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THE
fflJJIC TIRADE
VOL. XLVI. No. 1.
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman BUI at 1 Madison Ave., New York, January 4,1908.
SINGLE COPIES, 10 CENTS.
|2.00 PER YEAR.
TAYLOR SELLS TO HOWE.
CHANGE IN BASIS OF CREDITS
HOME PATRONAGE LEAGUE
Proprietor of Taylor's Music House Retires and
Sells Business to His Former Manager, Who
Is an Experienced and Respected Piano
Man—Twenty-Two Years With House.
Necessary in Order to Put Trade on a Healthier
Foundation According to Mr. Kimball.
Has Been Organized in Helena, Mont., With
Piano Dealer Reeves as President—To Help
Home Trade.
(Special to The Review.J
Springfield, Mass., Dec. 30, 1907.
William C. Taylor, proprietor of Taylor's Music
House in this city, has sold his entire business,
including stock, fixtures and good will, to his
former manager, Frederick G. Howe, who has
been connected with this business since 1885. Mr.
Taylor has been contemplating this move for the
past two years or more, for, as he expressed him-
self to The Review: "I have enough private busi-
ness to look out for without the worry and care
of the piano business." Of course the business
will be continued in the spacious store in the
Y. M. C. A. building on State street, and the same
staff will be continued by Mr. Howe.
A rather unusual coincidence is connected
with the retirement of Mr. Taylor, inasmuch as
it marked his fiftieth birthday. The announce-
ment of the transfer of the business came as a
surprise to the employes and the dual event was
recognized by the presentation of handsome
bouquets on the part of the employes to both Mr.
Taylor and Mr. Howe.
Frederick G. Howe, the new proprietor of
Taylor's Music House, has had a long experience
in the piano business. He was born in Minne-
apolis, Minn., some forty-eight years ago and
came to this city when quite a boy. Early in
life he entered the C. N. Stimpson piano house
where he got his first insight into the mysteries
of the business, and in 1884 joined Mr. Taylor,
and has been his manager until this week, when
he took over the business.
William C. Taylor, who now retires with the
good will and esteem of his employes and friends,
opened his first store in this city in the Gilmore
Opera House iblock in 1884, the firm being known
as Whiting & Taylor. Mr. Whiting retired from
the business a year later. At the start the prin-
cipal business was sheet music and small goods,
but later the piano and organ end of it was
steadily enlarged. Some four years later the
growth of the business necessitated the removal
to larger quarters at the corner of Main and
Pynchon streets. Mr. Taylor was located for
seventeen years at this address and saw the busi-
ness expand until at times nearly seventy pianos
and organs were carried in stock. The sheet
music and small goods business also showed a
steady development. A year ago last June the
house moved into its present quarters on State
street. At the time of this change, Mr. Taylor
sold out his sheet music and small goods busi-
ness to ,1. Edward Gibbs, devoting himself to
pianos and piano-players exclusively. Mr. Gibbs
has controlled the sheet music and small goods
end of the business ever since the store was
opened, renting space from Mr. Taylor.
Mr. Howe, the new proprietor of Taylor's
Music House has the best wishes of a host of
friends for his success.
J. Leslie is a new piano dealer in StewartviUe,
Minn.
In a recent interview anent the present condi-
tion of business E. N. Kimball, president of the
Hallet & Davis Piano Co., expressed the opinion
that so far as the piano trade was concerned,
rapid improvement in that business depended
upon an entire change in the present basis of
credits, putting them on a more solid foundation.
Mr. Kimball spoke as follows:
"A dealer of limited capital should be ex-
tremely careful about giving notes for the simple
reason it will be very difficult for him to meet
them when they become due. If a dealer having
a small capital buys his pianos on four months
and sells many of them on three years, then it
would not be long before he will use up his entire
capital. His expenses will be going on just the
same and he will find himself in the position of
being able to meet his obligations and obliged
to take some strenuous method for recovering
his financial standing.
"If a dealer starting with a small capital
knows that it will be necessary for him to have
accommodation, he should connect himself with
some strong manufacturing house, that will be
able to carry his lease paper for him on some
equitable basis. I believe this is the only method
whereby a dealer with small capital can advance
on a positively safe basis and ultimately get into
a position where he can carry on his business
upon a sure profit making and in the end a
cash basis. The average dealer who starts with
a capital of $10,000, and who buys on four
months and sells the ordinary proportion of
pianos for cash and the corresponding proportion
on leases running an average of three years, will
find that this original capital will be entirely
tied up within one year, and he will have nothing
upon which to continue his business."
The latest in the business circles of Helena,
Mont., is the Home Patronage League, formed
with the object of boosting the industries of both
the city and the State. Special efforts will be
made to kill the business of the catalog houses
in that section and to confine buying to the
home merchants. In brief, the object of the
organization, as published, is as follows: "The
upbuilding of every meritorious and worthy en-
terprise and industry in the city and State. The
keeping of our dollars inside of the State boun-
daries. The patronage of home merchants as
against the patronage of traveling salesmen who
come to Montana from other States. The edu-
cation of our people to ransack the State as if
with a fine-tooth comb for every need they have
in the way of necessities, comforts and luxu-
ries, as against the sending of a single dollar
outside the State." A. J. Reeves, of Reeves'
Music House, is president of the Home Patron-
age League.
PIANO HOUSES TO FIGHT TAX.
Consider the Attempt of the Revenue Agent
of Mississippi to Levy Taxes on New Orleans
Dealers Doing Business in Mississippi Unfair.
(Special to The Review.)
New Orleans, La., Dec. -31, 1907.
Regarding the attempt of the Revenue Agent of
Mississippi to levy taxes upon the various piano
houses of this city doing business in that State,
as reported in last week's Review, the piano
dealers interested have decided to fight the mat-
ter. The assessment was for back taxes and for
sales since 1889, aggregating $187,000, divided as
follows: the L. Grunewald Co., $66,000; Philip
Werlein, $65,000 and the Junius Hart Piano
PIANOS FOR CHRISTMAS-PRESENTS.
House, $56,000. The suits are to be filed at Meri-
dian, Miss., and notices to that effect have been
(Special to The Review. 1
sent to the piano houses by registered mail. Many
Houston Tex., Dec. 30, 1907.
towns claim that hundreds of pianos were sold
Pianos as Christmas presents have been in the last ten years when the actual population
donated to the city of Houston for use in the has never exceeded 2,000. The piano men regard
Fannin, Rusk and Stephen F. Austin schools. the matter as an amusing and broadfaced shake-
The instruments we're given to the principals of down.
the various buildings named iby the J. W. Carter
Music Co.
SOHMER GRAND IN RECITAL.
One of the worthy musical institutions of Mis-
souri is the Shastid Piano School, of Hannibal,
Nahum Stetson, of Steinway & Sons, is at of which Mr. and Mrs. Shastid are the directors.
present busily arranging for his annual mid-win- They are both clever pianists, and at a piano
ter vacation which he will spend at the Royal recital recently given at the home of Dr. Ken-
Ponciana, Palm Beach, Fla. Mr. Stetson has nedy, of Perry, Mo., they played a program of
not been enjoying the best of health, recently great merit, embracing numbers by Greig,
having suffered from a severe cold, so a long rest Chopin, Dvorak, MacDowell, Schumann, Liszt
will be especially appreciated by him. He will and others. The piano used was a superb Sohmer
leave for Palm Beach on January 9 and will be grand, which was purchased of the Parks Music
gone several months. Mr. Stetson will, as usual, House Co., who represent the celebrated instru-
take a Steinway piano with him, this time it ment.
is a handsome upright, the panels being deco-
J. H. Gruber has opened a piano store in Phil-
rated by Arthur E. Blackmore to represent a
ips, Wis. Mr. Gruber is also a piano-tuner.
moonlight scene at Palm Beach.
MR. STETSON'S MID-WINTER VACATION.