Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
REVIEW
E d i t o r a n d Proprietor.
EDWARD LYMAN
J. B. SP1LLANE, Manatfintf Editor.
EXECUTIVE STAFF:
THOS. CAMPBELL-COPELAND,
GEO. B. KELLER,
WM. B. WHITE,
W. L. WILLIAMS,
A. J. NICKLIN,
BOSTON OFFICE:
CHICAGO OFFICE:
ERNEST L. WAITT, 255 Washington St.
PHILADELPHIA OFFICE:
R. W. KAUFFMAN.
EMILIE FRANCIS BAUER,
GEO. W. QUERIPEL.
E. P. VAN HARLINGEN, 36 La Salle St.
MINNEAPOLIS AND ST. PAUL:
E. C. TORREY.
ST. LOUIS OFFICE :
CHAS. N. VAN BUREN.
in furniture. Styles finished with a Mission adaptation still con-
tinue to be popular, but the rage for Mission furniture will shortly
be on the decline.
Furniture men predict this. The style is too heavy and cum-
bersome to continue in popular favor like the graceful Colonial,
Ionic, Chippendale and Sheraton styles.
HE first issue of The Talking Machine World, the only jour-
nal, by the way, in this country devoted exclusively to the
interests of the talking machine trade was issued from these offices
on Tuesday last.
The interests of that important industry have rapidly multi-
plied, until to-day, in the opinion of some of the best-posted men in
the trade, there is a demand for a straightforward trade exponent,
and the manufacturers and dealers have shown evidence of warm
interest in our new enterprise. There is no reason why The Talking
Machine World should not be just as helpful to the talking machine
fraternity as The Review has been in its particular line.
T
SAN FRANCISCO OFFICE: ALFRED METZGER, 425-427 Front St.
Published Every Saturday at 1 Nadison Avenue, New York.
Entered at the New York Post Office as Second Class Matter.
SUBSCRIPTION (including postage), United States, Mexico and Canada, $3.00 per
year; all other countries, $4.00.
ADVERTISEMENTS. $2.00 per inch, single column, per insertion. On quarterly or
yearly contracts a special discount is allowed. Advertising Pages, $50.00; opposite
reading matter, $76.00.
REMITTANCES, in other than currency form, should be made payable to Edward
Lyman Bill.
On the first Saturday of each month The Review contains in its
THE ARTISTS* "Artists' Department" all the current musical news. This is effected
without in any way trespassing on the size or service of the trade
DEPARTMENT section of the paper. It has a special circulation, and therefore aujr
ments materially the value of The Review to advertisers.
n i i r r m D V ^ PMNH ^
e directory of piano manufacturing firms and corporations
f
I- . « . . - . V . - . . - t
ound on another page will be of great value, as a reference for
MANUFACTURERS
dealers and others.
LONG DISTANCE TELEPHONE-NUMBER 1745 GRAMERCY.
NEW YORK, JAN. 21. 1905.
T ib said that a certain department store in this city had one hun-
dred and twenty pianos returned last week from persons who had
accepted their easy payment plan before the holidays.
When pianos are offered at extremely low prices, and at a dollar
a week and nothing down, the proposition is alluring- to some and
it usually attracts a number of people who can get the use of a piano
for tnree or four weeks at a ridiculous cost. It only requires a pos-
tal to have a piano sent around, and a dollar a week means that
their family and friends may be entertained during the holidays
after which the piano can be returned to the department store which
assuredly must be a material loser by such a transaction.
I
W
HEN a piano is out a month exposed to such usage as one
would naturally expect in the homes of people who are at-
tracted by the extremely small payment plan, it must have depreciated
enormously. There is no question as to that.
The department store requires a long bank account to carry on
such sales, for when these pianos come in some of them are in such
a wretched condition that they require a considerable outlay to
make them even presentable, and the entire proceeds of the sale will
not be sufficient to rehabilitate the piano from the dilapidated condi-
tion in which it reaches the department store after its outing of a
month in some flat.
There is not only a big shrinkage in the value of the piano, but
there has been a cash outlay for cartage both ways, which equals
the entire payments. It would require a good mathematician to tell
where the department store's profits come in from such a transaction.
I
T must be conceded that piano case architecture has materially im-
proved during the past few years, and it also must be admitted
that there is great room for still more improvement. There is no
line of manufactured goods where there is as little shrinkage from
out-of-date styles as in pianos. In the cloak or hat trade, or any
other specialty line, there is an enormous shrinkage in values in
out-of-date styles, but the piano man never has to figure on such
losses. The tendency of the times is toward plainer architecture
in everything. The over-ornamented styles are not in vogue, and
the Colonial and Ionic treatment is in demand in pianos as well as
T
HAT the piano business is undergoing radical changes no one
can deny who is familiar with the revolution which has taken
place in the manufacturing department during the past few years.
A man must keep up with the procession or he will be apt to linger
far behind it, and to do that requires constant application and an
accurate knowledge of what it costs to build pianos and what it
costs to sell them.
I
T was thought by the management of the department stores of
New York that by inducing the daily papers to give greater pub-
licity to the matter of shop lifting and to the increased penalties in-
flicted by the courts the thieves and kleptomaniacs would lie scared
off and the number of shop-lifting cases lessened.
Human nature is a queer thing, however, and the results show
the power of advertising, for instead of acting as a warning, the
publicity seems to have instigated the crooked portion of the public
to greater efforts, for one of the managers of one of the great depart-
ment stores recently said that his employers had been surprised at
the number of increased shop-lifting cases which had come to their
attention since the publication of the articles.
There is no case on record where they have walked off with a
piano as yet, but there is no telling where the kleptomania craze will
stop.
NUMBER of advertisements which have reached us show that
the January clearing sales are in order, and a good many
piano establishments are busily engaged in devising means to get
rid of their surplus stock.
Special sales are inaugurated under a variety of names, and
reports from our representatives in various sections indicate rather
an active January; in fact, in many localities trade has been sur-
prisingly good. Thus far the demand for pianos exceeds that of
one year ago.
A
LMOST all of our Consuls, in their reports to the Department
of Commerce and Labor on opportunities for foreign trade,
complain that our merchants do not go the right way to get business.
German drummers arc everywhere, but most American manufac-
turers still adhere to the old custom of writing to the Consulates,
saying in a very polite way that they would like to enter the market.
They send price-lists printed in English, which are useless. If our
manufacturers sent agents abroad who spoke the language of the
country they would reach the buyers and learn what the buyers de-
sired.
A
I
N the piano line they would find out that they are not particularly
in love with the American models; they do not like our large cases
and large tone, and somehow or other people in all parts of the world
want to spend their money for what appears to them to be the real
thing. Here is a story with a moral:
An American firm had a good business selling cotton goods to
the Chinese. In time they found their trade falling off, and looked
about to see why. They discovered that a German firm was selling
cotton much like their make, but put up in what to the Americans
was an unusual length—39^ yards instead of 40. And they got as
much for 393/2 as the Americans got for their 40-yard bolts. One
reason was, the Chinese liked their cotton in 39^-yard bolts. An-
other was that the German cotton had a big red dragon on the cover.
That pleased the Chinese immensely, so they bought the German