Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
bluster, to ridicule, to condemn certain ac-
tions as well as certain individuals of the
industry for not bending to his will. A
well-known firm refused to give a new
contract, others have done likewise, yet
they must be subjected to abuse, vulgar
abuse and torrents of it. How asinine,
spitefully splenetic, almost insane, such an
action ! The day is past for the stand and
deliver methods—the day for the sincere,
the modern, the up-to-date methods is not
near at hand—it is here now. Hypocrisy
on the stencil, abuse of personal actions,
the distortion of business deeds of com-
mercial institutions, cuts no figure to-day
before the world. All sensible men know
full well that every act, every utterance,
almost, may be distorted at the will of a
dishonest and hypocritical writer.
Time was when men in this trade winced
at the distorted blackmailing utterances.
They are getting past that now, they have
evoluted, as it were, and the blackmailer
may fling his vulgar slurs upon thin and
unappreciative audiences. His utterances,
whether praising, defaming, or damning,
cut little or no figure, they all amount to
the same.
The stencil matter is capable of much
discussion, and The Review as a journal
representing the advanced thought of the
trade interests proposes not to let the moss
of indifference grow over it. To the main-
tenance of that we believe to be right we
have always given the strength of this
journal. That which we believe wrong,
no matter what it has cost us in patronage,
we have never hesitated to denounce, and
so it will be through the life of The
Review.
A S we stated last week, there are two
kinds of stencil, the legitimate, and
the illegitimate. We may class with the
illegitimate line more than the instruments
which are made to trade in the shadow and
under the glamour of great names—more
than the instruments which are stencilled
to imitate some of the oldest names in
trade history. We may take such names
as Lawton, Schumann, Dunham, Elton
and so on almost ad infinitum—names
which are made and sold under fifty differ-
ent titles, all emanating, we will say, from
one factory.
Many of these instruments are sold by
deceiving customers, and salesmen will
say that such and such a piano is made by
a well-known house in New York, when
such a concern does not nor never has
existed. It is one of the cheap, common
stencils, an illegitimate product and is al-
most as bad in its way as the one which
trades under the name of " Steinweg " or
" Pickering." It is used in a thousand
ways to deceive, and the purchaser who
gets such an instrument has something
which has no traceable origin, and that
which is as enduring as a piano should
not be sold under such misrepresentations.
We may take the instruments which
some of the dry goods stores are offering
for sale in New York. These instruments
have no traceable origin. They have been
made by three or four concerns in New
York, and there are no real companies be-
hind the names which are lettered upon-
their fall boards. The name upon the fall
board of such pianos is a brand of deception
and not of commercial honor. They are
fraudulent pianos, and unless there is con-
certed action on the part of manufacturers
this line of instruments will continue to be
placed upon the market at many points
within the union.
The legitimate product gives a certain
stability to trade, as no dealer will cut the
life out of a piano to-day which he" pro-
poses to continue to handle to-morrow,
while the illegitimate stencil has been a
factor which has contributed to the non-
stability of the piano trade, because there
has been no fixed standard of values. We
have been distorting that standard, that
stability which we should have encouraged
by producing these deceptive pianos by
thousands every year.
The manufacturers themselves were
blinded by the belief that they were mak-
ing money, that they were creating per-
manent enterprises. They were not, and
it is clearly demonstrated in the light of
to-day that the stencil product, whether
legitimate or illegitimate, is a serious in-
jury to the future of the trade.
A manufacturer who builds that which
is right and delivers a correct value should
always receive every particle of advertising
increment that goes with the sale. No
matter if' he is making pianos for different
dealers in the country, he should have his
own name as well on every piano.
We know that all will not agree with us
in our views upon this important matter,
yet we believe that within a decade all will
have acknowledged that The Review was
right years ago and is right to-day upon
this subject. Right, and we may add,
candid as well. Dealers, too, must under-
stand that their business future lies in
getting rid of the stencil. Their future
lies in handling reputable wares made by
firms and corporations and not in selling
instruments made under a different name
each day of the week, for their local com-
petitors as well, because they in turn are
building nothing stable or enduring for
themselves,
Immeasurable annoyance and serious
business loss may come to them any day.
through their dealings in stencil pianos.
We believe that it is a correct rule to fol-
low in this world that every man should
stand sponsor for that which he produces.
In other words he should make something
of which he is not ashamed and affix his •
name thereto. No matter in what branch .
of business reliable wares, bear the brands
of their makers.
. , ...
It may be all well enough for some of
our dealers who sell large numbers of sten-
cil pianos to say that they cannot be re- A
sponsible for all the statements made by, .
their salesmen, yet to a certain extent they
are just as much as the editor of this pub-
lication is responsible morally and pecun-
iarily for all of its utterances. They should
not place temptations in reach of the weak.
There should be encouraged a better morale
in business, and the action of the National
Piano Manufacturers' Association upon
the stencil problem shows plainly that some
members of this industry have determined
to stand together for trade weal.
THE " D. S." SITUATION.
TT is stated that one of the large dry
goods houses of New York has recently
discontinued its arrangemeut for instru-
ments with a local piano manufacturer.
The reasons given for the severance of the
business connection lie, it is alleged, in
the fact that a considerable number of
pianos have been returned to the dry.
goods house by dissatisfied purchasers.
These instruments rank as the cheapest.
manufactured, and it would seem from the
termination of this contract that the dry _
goods concern has found that there was
little or nothing to be made in handling
pianos of this grade, particularly when
sold on such terms as they have advertised.
They have learned also that there is not
the gold mine in the piano business that
they first imagined.
We have noticed recently a tendency on '
the part of dealers to place greater empha-
sis on the medium and high-grade pianos
than they have during the past two or
three years.
A sure indication of increased prosper-
ity of the country is found in the fact that
there is a demand for better grade instru-
ments. The very cheap piano of to-day
does not cut the figure that it did recently
in any sense. One trouble, while there has
been a tremendous reaction, is that thou-
sands of them have been sold out of their
proper class. They have not been offered
for sale as cheap instruments, paying a
modest profit to the dealer, but they have
been sold at prices which should entitle the