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THE
FROM GOOD OLD QUAKER TOWN.
The Pease Agency in Philadelphia—Wana-
maker's Big Sale—Gimbel's Club—Woolley
Visits Brattleboro—Visitors in Town—The
House of Heppe—Where the Piano Mag-
nates Are Summering.
(Special to The Review.)
Philadelphia, Pa., August 23, 1905.
August is progressing in a most satisfactory
way. Piano selling has been better than the
average August, and the dealers are looking to
having a very heavy fall.
After several weeks' absence on vacation, I
find that nothing has transpired in Philadelphia
during that time of much moment. There is
considerable interest attached to the visit this
week in Philadelphia of John D. Pease. It is said
that he has closed a deal with the Strawbridge &
Clothier firm, and still other rumors have it that
the Gimbel and Lit firms are negotiating with
him. It is more than likely that the Strawbridge
& Clothier firm is the proposition he has or will
accept. If this is the case, Mr. Pease is another
one of the big piano men who has stood out long
against placing his piano in a department store,
but he has no doubt been converted, just the same
as has the manufacturers of the Sohmer and
others who for many years took pride in affirming
that they would never go into a department store.
The Wanamaker piano department are running
a big sale of second-hand pianos this week, and
are getting rid of a large number of them.
Whether any past records have been or will be
broken it is hard to say, for in their advertise-
ment announcing the sale they say: "No piano
store but ours is known to have ever sold bona-
fidely 150 pianos in a single day." They speak
of this sale as follows: "The first day, Monday,
will be devoted wholly to used pianos that have
been taken in exchange for the Chickering, Vose
and other pianos that we sell, and none other.
Note that we have taken them in exchange, not
somebody else out in Iowa or down in Virginia,
nor did we scan the auction shops or the junk
sheds. We took them from good families who
treated them well and prospei^d; and that is why
they have a clean bill of health—good enough to
go into any family. Probably you knew this be-
fore; most people know it. That's why many
people wait for this sale every year, despite a
long procession of sales that precedes it. A sim-
ple statement of facts must always bring to us a
host of buyers. Actual 'facts' strike the keynote
for the whole business. For six years the public
has had such facts from this piano store, and they
have learned that safe piano buying requires the
knowledge of facts. There is no other purchase
that one makes where facts are so essential, none
where absolute confidence in the seller is so nec-
essary, and no other business, probably, in which
dealers may trade upon appearances—unfounded
claims of excellence and plausible statements
rather than facts."
The Gimbel. firm have started another Chase
piano club. A little over four years ago, Febru-
ary 13, 1901, they opened a club for the distribu*
tion of one hundred original Chase pianos. A
month and a half from the opening day they sent
home the hundredth piano. Some months later
they opened a second Chase club and it was quick-
ly filled. They later formed a third club, then a
fourth. Now they have started a fifth club, and
the pianos are being taken up rapidly. Think of
it, one firm with this club system has in four
years sold nearly 500 pianos of one manufacture.
D. E. Woolley, resident manager of the Bstey
Co., went to New York last Saturday morning
and from there to Brattleboro, Vt., in company
with, E. M. Read, the Estey representative in
St. Louis. Mr. Woolley had returned the day pre-
vious from a three-weeks' vacation at Pleasant
Beach, South Thomaston, Me. The business with
the Estey house has been v.ery large all summer,
and the workmen of the organ department have
been kept on the move setting up organs in lead-
ing churches of this city, throughout the State.
and adjoining States. The company have a larg 1
number of prospects for the fall, and expect to do
a. tremendous pipe organ business during the
next six months.
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
J. B. Woodford, manager of the Wanamaker
piano department, is away on his vacation at
present at his cottage at North Scituate, Mass.
He expects to pay a visft to Maplewood, N. H.,
before he returns home.
Charles Kohler, of the Kohler & Campbell
Piano Co., was a visitor in Philadelphia this
week. He reports that his firm are very well
satisfied with the business the Wanamaker firm
has done with their product, not only with the
Campbell piano, but with the auto-piano they
make. The Wanamaker house has already re-
ceived quite a number of Knabe-Angelus instru-
ments, but cannot get them fast enough, as they
are at present holding a large number of orders
for these instruments on their books subject to
instant delivery on arrival. The firm has also
done very well with the Emerson Angelus.
The Heppe house has had an unusually large
August business, which must generally be cred-
ited to the hard work of their outside force. The
factory at Ninth and Oxford streets is being
worked with very good results under the new
management. They are having three new case
designs made for the Heppe, which they expect
to be more popular than anything they have yet
turned out. They have been meeting with very
great success with their Weber pianola, and the
other piano players that they sell. They have
had in stock a specimen of the new Steck pianola
and pronounce it a most wonderful instrument,
and one that they believe will become very popu-
lar when the manufacturers once get in such a
position that the output will warrant a pushing
of these pianos. It has not yet been decided as
to what will be done with the Steck agency in
Philadelphia now held by the Strawbridge &
Clothier firm, but Florence Heppe will go to New
York some time this month to settle the question.
If the Heppes want the instruments they can un-
doubtedly get them under their contract with the
Aeolian Co., but on the other hand, it is likely
that they will not compel the company to live up
to the terms until after their contract with the
Strawbridge & Clothier firm transpires.
H. J. Hillebrand is spending his vacation at
Ocean Grove.
The Lester Piano Co. are rapidly completing
their case factory to be an addition to their plant
at Lester, Pa. This factory is another one of
their chain of buildings, which is the best indi-
cation of the remarkable progress that is being
made by this firm. They are getting out several
new case designs which will be ready by the
first 1 of September, and are pushing rapidly their
Lester piano players, which they expect to make
quite a feature of their business this fall. The
Lester piano with the auto-manual action inside
ought to be an attractive seller.
B. F. Owen, manager of the piano department
of Gimbel Bros., has gone on his vacation to the
Adirondacks. Business with that firm is very
good. They have their new stock of Sohmer
pianos and Sohmer Cecilians installed in a few
of their best piano parlors, and they present a
pleasing addition to their stock. They have al-
ready sold a number of these instruments, and
have also done very well with the handling of the
Packard and Ivers & Pond pianos.
Frank Butler, manager of the piano depart-
ment of Strawbridge & Clothier, has gone on a
vacation to Wildwood, N. J. The firm have been
doing a very good business. They had a visit
this week from W. H. P. Bacon, who expressed
himself as very well pleased with the business
the firm has been doing with their instruments.
In the window of the Wanamaker store this
week is displayed one of the oldest, if not the
oldest, pianos now in Philadelphia, it showing a
remarkable evolution, aside a Chickering piano
of the vintage of 1905. The contrast in their ap-
pearance is attracting much attention. At the
opening day of the Wanamaker annual sale on
Monday the firm sold fifty of the fifty-six pianos
offered.
Charles H. Fischer is laying his plans for a
very large business this fall in Kimball pianos,
and he is beginning to get in a heavy stock. He
will push the Kimball self-players and has pros-
pects of. a very heavy business jn the Kimball
pipe organs.
11
C. H. HACKLEY'S WIDOW DEAD.
Succumbs to Lingering Disease a L i t t l e More
Than Six Months After Michigan Million-
aire's Demise.
(Special to The Review.)
Muskegon, Mich., August 21, 1905.
Mrs. Julia E. Hackley, widow of Charles H.
Hackley, philanthropist, multi-millionaire and
president of the Chase-Hackley Piano Co., died at
10 o'clock to-day after suffering many months of
misery. At her request an autopsy will be held
to determine the nature of the malady.
Her fight against death has been heroic. On
January 10 she was taken ill and since never has
left her couch. On February 12 her husband
passed away and she was unable to attend the
funeral. The beginning of the end was seen last
week when she gradually passed into coma and
was kept alive only by the use of strong restora-
tives.
Mrs. Hackley came to Muskegon in 1863. Here
she met her future husband, then a humble saw-
mill worker. They were married on October 3,
18(54.
Since then Mrs. Hackley had witnessed the
amassing of one of the largest of Michigan's for-
tunes. By the terms of Mr. Hackley's will she
was heir to one-half of the $7,000,000, with the
provision that at her death one-half was to go to
local charity or some worthy educational institu-
tion.
SPECIALTIES OF THE SEYBOLD.
(Special to The Review.)
Review Office, 1362 Monadnock Block,
Chicago, August 23, 1905.
The Seybold Reed-Pipe Organ Co., with factory
and general offices at Elgin, 111., and general
sales office in this city, have issued a handsome
new catalogue of "the organ with the pipe tone."
In the introductory a description of the Seybold
reed-pipe action is given as follows:
This actjon consists of a double row of cells,
placed one.above the other, every two half-tones
being connected, thus giving to every reed the
qualifying power of four cells; besides, all the
reeds being deeply inserted in the cells, the vol-
ume of tone is greatly increased. The result of
this arrangement is a tone of remarkable full-
ness and purity; not an "imitation pipe-tone," but
an actual pipe-tone, scarcely distinguishable from
the tone produced by the large pipe organs. This
treatment of the cells and reeds is not limited to
a few octaves, but is applied throughout entire
sets and scale. Altogether, this patent action is
the most remarkable achievement in reed organ
construction ever accomplished successfully and
places the "Seybold Organ" in a class distinctly
its own.
The constantly increasing demand for the Sey-
bold patent reed-pipe organ is all the evidence re-
quired that the public is recognizing the merits
of these instruments, and that discriminating
dealers in musical instruments are responding to
the growing demand for thoroughly good organs.
The manufacturers invite the closest investiga-
tion of each style of the Seybold organs, and
stand ready to sustain any and every claim made
in their favor by reputable dealers everywhere.
In the Seybold line two handsome parlor
styles, a piano case organ and four chapel styles
are illustrated and described, the (full action
specifications being given in each case. Several
pages are also devoted to the Elgin organs. These
organs are designed to meet the demand for a
good reed organ at a moderate price. While the
patent reed-pipe action is not used in the Elgin
organs the trade is assured that the action with
which they are fitted is a very good one and
fully equal to that found in any of the ordinary
reed organs.
R. E. Small, of the firm of Dusenberre & Co.,
of 513 East 137th street, New York, has returned
from an extended vacation in the hills of Ver-
mont, much improved in health.