Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
MUSIC TRADE
It not only establishes one price, but it goes a step farther, it makes
that price the right -one, and it does away wholly and completely
with piano misrepresentation. A dealer cannot ask more for a piano
than it is actually worth, and this policy will have the gradual
effect to force all instruments into their proper class. One price
is the real solution of a great many of the evils which have vexed
this trade for years.
A number of prominent houses have long been in the habit
of giving discounts to those engaged in a variety of callings—
clergymen, music teachers, singers, school teachers and others.
Now why should such concessions be granted unless, perhaps, in
the cases of those who have actually assisted in sales? Or, in
other words, have delivered work which entitled them to some
rebate ?
I
^ H E whole special discount practice had its origin ofttimes in
fear on the part of the retailer that some of his favored cus-
tomers might be influenced to withdraw their recommendations and
turn them in the direction of his competitors, but as to discounts
to the rank and file of professionals, what good and sufficient rea-
son is there for so favoring any class ? The reason is indeed all
in the other direction. Modern merchandising is supposed to be
based on fair play, and on the plan of treating every customer
alike, and to make flesh of one and fowl of another is to lag behind
the procession. A refusal to grant discounts may offend in some
cases, but the general knowledge that an establishment is a really
one price store—one price to everybody—ought to win for it a
great number of friends. Neglect of the one price principle, for
example* has in this country proved one of the serious causes of
weakness with many business establishments.
Progressive retailers to-day in all lines willingly concede that
the store that is nearest right is the one in which one dollar of
one of its retail customers can go just as far in the way of buying
its goods as can the dollar of any other of its retail customers.
Special discounts is a term too well known in the piano trade, and,
after all, is it not rebating in an illegal sense? If it is unlawful
for a shipping concern to obtain special rebates from the railroad
why is not the same principle applied to the retailing of pianos?
Is it right that A should secure a special discount on a particular
style of instrument, whereas B on the same day is compelled to pay
the long price, simply because he was confiding and trustful?
A
MONG the recent callers at The Review office was a young
man who conducts a most successful music trade establish-
ment who interested us by relating a history of his business life.
He commenced on his own account when he was seventeen years
old; he has prospered in a material sense and owns a fine business
to-day. Referring to his success with some pride, he said that he
attributed it to the fact that he acted independently of others; that
he thought out his own campaign, and was never changed by the
argument of other people, or what his competitors were doing in
carrying out his original plans. If he figured that a bargain sale
of pianos was a good thing at a certain time of the year he stuck
to it, expended a good deal of money and never faltered in his plans,
even when the trade did not come to him satisfactorily. Usually
the man who surrenders his judgment to others never develops in-
tense stabilitv or self-reliance.
I
T is infinitely better to make a mistak'e than to never act on
one's own judgment. People who are always referring to
others, always asking advice, never amount to much. What makes
a man a success is standing for something in himself, something
definite. A man may be very good, and yet not stand for anything
—not enough to carry any weight in his community. It is just as
important to the building of the strong character to be self-reliant
as it is to be honest, because honesty without independence, or
stamina is a sort of negative quality. No matter whether a man
may be at the head of a large business or a small one. whether he is
working for himself or some one else, he should be himself, do his
own thinking and follow his own judgment. Self-reliance not only
helps us to respect ourselves, but it also makes others respect us.
We instinctively admire a man who stands for something, even
though we may not agree with his doctrines; we like the fellow
who has backbone and isn't afrc.id to call a spade a spade, at the
proper time.
REVIEW
5
It is usually noticed that the more popular a man is with himself
the less popularity he acquires with other people.
It has not been discovered yet that a piano man pushes ahead by
simp'y patting himself on the back.
If you are bound to tell a man of his faults, it is safer to use a long
distance telephone.
Few men ever look a gift horse in the mouth, because they never have
chance.
If you don't believe that the piano business is growing daily worse
ask the non-progressive dealer.
SOME BITS OF CHESTINBSS.—Really choice stuff is as rare as
pearls in oysters. We're always looking for it and quite as ready to pass
it around. At a recent convention of the Pen Pushers and Scissorites, in
Easton, Pa., some joyful soul threw out these bits of chestiness whicn
were printed on a tag and distributed:
"If somewhere in your moral fabric there is a streak of shoddy—
>%
If you can't show the whole bolt without palming a certain damaged
portion—
"If the true blue is a bit faded in the folds—
"If the merciless moths have put a saw edge on the selvage—
"If your price tag shows a secret shrinkage in valuation—
"If you are posing as the real thing and can't deliver the goods—"
CUT IT OUT!
CREATES A HOLE.—The King of Siam is really called Prabat Som-
detch Pra Paramindr Maha Chulalongkorn Patindr Tepa Maha Mongkut
Pra Chula Klao Chow Yu Hua, Chulalongkorn I., Lord of the White Ele-
phant, King of Siam of the North and South, Sovereign of the Laos and
of the Malays, Brother of the Moon, Half-brother of the Sun. Arbiter Su-
preme of the Ebb and Flow of the Tides, Possessor of Twenty-four Gold
Umbrellas, and the King who Resembles the Sun at Its Zenith. Any time
His Majesty goes visiting and takes his name with him it leaves quite a
hole in the kingdom.
MUSIC TO SUIT THE JOB.—A lady had engaged a new page boy
who whist'.ed music hall ditties whi T e cleaning the cutlery. "Joseph,"
she called, "please don't whistle those vulgar things." "Very well, ma'am,"
replied Joseph, meekly, "but you can't expect a Beethoven sonata when
I'm cleaning the knives. That will come latsr when I'm polishing the
silver!"
CAUSE FOR TURNING GRAY.—The Rev. A. Vroseos Parashaces,
Worcester, Mass., married Charalamksos Despotopoulas and Demetra
Christodulopoulas at Fitchburg on August 23. The couple failed to return
the certificate to City Clerk W. A. Davis, and he is worrying himself gray
for fear they have to repeat the ceremony.
At the present stage of the game the widow's mite isn't in it with the
widow's millions.
'
Woman will never rank as man's equal until she can read and explain
the report of a baseball game.
Probably some man whose wife refused to laugh at his alleged jokes
was the first to discover that women have no sense of humor.
"Eddie" Colell now ranks as the champion swimmer known to music
trade men. He'll probably strike across the Atlantic some evening and
get over to Queenstown in time for coffee and rolls.
In Massachusetts the production of reed organs is actually declining,
and Illinois is now the leading state.—The Boston Evening Transcript.
Well, well, and so the reed organ business is "actually" declining in
Massachusetts! That's news with a vengeance, and on a par with the
music trade paper that recently came out with the startling item that the
A'eolian Organ and Music Co. has been incorporated at Meriden—"news"
which was just twenty-two years old.
A lot of poor children were at a farm. The farmer gave them pome
mi'.k to drink, the product of a prize cow.
"How do you like it?" he asked, when they had finished.
"Gee, it's fine!" said one little fellow, who added, after a thoughtful
pause, "I wish our milkman kept a cow!"
Pat came home on the eventful night in which he looked for a son
and heir. It was a wee small hour as he came in and met the nurse.
She held up three fingers and Put stared; then she mutters "triplets,"
still he stared; then she said plainly, "Three of them, Pat." Just then
the rlock struck three. "Begorry," says Pat, "I'm not superstitious, but
I thank God I did not get in at twelve o'clock."