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THE
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
EDWARD LYMAN BILL - Editor and Proprietor
J. B. SPILLANE, Managing Editor
Executive and Reportorial Staff
GKO. B. KELLKK,
W. H. DYKES,
It. W. SIMMONS,
ACGDST
B. BRITTAIN WILSON,
A. J. NICKLIN,
L. E. BOWERS,
J. TIMPB.
CHICAGO OFFICE:
BOSTON OFFICE:
G. W. HENDERSON, 180 Tremont St.
E. P. VAN HARLINGEN, 156 Wabash Ave.
Room 806,
Room 18.
Telephone, Central 414.
Telephone, Oxford 2936-2.
PHILADELPHIA:
MINNEAPOLIS and ST. PAUL:
ST. LOUIS:
R. W. KAHFFMAN,
ADOLF EDSTEN,
CHAS. N. VAN BOREN.
SAN FRANCISCO: S. H. GRAY, 88 First Street.
CINCINNATI, O.:
BALTIMORE, MD.:
JACOB W. WALTERS.
A. ROBERT FRENCH.
LONDON. ENGLAND: C9 Basinghall St., E. C. W. LIONEL STURDY, Manager.
Published Every Saturday at 1 Madison Avenue, New York
Entered at the New York Post Office as Second Class Matter.
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REMITTANCES, in other than currency forms, should be made payable to Edward
Lyman Bill.
Music Section.
An important feature of this publication is a complete sec-
tion devoted to the interests of music publishers and dealers.
REVIEW
It is true that it requires harder hustle for business, but men
must realize that and go after it.
Trade is not rampant these days.
Good, keen business perseverance is necessary in order to win
out.
P
RICE maintenance has become an issue in the business world
to-day.
It has perhaps been the subject of more serious and careful
consideration by manufacturers and merchants during the past ten
years than any other topic.
In former years when there were not so many agencies for the
dissemination of information in regard to prices as there are to-day
—when fewer were competing for business—the question was not
so forcibly drawn to our attention.
To-day, however, with the ever-increasing expense account
and a vanishing profit, again the question of the maintenance of
a fair scale of prices is one which requires a controlling ha«d.
No one familiar with the piano trade and its history can deny
the fact that there has been a steady movement during recent years
towards maintaining the one price standard.
The leading houses in every section of the.country hold rigidly
to one price.
Their floor salesmen are instructed not to deviate from this.
Of course, there will always be merchants in the piano line
as well as in others who will find a way to beat the one-price devil
around the bush in some manner, but we are moving ahead and
moving along in the right direction.
r
F H E service to the public, however, required by the trade to-
i.
day in every line, is far more exacting than formerly, and
Grand Prix
Paris Exposition, 1900
Stiver Medal.Charleston Exposition, 1U02
more expensive organizations are required from the top to the bot-
Diploma..Pan-American Exposition, 1901
Gold Medal.. .St. Louis Exposition, 1904
Gold Medal
Lewis-Clark Exposition, 1905.
tom of the house.
Facilities and practices once considered ample are now anti-
LONG DISTANCE TELEPHONES NUMBERS 4677 and 4678 GRAMERCY
Connecting all Departments.
quated and out of date.
Cable a d d r e s s : M Elbill. N e w York."
Advertising on a liberal scale is required.
Better system is demanded, and how can any house have an
NEW YORK, JULY 2, 1910
elastic business system which permits of constant deviation in the
price standard?
Such a house cannot figure out definite profits and it never
EDITORIAL
knows where it stands.
Some of the large producing houses in the piano trade rigidly
E have rounded the first half of IQIO and the record in a adhere to the price standards, and, furthermore, they are just as
business sense is not altogether pleasing.
rigid on credits.
There has not been a good free buying and selling market and
When they give a certain time they expect that their customers
the trade for the half year showed none of the pronounced activity
will live up to their rules.
which was predicted early in the season.
Such a condition years ago was not possible, and it was amus-
But a close scrutiny of trade conditions will show that business
ing some twenty years past to hear dealers discussing prices which
has not been so bad as many affirm.
they were paying for pianos when a number of them met.
We Americans arc progressive people and unless we keep on
Some interesting information was imparted and there were
expanding by leaps and bounds we figure that something is wrong
some kicks coming to manufacturers.
and begin to complain bitterly.
Well, just a few!
Now, we cannot keep on forever climbing up the trade hill.
Those days are gone never to return and the business both in
There must be descents and valleys to cross over as well.
manufacturing and retailing departments has conformed to the
To have told the average piano man ten years ago that in 1909 laws of trade which are operated in other lines.
there would be 350,000 pianos put forth he would have considered
it an insane prediction, but we have kept steadily climbing along
OMPETITION is here, and mighty severe, but good com-
and because each year it is not necessary to add another factory
petition is essential to our continued progress and advance-
addition in order to take care of trade men figure that business is
ment and is the very essence of business activity, but the combat
not what it should be.
should be conducted according to the rules of honorable warfare,
and not by deceit or unfair practices.
As a matter of fact the volume of business has been fairly
good, but it has not been satisfactory and it is not human nature to
Competition is all right, but it must be of the right kind.
be easily satisfied.
Fair competition demands the maintenance of fixed prices, and
We are always striving for something beyond.
invariably you will find that the piano establishments which main-
tain fixed prices command the confidence of the public.
Men are not buying freely and the probability is that large
orders will not be placed until the fall.
Those who have remained outside of the one-price breastworks
Predictions have been made that there will be big curtailments
are gradually finding this out, and the sooner they capitulate the
in iron orders when the end of June is reached.
better it will be, because one price is commonly reckoned as mean-
The facts are, according to reports, that in most cases the
ing business honesty, and without one price the whole system of
rolling mills are fairly supplied with work for the summer and
selling becomes chaotic.
+
the predictions are that there will be few shut-downs except those
All reckoning as to cost and expense becomes annihilated.
made for needed repairs or pending readjustment of wages.
Tf a piano can be shifted in price from $50 to $TOO where does
The new orders booked by the United States Steel Corpora-
the system come in ?
tion exceed those of the corresponding period of a year ago, and
A man who adopts such methods is figuring tit deceive not alone
the corporation is now operating 81 per cent, of its blast furnace
his customers to whom he is not according a square deal, but he is
capacity.
simply fooling himself, and that's a mighty dangerous business.
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