
Trade. Well, while the retail music trade
in Chicago can not be said to be entirely
satisfactory, the outlook for the immediate
future is encouraging.
With the opening up of navigation, the
drying up of the country roads, which have
been well nigh impassable, and an assurance
of good crops for next harvest, times can
hardly fail to improve.
There is still an enormous amount of
grain to be moved.
The farmers have been holding back for
better prices, but with new crops coming on
they will let go the present contents of the
granaries and money will circulate much
more freely.
Easier financial conditions will prevail.
Let us be of good cheer, and now that
spring is here, let us turn our fancies not
lightly to thoughts of trade, and all those
things of which Tennyson sang will be ours.
Rumors, kindly excuse me, THE MUSIC
TRADE REVIEW is not a purveyor of rumors.
It is our mission to deal with facts and
news rather than to toy with those baseless
reports, the result of which is to instill an
insidious poison which permeates the en-
tire trade system, oftentimes preventing
healthy organs from performing their
natural functions.
How often men repeat an evil report re-
garding this or that firm!
And how frequently they remain silent
when they could disseminate that which
would benefit their co-worker in Life's
vineyard.
Human nature is erratic—singularly so.
*
Story & Clark are to be congratulated
upon the results of their intelligent efforts
in the domain of piano manufacture.
They have evidently worked upon the
idea that but little change has been wrought
in upright piano case architecture.
They have regarded the field plainly as
one capable of development.
With this well in mind, they have pro-
duced radical changes in the appearance of
the upright piano.
No one can make even a superficial ex-
amination of their product without becom-
ing convinced that the Story & Clark is an
instrument built upon advanced and artistic
lines.
In striving to produce case innovations,
they did not forget the equally essential
part—the tone.
Without fear of contradiction, I say that
Story & Clark are innovators.
C. H. Wagener, their London representa-
tive, has been tarrying a few days in Chi-
cago.
* *
*
If you think trade is dull, go into Ste-
ger's, and you'll form quite a different
opinion. I should not give the number,
but
is not a slow day's work—even
for "J. V.," with his "Steger" and his
Singer—is it?
Step across the street to the Hallet &
Davis warerooms, and you will find three
earnest men whose environments would
seem to indicate times were far from slow
with them.
Joe Shoninger smiles in that quiet way,
and says "not rushing," while " J i m " Brod-
erick just winks the other eye.
Charlie Russell is working overtime.
Charlie has worked mighty hard, and to-day
he is controlling a steadily growing trade.
See the organs that Newman Bros, are
sending out. Still, John Newman says
"collections are slow."
Will Bush is laying in a new stock of
stories in the Lone Star State. Incidentally
sending in some good orders.
C. A. Hyde is in town. Mr. Hyde's suc-
cess with his piano is convincing. The
trade are fully able to distinguish a good
thing when it is brought to their attention
in the proper manner.
Harry Raymore, the indefatigable, was
in town Saturday, leaving on the evening
train for Detroit. Mr. Raymore has been
out some weeks, and has been doing some
satisfactory work for the Shaw-—hardly
necessary to say it, because wherever Harry
Raymore directs his course there is demand
for Shaw pianos.
George N. Grass has been visiting the
trade through the West. He will probably
reach New York about the middle of the
month. He has a host of friends, and his
advent in their midst is alwa} T s hailed with
delight. The Steck piano widens its circle
of admirers under the influence of George
Grass.
Charles H. MacDonald, who was recently
elected president of the Chicago Music
Trade Association, has also been honored
by being elected a member of the Board of
Directors of the McKinley Club, an organi-
zation which numbers its members by the
ten thousand.
Verily honors are thickly falling upon the
broad shoulders of Manager MacDonald.
Henry Detmer is fast getting settled in
his new Wabash avenue store. He will have

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