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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
TWENTY-FIRST YEAR.
.EDWARD LYMAN BILL.
Editor and Proprietor
~ :
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY
3 East 14th St., New York
SUBSCRIPTION (including postage), United States,
Mexico and Canada, S»x>o per year; all other countries,
$joo.
ADVERTISEriENTS, $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 Offiee as Second Class Matter.
NEW YORK, AUGUST 12, 1899.
TELEPHONE NUMBER, 1745-.E1OHTEENTH 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 aiy way trespassing
on our regular news service. The Review will
continue to remain, as before, essentially a
trade paper.
COLD CASH.
\ 1 7 I T H business prospects brilliant, and
with cash plentiful throughout the
land, is it not a splendid opportunity in
which to remove that large installment
sign from your walls and substitute the
word cash everywhere ?
It is cash, eloquent, ready, handy cash,
that talks in a language which all under-
stand with perfect clearness, and it is cash
which is going to influence the manufac-
turer when the clamor comes later for the
instruments which he will have to divide
sparingly in order to keep his trade going.
Is it not a fact that the long-winded in-
stallment business has proved more decep-
tive than most dealers imagined?
Has it not been the stumbling block of
the piano trade?
Is it not a fact that we have fallen so
completely into the installment rut that it
requires a strong effort to extricate our-
selves and again swing on the good, broad
asphalt that leads towards business pros-
perity and safety as well?
To our minds many of the dealers who
have been rushing the installment sales
have been conducting an unprofitable bus-
iness. It has taken too long a time to get
back in installments the money that it has
really cost them to sell the goods, saying
nothing about paying for the original pur-
chase.
We have frequently referred to the retail
costs of selling pianos. From opinions
gleaned by years of travel among the retail
trade in every part of the country we have
become convinced that the average re-
tailer, particularly in the smaller towns, is
unaware of just exactly what it costs him
to sell pianos, and, figuring on too small a
basis of cost, he offers too liberal terms to
his purchasers, and the result is he is
running a business which is unprofitable
in that it costs him too much to look after
his installment sales. It costs him too
much to make them, and from scores of
sales that we have seen made we were con-
vinced that a year and a half would have
elapsed before the dealer would be reim-
bursed in cash, even to the extent of cover-
ing the sales cost of the instrument.
Then where does the first cost of the in-
strument come in?
The fact is, there is a larger outgo of
cash when we consider freights, cartage,
tunings, advertising, rents, salaries, inci-
dentals, than many dealers imagine.
It is a straight, business proposition, and
certainly no one will injure his affairs to
look into the actual cash cost of selling
pianos. Then, if they will figure just how
many months will have elapsed before they
will have received by installment payments
that cash outlay, we believe that at just
about that time they will figure that an
overhauling of their affairs is necessary.
It is cash the manufacturer wants. It is
cash the dealer needs, and it is cash which
creates healthy conditions all around, and
with plenty of cash in sight why not urge
the matter more strongly than before?
Have the salesman retire the word install-
ment from his argument and talk nice large
dollars which have a fixed purchasing
power from Porto Rico to the Philippines.
other point in favor of good times is shown
in the class of goods and the demand for
home accessories.
"This country never was as prosperous
as at the present time and crops are large
all along our lines, and it is a question of
men and machinery to handle them. Men
are scarce, which is due to the betterment
in conditions in the central States, where
employment is plentiful. We are having a
large business, and prospects are good for
as much as we can handle for a year to
come."
When such facts are presented it must be
encouraging to piano manufacturers who
are in doubt as to what the fall is going to
be. Make no mistake about it, there will
be business for all.
NARROWNESS OF THE PRESS.
Y\ 7HAT is that about the necessity of
trade journals? It is indeed a preju-
diced and narrow mind which will not ad-
mit the value of trade papers to industry.
In almost every sub-division of indus-
trial life there are exponents which come
under the generic term of trade papers.
Like in the music trade, every industry has
its good, indifferent and irretrievably bad
papers, but we are not intending to write
in praise or condemnation of any particular
line of papers, but we are going to state,
and it is a fact demonstrated beyond all ar-
gument, that nearly all of the successful
industrial concerns in America are those
which have been liberal and judicious
patrons of the trade papers.
The trade papers have not only been the
media between the manufacturer and deal-
ENCOURAGING CONDITIONS.
er, but also they have been used to ac-
T H E business and prosperity of the coun- quaint the consumer with the wonderful
try is reflected in the earnings of the inventions which have been made in the
railroad, which are without parallel. The field of human endeavor. They have been
roads are over-rushed to catch the traffic educators in a broad sense, working hand
offered to them, and are buying cars by in hand with manufacturer and inventor to
the thousand and locomotives by the hun- acquaint humanity with creations of in-
dred to increase their facilities. There is ventive genius, many of which have been
no let up in traffic in sight. Instead, the calculated to revolutionize the modes of
signs are in favor of constant increase in life, dress and, in fact, all accessories to
its volume.
human advancement and culture.
Talking the other day with a well-known
To have depended upon the daily papers
railroad manager who supervises thou- for information would have beon to have
sands of miles of road he said: " W e wasted hopes on something which has in-
notice throughout all parts of the West variably proved false to any mission be-
and Northwest a great change in the yond the exploiting of partisan politics,
quality of our shipments. During the and the display of soiled family linen.
past year we have been sending out a
The business manager of the great dai-
better class of merchandise. More pianos lies is apparently blind to all sense of news
and organs have gone in our territory than proportion, and in his desire to avoid
has ever been known since my connection doing any good that is not paid for he de-
with the road.
prives his readers of mitters which are
"Now, we consider the purchase of deserving of publication as news matter.
pianos as an indication that farmers and
Now trade papers in the main are clean.
laboring people are prosperous, while an- One does not have to turn the hose upon