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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
TWENTY-FIRST YEAR
•EDWARD LYMAN
Editor and Proprietor
"
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY
3 East 14th St., New York
SUBSCRIPTION (including postage), United States,
Mexico and Canada, $2.00 per year; all other countries,
$3°o.
ADVERTISEnENTS, $2.00 per inch, single column, per
insertion. On quarterly or yearly contracts a special dis-
count is allowed. Advertising Pages $50.00, opposite read-
ing matter $75.00.
REMITTANCES, in other than currency form, should
be made payable to Edward Lyman Bill.
Entered at the New York Post Office as Second Clast Matter.
NEW YORK, JULY 15, 1899.
TELEPHONE NUMBER,
t745~EIQHTEENTH STREET.
THE KEYNOTE.
The first week of each month, The Review will
contain a supplement embodying the literary
and musical features which have heretofore
appeared in The Keynote. This amalgamation
will be effected without in any way trespassing
on our regular news service. The Review will
continue to remain, as before, essentially a
trade paper.
there is going to be a great scarcity of iron,
amounting almost to a famine. The vis-
ible supply amounts to practically nothing,
and much inconvenience will be experi-
enced in all branches of trade by reason of
the extraordinary pressure for iron and
steel. Work is being delayed on bridges
and buildings because essential parts are
not being delivered in time.
It also extends into small wares, manu-
facturers using malleable castings being
obliged to wait unreasonably long for the
delivering of pieces needed to finish work
which they have in hand.
We have taken occasion to make investi-
gations during the past week in the hard-
ware trade, and we find that annoyances of
this character are being seriously felt, and
we would say that those who are still skep-
tical about an iron famine need only to in-
terview a few manufacturers and consum-
ers to unearth convincing evidence.
Now, iron may be properly said to be the
barometer of trade, and when there is an
unprecedented activity in the iron world,
as iron enters into almost everything, it
means that activity finds a responsive echo
in every industry. It looks now as if there
will be transacted the coming fall the
biggest volume of trade that has ever been
recorded in the industrial annals of
America.
Now, if a piano manufacturer is delayed
in receiving his hardware much annoyance
and delay will resxilt therefrom, and in
order that the machinery move noiselessly
and without the annoying creakings there
must be harmony all along the line. Deal-
ers must place their orders early, in order
that there may be no delay.
Too nrnch emphasis cannot be placed
upon the shortage of iron, and we may say
that some foundries in the West have been
obliged to shut down for several days,
awaiting receipts of needed raw material.
There are, of course, those who are ex-
tremely careful, and have not placed large
advance orders on account of the steadily
advancing prices. They have been buying
•from hand to mouth, expecting continually
to be able to do better for themselves a
little later. Some of these people are now
paying premiums for immediate delivery.
It is the wise man who places his orders
early.
facturers have not exhibited astonishing
interest in the big Fair. As far as we are
able to ascertain there are less than a half
dozen firms in this country who propose
to exhibit in Paris. Most of our manu-
facturers view the great Expositions with
less favor since the Chicago Fair. The
value of medals and diplomas in the eyes
of American manufacturers has somewhat
depreciated.
To our minds the results of a gain from
international expositions do not warrant
the vast outlay necessary to make an ex-
hibit with satisfactory official recognition.
Still the recognition which any American
firms may receive at Paris will have larger
value inasmuch as the number who re-
ceive official recognition will be exceed-
ingly limited.
OUT-TRUSTS THE TRUSTS.
A CONCERN known as the Mercantile
Organization Co. was incorporated in
the State which is the mother of all trusts,
New Jersey, last week for the purpose of
establishing a retail general store in every
town of fifteen thousand inhabitants or
more in the country.
This scheme rather out-trusts the orig-
inal trust itself. It is said, by the way,
there are a number of men of money be-
hind it. Details of the plan have not as
yet been given out, but it is said that prog-
ress is being made and the scheme is not
entirely visionary.
ORDER EARLY.
A NUMBER of dealers who have visited
the offices of The Review during the
past week have emphatically declared
themselves as being influenced by the
utterances of The Review, urging that
orders be placed early in order that there
might be no disappointment later on when
the rush season is plainly with us.
They have affirmed that it was the cau-
tionary signals hung out by The Review
that induced them to visit the markets so
ADVERTISING INVESTMENT.
early in the season.
We are certainly gratified at the recep-
'"THE advertiser who thinks that his name
tion accorded our utterances, and in our
and specialties are so well known that
opinion the advice regarding the placing
he can afford to withdraw his advertising
of orders should be carefully considered by
for a while commits a colossal business
every dealer in the. United States who
error. The buying public, like the pro-
hopes to have a fresh stock, in order to
gressive dealer, is prone to forget. It is,
catch the first favoring trade breezes of
moreover, more difficult and much more
the early fall.
expensive to regain a lost customer than
to prevent his straying away from the
Manufacturers have been, as we all know,
business
hold.
bitterly disappointed during the past few
years in their trade anticipations, and they
Some of the greatest advertisers in the
are exceedingly loath to continue to accu-
world, notably one soap and a sarsaparilla
mulate stock without advance orders.
concern, decided they had expended
such vast sums in advertising that they
Now, pianos cannot be ground out with
could afford to curtail their huge expendi-
the same despatch that hats and clothing
tures in this direction for a year or two.
are sent from the various factories. Time
This they did, and it is no secret in the
is needed in order to produce satisfactory
advertising world that in order to regain
instruments. Then again, from all indi-
their lost position they had to spend more
cations, there is going to be a difficulty in
THE EXPOSITION AT PARIS.
securing stock.
cousins across the water do not than double the money for advertising the
To particularize: No one who is familiar
manifest great interest in the Paris third year of their curtailment that they
with the metal markets is unacquainted Exposition. Up to this date only two were expending during the former years.
with conditions which threaten a metal English piano manufacturers have secured
The time to stop advertising is when
famine. There is really no reasonable space for exhibition purposes, one of these one stops business. Advertising is the
stock of pig iron visible and it means with being the famous house of Broadwood.
motive power to business and many peo-
the growing demands for that metal that
We may also add that American manu- ple view it entirely in the wrong light.