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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
elapses between the sale and the time when
the first cost of the piano is covered.
We say emphatically that history repudi-
ates Mr. Fisher's statement, and we ques-
tion if he himself believes it. He is too
keen a man, a man of too great intelligence,
to believe that the profits on the sale of
pianos are abnormal, or even more than
commensurate with the capital and energy
involved in their sale. If the music busi-
ness is so profitable, why is it the trade is
not more prolific in wealthy members.
What percentage of the whole in the music
trade of this country can be termed wealthy,
or even modeiately wealthy men?
The '"Courier" asks for a list of more than
one hundred piano dealers constituting
firms that purchase more than thirty-six
pianos a year whose credit is unimpeach-
able. If the "Courier" is correct in this,
then is it not wrong for Mr. Fisher to give
the public the impression that the music
dealers make enormous profits?
The
"Courier" says that it hasn't the slightest
compassion for the dealers or the manu-
facturers involved in this trade battle. It
is possible that the members of the trade
alluded to will not become prostrated with
sorrow even if the "Courier" does entertain
such feelings towards them. In our opinion,
the "Courier" has carried this matter to an
extreme which the situation did not war-
rant. It has printed the entire article,
quoting the prices of the various pianos
offered by Mr, Fisher in his article in the
"Detroit Free Press."
Discredit Upon the Trade.
This, in our opinion, is a most glaring
journalistic error. Whatever the "Cou-
rier's" opinion may have been in this mat-
ter, it is entitled to, and as such should be
respected. But we maintain that it had no
right, morally at least, to publish before
the entire trade the prices at which the
various makes of instruments handled by
Mr. Schwankovsky, in Detroit, were offered
for sale by Mr. Fisher. By publishing this
list the "Courier" has placed an instrument
in the hands of unscrupulous agents all over
America, which they can use when brought
into competition with any of the makes
named, to the disadvantage of the instru-
ment in competition.
The "Courier" has gone too far, and we
will quote a portion of a personal letter
written to us by Mr. Fisher after we had
visited him at Ft. Wayne in 1894, where
he was engaged in a sale similar to that
which he is now carrying on in Detroit.
He wrote: " I consider the fight a local
one, and so far as I am concerned, these
^published figures shall not pass out of the
ts of Ft. Wayne."
ISi
Through the mediumship of the "Cou-
rier" every dealer in the United States who
reads the paper has an argument, if he
wishes to use it, against any of the pianos
named by Mr. Fisher in his Detroit article.
It seems hard, no doubt, for resident
dealers to have a temporary piano sale in
their town, the manager of which is secur-
ing all the ripe plums which otherwise
would have dropped into the local mer-
chants' lap. They attack him, but then
simply the fact that he is incensed does not
give Mr. Fisher license to retaliate upon
the local trade in an unfair way, and in
a manner which reflects, to a large extent,
discredit upon the entire piano trade of
America.
The action of the "Courier" in printing
the prices cannot be recorded as a correct
journalistic stroke, and should meet with
strong condemnation.
The Cheapening Process.
The "Courier" then introduces the cheap
and stencil piano matter into the fight,
where it has no proper place. Cheap
pianos have been sold in larger quantities
during the past two or three years than ever
before for good and valid reasons. The
inactivity of money, through lack of confi-
dence, has caused a general depression pro-
ducing the era of cheapness. If that cheap-
ness alone existed in the piano trade then
we would gladly admit the fairness of the
"Courier's" argument. But it does not, it
extends to every branch of manufacture in
this country.
Talk with the wholesale clothiers, and
see what percentage of their business has
been carried on during the past two or three
years in cheaper suitings. Talk with the
boot and shoe manufacturers and they will
willingly tell you that their sales in higher
priced goods have undergone tremendous
shrinkages, the volume of their business
being conducted on cheaper lines. Take
the dry goods trade, and the merchants
will inform you that the high priced silks
have not been in as great demand as for-
merly. In fact, the people want bargains.
They want something for a little money,
because their purchasing power has been
tremendously contracted during this ex-
tended period of depression. It has had its
effect upon the piano business and every
other trade, and the result has been a strife
among the cheaper piano manufacturers as
to who should supply, at the lowest figure,
the immediate demand for a piano that
would sell.
The "Courier" knows full well that the
cheap piano has advanced in quality, and
is infinitely superior to-day to the instru-
ment made years ago by J. P. Hale, who
was really the father of the cheap piano.
Dealers will sell that for which they have a
demand, and of late the purchasing public
has demanded cheap pianos. Therefore the
increase has been in that particular line.
If the intermediate and high priced
pianos had been sought for, the manufac-
turers of that grade of instruments would
have been busy. But in studying the rise
of the cheap piano we must consider the
basic law which regulates supply and de-
mand.
Causes Instrumental.
The "Courier" speaks sneeringly of the
cheapening processes which have been
gradually going on in the piano business.
We affirm that our contemporary has con-
tributed in a considerable degree towards
that cheapening process. If our memory
serves us correctly, that publication was the
first one to quote prices in its columns of
the actual cost to manufacturers of the dif-
ferent parts of the instruments. By pub-
lishing what actions, cases, sets of hammers,
keys, sounding boards, plates and all of the
manufactured parts which enter into the
piano cost, it educated dealers as to the ex-
act cost of the instruments.
The oversharp dealer went at once to
work with his pencil to figure out the real
cost of an instrument. He did not figure
the different grades of material, nor did he
figure that some veneers are worth twenty
times what a cheap veneer is worth—he did
not figure the increased cost of expert labor,
but he at once accused the manufacturer in
many cases of charging him too much.
We know of instances where dealers have
had the nerve to tell a manufacturer the ex-
act cost of his instrument: their figures not
being within fifty per cent, of the real cost,
and that he should sell at a reduced figure.
In this way, through the "Courier" and
through other journals, a campaign of edu-
cation was carried on which acted detri-
mentally to the entire music trades of this
country. It encouraged the cry for cheaper
pianos and soon the cheap piano became a
strong factor in the trade.
It was, we affirm, through the false educa-
tion of certain trade journals that this lower-
ing process was begun. But this, as we have
stated, has been materially accentuated by
the business depression which has entirely
submerged America. The mischief was
done originally by printing the cost of in-
struments when the printed figures in no
case approximated the real cost of the in-
strument to the manufacturer, but it gave
the dealer a cue and he followed it up,
and the result was that the price began to
be lowered, until it reached a point when
there was absolutely no profit in the cheap