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THE
LETTER FROM VICTOR CO.
Bearing
on
Distributers'
Contracts—No
Changes at Present—Later, if Defects Are
Shown, the Contract Will be Remedied.
When Louis F. Geissler, general manager of
the Victor Talking Machine Co., Camden, N. J.,
attended the meeting of the Central States Talk-
ing Machine Jobbers' Association, at Cleveland.
O., May 23, he promised to send a supplementary
letter to the jobbers apropos of the Victor con-
tract. Under date of June 5 the appended docu-
ment was issued:
"We have been requested to make certain
changes in our distributer's contract by a com-
mittee composed of a few of our distributers,
most of whom have, however, after explanation,
signed the contract. In reply to this request, we
wish to make the following statements:
"The contract was put out by us at the almost
unanimous request of our distributers. The con-
tract was put out for the sole purpose of main-
taining prices on Victor goods; it was not in-
tended to secure any more rights to ourselves,
or to give any more rights to our distributers
than we each had without it; therefore, why fuss
about the details of accomplishing a result that
we all desire? Horace Pettit, our general coun-
sel, with a large experience in many courts on
this question, drew the contract and founded it
on a knowledge of the points necessary to be
covered to accomplish the purpose for which the
contract is intended, and as he is the person who
is obliged to fight the cases that may come up,
it is necessary for him to do so in his own way.
"In view of the fact that we have received over
10,000 dealers' contracts, through our distrib-
uters, and more than nine-tenths of our distribu-
ters have signed and sent in their contracts, you
can readily see how impossible it would be to
make any changes in the distributer's contract
at this time, for, if we made any change in the
distributers contract it would only be fair to
make the same changes for the dealers also, as
our policy is to treat all alike. This would delay
the contract three months, causing us both no
end of expense and trouble, and to no purpose.
We have no doubt but that in the course of the
year after we have all had experience with this
contract, it will be desirable to get out a new
one, and at that time, if our distributers as a
whole desire any changes that are fair to us, we
will only be too happy to make them. We feel
confident, after this frank explanation on our
part, that all will be satisfied, and that the few
distributers who have not already signed will
send in their contract by return mail."
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
.).; No. 16, $5, Percy L. Waters, the Kinetograph
Co., New York City; No. 18, $5, Mr. Taylor, with
Edison Phonograph Works, Orange, N. J.; No.
56, $5, Percy L. Waters, the Kinetograph Co.,
New York City; No. 219, $5, Lipman Kaiser, of
S. B. Davega, New York City; No. 78, $5, R. Me-
Guffie, Edison Phonograph Works, Orange, N. J.;
No. 273, $5, T. Harrison, of Edison Phonograph
Works, Orange, N. J.; No. 215, $5, J. N. Black
man, Blackmail Talking Machine Co., New York
City; No. 454, $5, B. R. Barklow, manager the
Hettini Co., New York City. The total amount
realized for the $140 sent the company was $42ti.
A HANDSOME CABINET
Is the De Luxe Special Record and Machine
Cabinet, Which Is Destined to Prove Very
Popular With the Trade.
The De Luxe special record and machine cabi-
net shown by the Douglas Phonograph Co., New
York, and of wllich the accompanying excellent
picture is a faithful counterfeit presentment, is
a beauty in every sense of the word. It comes in
solid mahogany, with art talcrom decorations,
the design being stained on and then finished.
WINNERS OF BACIGALUPI SOUVENIRS.
The panel paintings are from the brush of a well-
The list of the lucky winners of the gold known artist, and as it stands is an elegant ad-
pieces sent the National Phonograph Co. by P. dition to the most elaborately furnished music
Bacigalupi, San Francisco—all that was recov- room. The cabinet is fitted for any disc machine.
ered in his vaults after the earthquake and fire, The company are having manufactured a new
his papers, books and securities being destroyed line of exclusive cabinet designs in all up-to-date
—is made out in rotation as tickets were drawn, woods, expecting to have them on the floor of
and gives the number of ticket as well as the de- their warerooms at an early date.
nomination of pieces won, as follows:
Ticket No. 287, $20. Edward Buehn, of the
NOTES FROM HERE AND THERE.
Wells Phonograph Co., Philadelphia, Pa.; No.
113, $20, Walter Miller, manager record-making
With this week business has improved with
department, National Phonograph Co., New York; jobbers and dealers. The orders by mail to job-
No. 9, $10, Mr. Storms, of Edison Phonograph bing houses have been exceptional in point of
Works, Orange, N. J.; No. 313, $10, Mr. Prairie, number and quality. The demand for high
of commercial department, National Phonograph grade record cabinets is growing rather than di-
Co., Orange, N. J.; No. 329, $10, Percy L. Waters, minishing, and inquiry for goods of this class is
the Kinetograph Co., New York City; No. 89, $10, more frequent from the West and Northwest than
H. Pellington, Edison Phonograph Works, East or South. The Pacific Coast trade are also
Orange, N. J.; No. 472, $5, P. Weber, general su- handling a great many, and it appears the line
perintendent, Edison Phonograph Works, Orange, cannot be too elegant in the way of chaste dec-
N. J.; No. 407. $5, John Kaiser, with Douglas orative effect and finish, or costly in material or
Phonograph Co., New York City; No. 314, $5, W. artistic design. It is also observable that job-
Williams, Edison Phonograph Workii, Orange, N. bers with something new or novel to offer, on the
side, when business quiets down, seldom have
reason to complain of dull trade. Conditions
West, however, are much better than in the East.
W. E. Henry, of the Powers & Henry Co.,
Pittsburg, Pa., and P. A. Powers, of Buffalo, N.
Y., whose only interest in the trade now is in
his Rochester (N. Y.) place, who were in New
York for several days, left for their respective
homes Wednesday. Mr. Powers is rejmrted as
going to Europe August 1.
F. K. Dolbeer, manager of the National Phono-
graph Co.'s credit department, got back to New
York Wednesday from Baltimore, where he had
been attending a meeting of the Credit Men's
Association.
The return game of baseball between nines of
the Douglas Phonograph Co. and the Victor Dis-
tributing & Export Co. will be played this (Sat-
urday) afternoon at Van Cortlandt Park, New
York, weather permitting. The match between
the Douglas and that of the Blackmail Talking
Machine Cos., was postponed on account of the
rain last Saturday.
The pleadings in the case of A. N. Petit
against the American Graphophone Co., for al-
leged infringement of his duplex or double face
record patent, were made in the United States
Circuit Court, New York, Saturday last. The
hearing will probably not come on before fall or
next spring. The final hearing in the suit of
Mr. Pel it, on the same patent, through the In-
ternational Talking Machine Co., Berlin, Ger-
many, against the Gramophone & Typewriter,
Ltd., London, England, was up in Berlin June
15. This case has been in the courts for three
years. The complainants lost.
T. W. Norcross, recently associated wiih Peter
Bacigalupi, San Francisco, before the "quake,"
in his slot machine department, has now located
in New York. He is the inventor of a coin-
operated device whereby the record is illustrated
as well as heard, and arrangements are now be-
ing made for manufacturing it on a large scale.
Mr. Norcross is also the patentee of a new horn
crane, which is described as one of the neatest,
most compact and reliable articles on the market.
L. Kaiser, of S. B. Davega's talking machine de-
partment, has its exclusive selling agency East.
For twenty years Mr. Norcross was in the the-
atrical business, being stage manager at the New
York Casino during the Aronson regime, and is
a man of diversified talents and a history.
The complaints of Samuel Heymann, attorney
for the New York Phonograph Co., in the latter's
suit against the National Phonograph Co., in
which about twenty New York jobbers and deal-
ers were sued in the New York Supreme Court
at White Plains, N. Y., were called Saturday
last, but went over for two weeks.
JAPAN INCREASES DUTY
On Talking Machines from 35 to 50 Per Cent.
—Building Higher Tariff Walls.
The Parliament of Japan have just passed a
tariff bill which emphasizes that the Yankees of
the East are following our example in endeavor-
ing to build up their manufacturing and com-
mercial power through the aid of a protective
system. We note that the new bill increases the
duty on a great many American products; for
instance, talking machines are advanced from 35
to 50 per cent. The amount of trade in these
machines has developed quite extensively in the
Far East.
A new Columbia phonograph store has been
opened in Holyoke, Mass.