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8
Bargain Hunters Cause Trouble.
AN INTERESTING EXPERIENCE RELATED BY V.
W. O'BRIEN TO WHICH IS ATTACHED SEV-
ERAL USEFUL MORALS
DEALERS
SHOULD PLACE LITTLE RELIANCE
ON STORIES ABOUT COMPETI-
TORS, AND AVOID " C U T S . "
" I t is getting to be quite a frequent
thing, on my travels," said Vincent W.
O'Brien, the Kranich & Bach road repre-
sentative, in the course of a chat with The
Review this week, "to learn of instances
where dealers are made victims of 'sharp
practice' by persons who want to drive a
bargain and will stoop to any means, no
matter how low, in order to attain their
ends.
"These people, even when they don't
succeed in gaining what they are after,
generally manage to set competitors by the
ears in two or more adjacent towns and
cause mutual recriminations that ought
never to have been indulged in. Dealers,
learning through these petty bargain-hun-
ters of some alleged cutting of prices on
the part of other dealers, naturally become
indignant, and, on the spur of the moment,
occasionally say hard things of one another.
" During my latest tour, at least three
such cases were brought to my notice and
had to be adjusted. It was in the middle
west that I had one curious instance of
scheming to deal with. I give it to you as
an illustration of the sort of thing that, I
find, is happening frequently and is, I
fear, becoming more and more common
where agencies are sufficiently close to-
gether to admit of the operation.
" I was visiting our representative in a
certain town—call it A—and, while convers-
ing with him, a woman, well dressed and
evidently in good circumstances, came in
and expressed a desire to purchase a piano.
Among other instruments, a Kranich &
Bach upright was shown to her, and the
visitor asked the price. It was given.
" ' D e a r me,' said the woman, ' I can't
understand how that is. Why, Mr.
(mentioning the Kranich & Bach agent in
the adjoining territory, with warerooms in
a certain town—call it B) when I was there
a week or two ago, showed me a Kranich
& Bach piano exactly like that and said
that if I wanted it, he would let me have it
for $-
(naming a price fifty dollars less
than that asked by the agent at A.) It
doesn't seem right that you should ask
more in this town. I'm willing to pay the
amount he asked, but I won't pay your
price.'
"Naturally, the agent at A, knowing me
to be the manufacturers' representative,
stepped to one side and spoke to me about
it. He never suspected—nor did I—that
the story the visitor had told was not a
straight one. This dealer—call him X—re-
ferred to the other dealer—call him Z—in
plain and very forcible terms. It was evi-
dent, said he, that Z was displaying entire-
ly too much enterprise in his business.
"I felt bad about the affair—worse than
X, in fact—and condemned such undigni-
fied proceedings in round terms. How-
ever, there was only one thing to be done.
Two wrongs wouldn't make a right, and
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
as the amount asked by Z, according to
the woman's story, was a 'cut' price, made
to secure a sale, I couldn't sanction the
sale of a Kranich & Bach at the lower
figures quoted. Agent X stood by the
sum first named, the woman left and I
promised to see Z on my way through the
State and find out how it happened, writ-
ing X immediately after, with an expla-
nation.
"Well, a day or two later, I reached the
town of B and visited the warerooms of
Agent Z. He was glad to see me and did
not show any signs whatever of carrying a
guilty conscience around with him. We
talked of the weather and the crops and so
forth, then gradually veered round to
matters of business. The affair at A was
*in my mind, but the time had not yet ar-
rived for a friendly discussion of rights
and wrongs. He invited me into his pri-
vate office behind the warerooms and we
were enjoying a weed together when he
caught sight of a customer about to enter.
" ' Excuse me,' exclaimed Z. 'I'll be with
you again in a minute.' From where I sat,
I could not see persons entering, so that
my interest in what followed was, at the
start, very slight. But I could hear what
was said, if the parties spoke at all above
an ordinary tone of voice. The voice of
a woman fell on my ear. I listened, with-
out really intending to do so, because it
seemed to me I had heard the same voice
before.
'' The Kranich & Bach uprights were
standing just outside of the private office
and my friend Z., with his customer, ap-
proached them. The visitor, a lady, was,
to all appearances, intent on the purchase
of a piano. I could now hear every word
distinctly, but was not visible for the time
being, either to Z. or his customer. Nor
could I see their faces.
" ' What is the price of this ?' said the
lady, (referring as I afterwards learned,
to an instrument identical with that
brought into dispute at the town of A.)
The price was given. It corresponded
with that given by X.
"'Where have I heard that voice?' I
• asked myself. While trying to locate it,
I heard the customer say: 'Dear me, I
can't understand how this is. Why, Mr.
, (mentioning the Kranich & Bach
agent at A), when I was there a day or
two ago, showed me a piano exactly like
that—a Kranich & Bach piano—and said
that if I wanted it, he would let me have it
for $
, (naming a price fifty dollars
less than that asked by Z). It doesn't
seem right that you should ask more in
this town. I'm willing to pay the amount
he asked, but I won't pay your price.'
"Then the situation dawned on me like a
flash. The same woman—and the same
story! She was out for a bargain, and
this was her way of getting it! I awaited
developments. Nor did I have to wait
long. Z. came striding over to where I
sat. He was simply boiling over with in-
dignation. 'Did you hear that?' he ex-
claimed. I replied in the affirmative. 'And
what do you think of it?' he continued,
hardly stopping to take breath. ' Isn't it
a mean, contemptible, low-down trick fo
a man like X. to do?'
"For a few moments the ears of X must
have tingled, if it is true that that sensa-
tion is felt when people say wicked things
about us, at a distance. When he paused
to gain his second wind, I concluded it
was about time for me to take a hand in
the game. Leaving my seclusion, I stepped
into the warerooms and confronted the
prevaricator. 'Pardon me, madam,' I said,
'but did I hear you say that Mr.
of
the town of A, offered to let you have a
Kranich & Bach piano for $—? ' 'Cer-
tainly I did,' was her prompt, unhesitating
reply.
" 'Well,' I rejoined, 'I was present when
you called, and I certainly did not hear
him name the figures you give, but I did
hear you say that this gentleman (alluding
to Z who stood by and listened with amaze-
ment) offered to let you have a Kranich &
Bach for those figures. Yet they do not
agree with the price he mentioned to you
just now.'
"You know how liars act as a rule when
they are cornered. They try to bluff it
out until they see that the game is up, then
they collapse. That's what this woman
did. She bluffed and blustered for a while
but finally yielded to necessity and covered
her confusion by purchasing the Kranich
& Bach upright she wanted, and paying
the proper price for it. To make it better,
too, it was a cash sale.
" I t ' s a long story, perhaps, but there's
several useful morals attached to it.
Two of them are worth bearing in
mind. First, dealers situated similarly
to X and Z will do well to mistrust
all statements to the effect that cut
price offers have been made by neighbor-
ing dealers. The matter should be fully
investigated before judgment is passed.
Another moral is that prices for standard
pianos should never be cut. If this were
fully understood, once for all, such people as
the woman who tried to play off X against
Z and vice versa would have to use their
talents in other directions. "
James M. Starr's Will.
The estate of the late James M. Starr,
whose will was filed for probate in Rich-
mond, Ind., last week, amounted to $175,-
000. The will contained a number of gifts
to workers on the several industries in
which he had been interested ranging from
$1000 to $3000 each. Ben Starr was be-
queathed real estate in Hartford, Md., and
Fostoria, O. Charitable institutions were
left about one-fourth of his estate.
The Time to Advertise.
If you have a sign over your door you
are an advertiser. You can't carry every-
body to your sign, but the "Blankville
Blanke" can carry your sign to the people
of this city. Persistent publicity is the
price of business prosperity. An advertise-
ment does not sell the goods, but it helps
the seller to sell them. " When times are
dull and people are not advertising," says
John Wanamaker, " i s the very time that
advertising should be the heaviest.'