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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
From a Traveler's Note-Book.
BUSINESS PROSPECTS TRADE SHOULD NOT 1!K FORCED HARD WORK WILL BRING REWARD
BEST MARKET IN THE WORLD SOMETIMES NEGLECTED THE LARGE VERSUS THE
SMALL DEALER SOME CONCLUSIONS MONTHS OF TRAyEL—
TRADE CONDITIONS IN ALBANY AND ONEONTA.
HE prospects for trade are indeed
brightening- all along the line.
During the past ten days I have
seen indisputable proofs that
the storm clouds which have
hovered over the trade horizon
for so many months are fast
being 1 dissipated. It is encouraging from ev-
ery standpoint to note these brightening con-
ditions. However, it is well to move along in
a conservative way. There should be little
attempt to force trade. Good, honest work,
intelligent and persistent work, plenty of it,
will bring commensurate reward, but the mat-
ter of over-booming should be carefully avoid-
ed, now that we are presumably about to
enter upon a few years of seemingly prosper-
ous times.
*
*
*
It was some years ago, after one of my
transcontinental trips, that I called attention
to the fact that some manufacturers pay un-
due attention to far-away trade which does
not bring them the returns which the same
energy and money expended would if placed
in channels nearer home.
There are some manufacturers who will
send their travelling man throughout the far
Western States, working for trade, when they
are leaving undeveloped the best market in
the world—that is, the market of New York,
Pennsylvania, and the New England States.
That territory worked carefully and persist-
ently would bring larger and better returns
than to cover the vast, undeveloped, and thin-
ly settled States of the great West. What need
to traverse Idaho, Montana, the Dakotas,
Kansas, Nebraska, Utah, and others, when
the best market is at our own doors? New
York, with her teeming millions, Pennsyl-
vania with her varied industries, afford a field
for the piano trade which is not found in the
far West.
*
*
*
Again, some manufacturers seem to think
if they can place the agency of their instru-
ments with some of the great houses that it
will pay them, that the prestige of a great
name will assist them to make trade else-
where.
But will it? That is the question. Often-
times these large agents desire enormous con-
cessions of territory, price, and terms which
afford little profit to the manufacturer. The
same territory divided up among a number
of smaller agents, each one of whom pays a
personal attention to his business, and has a
personal following, would amount to many
times the volume of business conducted by
larger dealers.
*
*
*
I do not mean to have the inference drawn
that I am unduly prejudiced toward larger
dealers. I am not, but there are hundreds,
yes thousands, of smaller dealers, some may
term them " country dealers," who sell a vast
number of pianos a year, and, as a rule, are
THE
intensely loyal to the instruments which they
sell. They do not carry an endless variety
of different makes, therefore they are in a bet-
ter condition to give personal attention to
this and that manufacturer. While it is too
often the case with some of our larger dealers
that have secured the agency for a certain
piano, and perhaps the first shipment of in-
struments will remain for months and months
unsold in their warerooms. Sometimes they
secure an agency simply to keep it out of
the hands of their competitors; in the mean-
while they do not carry out the work for the
different instruments which they represent in
a manner that is satisfactory to the manu-
facturer. There are usually one or two makes
which have a decided preference, and the oth-
ers are allowed to go without proper work in
their behalf.
I do not mean this in a broad or sweeping
sense, yet I have seen and noted these facts
in my constant travels among the trade.
Then again, there is the old and oft-quoted
saying about having too many eggs depos-
ited in one basket. It frequently pays better
to have several receptacles in which to de-
posit them, then, if an accident occurs, the
breakage is less demoralizing.
*
*
*
I have before me some months of travel,
covering the principal points in America as
far north as St. Paul and Minneapolis, and as
far south as New Orleans. I shall be inter-
ested to note changes which have taken place
in the trade, and the present conditions as I
find them along my lines of travel, as com-
pared with my last year's trip.
*
*
*
The cold wave seems epidemic, and, as I
scan the weather bulletins, I note that the in-
telligence conveyed there is not of such a
character as to cause a man of nomadic life
to replace heavy clothing by that of lighter
texture. At Albany trade may be character-
ized as fair. Boardman & Gray continue
along in the even tenor of their way. The
brothers Gray take pride in building good
pianos, in the manufacture of which every-
thing which savors of the cheap is carefully
avoided. The " B. & G." pianos have not
only stood the test of time, but the strongest
criticism as well. Some of their styles in oak,
Circassian walnut, and birch are particularly
striking. While in the Boardman & Gray
warerooms, I met George H. Zincke. Mr.
Zincke is a salesman and a traveller of nation-
al repute who is now doing efficient work for
the Boardman & Gray piano.
Mr. McKinney, who controls the destiny of
the Marshall & Wendell piano, takes rather
an optimistic view of the business situation,
and believes that we are now entering upon
a few years, at least, of prosperous times. The
Marshall & Wendell Co. will shortly issue a
new catalogue.
Alfred Shindler, who is the general travel-
ler for the company, will leave in about a
week on an extended trip West and South, re-
turning about May ist. Young Shindler is
a tireless worker, thoroughly systematic, pre-
cise in his business affairs, and, I may add, is
constantly forging to the front in a commend-
able way.
The retail trade is looking up materially.
Albany has not a plethora of music stores.
Aside from the two manufacturers, there are
the Cluetts, Thomas, Tietz, Curtis, who was
formerly at Schenectady, and the Capital City
Music Store. Surely not too many stores for
a city of a hundred thousand, with a well pop-
ulated territory adjoining. At Cluetts' there
may be found the Steinway, Chickering, and
Weber pianos, and for a long time the firm
have had the agency for these three great
makes. In December their sales of Steinway
grands were surprisingly large. While I was
visiting the warerooms another sale was ef-
fected. Notwithstanding the zero weather,
the Steinway grands are in demand. The
^Lolian occupies a prominent place in the
Cluett warerooms. Frank VV. Thomas, too,
has a line of the old standbys—Knabe, Steck;
Sohmer, Emerson—form a solid phalanx, and
Thomas has them. " An excellent December
trade," said Mr. Allen of Thomases. " The
best in the history of the house."
The Capital City Music Co., of which C. H.
Van Wie is the proprietor, are doing an ex-
cellent trade in Mehlins. " Our best musi-
cians like the Mehlin," said Mr. Van Wie.
" It seems to meet all requirements and sat-
isfies amply the most exacting demands made
upon it." The Capital City Music Co. have
recently secured the agency for the Kroeger
piano.
*
*
*
At Oneonta I enjoyed a pleasant sojourn
with Messrs. Baird and Shelland, of McCam-
mon fame.
I want to say right here that the new scale
McCammon pianos are coming through fine-
ly. They are musical instruments of un-
doubted merit, and their excellence must ma-
terially augment the fame of McCammon—•
a name which is old in the annals of the mu-
sic trade. The star of McCammon blazes the
way to musical progress.
A howling snow-storm at Binghamton, the
home of Jones, who pays the freight, and I
did not find Barrett Bros. in.
Apropos of the cold wave. I was tarrying
at a small station at one of the innumerable
junctions which distress the traveller in cen-
tral New York. The door opened, and in
came an individual whose appearance sa-
vored of the antique. His whiskers were
frost-bound, and, after extracting a few icicles
from his hair, he said, in clarion tones, which
made the little building echo and re-echo:
" By cripes, this weather makes a feller hump
like a burnt boot." The expression struck me
as singularly odd, but I thought no more about
it and returned to my paper, when I had the
cold remains of the Seeley dinner served up
to me. My attention was diverted from the
nauseating menu by a peculiar odor which
savored not of ottar of roses. Glancing to-
ward the agriculturist who, in his careless
abandon had extended his pedal extremities
toward the red-hot stove, I saw that, un-
known to him, his boot was burning. I then