Classic Mode

Music Trade Review

Issue: 1913 Vol. 57 N. 19

Page 4 Text:

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
REVIEW
EDWARD LYMAN BILL - Editor and Proprietor
J. B. SPILLANE, Managing Editor
Executive and Reportorlal Stall:
B. BKITTAIN WILSOK,
A. J. NiCKXiN,
CARLETON CHACE,
AUGUST J. TIMPE,
BOSTON OFFICE:
„, ,
,
'
GLAD HENDERSON,
L. E. BOWERS.
CHICAGO OFFICE:
JOHN H. WILSON, 821 Washington St.
J
L. M. ROBINSON,
WM. B. WHITE,
£. P. VAN HARLINGEN, 37 South Wabash Ave
, . .„._
HENRY S. KINOWILL, Associate.
Telephone, Main 6950
Telephone, Central 414.
R o o m 806i
PHILADELPHIA:
MINNEAPOLIS and ST. PAUL:
ST. LOUISi
R. W. KAUJPMAN.
ADOLF EDSTEN.
SAN FRANCISCO: S. H. GRAY, 88 First St.
CLYDE JENNINGS,
DETROIT, MICH.: MORRIS J. WHITE.
CINCINNATI, O.: JACOB W. WALTERS.
INDIANAPOLIS, INDu STANLEY H. SMITH.
BALTIMORE. MD.: A. ROBERT FRENCH.
MILWAUKEE, WIS.: L. E. MEYER.
KANSAS CITY, M O J E. P. ALLEN.
PITTSBURGH, PA.: GEORGE G. SNYDER.
LONDON, ENGLAND: 1 Gresham Buildings, Basinghall St., E. C.
Published Every Saturday at 373 Fourth Avenue, New York
Entered at the New York Post Office as Second Class Matter.
SUBSCRIPTION, (including postage), United States and Mexico, $2.00 per year; Canada,
|8.50; all other countries, $4.00.
ADVERTISEMENTS, ?2.50 per inch, single column, per insertion. On quarterly or
yearly contracts, a special discount is allowed. Advertising Pages, $75.00.
REMITTANCES, in other than currency forms, should be made payable to Edward
Lyman Bill.
Departments conducted by an expert wherein all ques-
anil
aUU
t j o n s o f a technical nature relating to the tuning, regu-
IW»nai*fmonfa lating and repairing of pianos and player-pianos are
V t j l d l I l l i e i l l S . d e a ] t w ; t h j w in b e found in another section of this
paper. We also publish a number of reliable technical works, information concerning which
will be cheerfully given upon request.
v
Exposition Honors Won by The Review
Grand Prix
Paris Exposition, 1900 Silver Medal. . .Charleston Exposition, 1902
Diploma
Pan-American Exposition, 1901 Gold Medal
St. Louis Exposition, 1904
Gold Medal..Lewis-Clark Exposition, 1905
LONG- DISTANCE TELEPHONES—NUMBERS 5982—5983 MADISON SQ
Connecting- all Departments
Cable address: "Elbill, New York."
NEW
Y O R K , N O V E M B E R 8, 1 9 1 3
EDITORIAL
I
N business circles there is much uneasiness over the workings
of the tariff bill. Those optimistic people, who expected it
would work wonders in reducing the cost of living, are now express-
ing some disappointment at developments.
A business man who recently returned from a trip abroad dis-
cussed the tariff situation most interestingly this week when he
said: "I found English manufacturers very gleeful and happy over
the change in tariff rates in this country. They said that it is a
great good thing for their business, and some of them went so far
as to tell me that it enabled them to increase their prices on exports
to this country to almost a like amount as the saving effected by
the reduction in tariff. This being the case, it strikes me that what
is so beneficial for foreign manufacturers is correspondingly bad
for us. Much is said about the reduction of tariff here. As a
matter of fact about 40 per cent, of the cost of living is represented
by labor which by the tariff will be driven to other countries. Where
is the advantage, then, if the reduction in the tariff would effect a
saving of, say, 10 per cent, in the cost of living? Then we have out
of every $100 expended for living a reduction of $10 by reason
of the tariff change. Then there is left only $50 instead of $90,
and the other $40 goes to other countries for manufacture and
labor."
These views are in keeping with those of a number of importers
in the music trade field who claim that since the tariff law went into
force foreign manufacturers have increased their prices about equal
to, if not a little more than, the reduction in the tariff. In this
way the goods cost the user or consumer just as much as before the
tariff became a law. The question is, who is getting the benefit?
T ^ H E editorial in last week's Review, anent the exhibition of
-L wholesale prices by some piano merchants to prospective buy-
ers, has created considerable comment.
Piano manufacturers are deeply interested in suppressing this
unbusinesslike and unprofessional practice, and whenever cases are
known where dealers who represent them have descended to such
methods to gain trade they certainly can help the good work along
by expressing their opinion in no uncertain manner to such vio-
lators of trade ethics.
One manufacturer writes: "I am very much interested in your
article. My attention was called a short time ago by one of my
representatives in the West to an incident similar to the one you
have named. This particular man was competing with a certain
piano, and this dealer had obtained from him wholesale prices, and
he at once showed them to the customer, with the result that it
killed the sale. I wrote the manufacturer and laid these facts be-
fore him, with the result that he absolutely cut off this dealer, and
as a result he received from the dealer a statement that he was
ignorant of the facts, and the salesman who resorted to the practice
was dismissed."
Another communication reaches us from a house which advised
a firm of Western manufacturers that their representatives had
shown to a certain customer wholesale prices.
This man said: "We are not finding fault because our dealer
lost the sale, only we object to dealers telling the wholesale prices
of their competitor's goods, not of their own."
The subject is one which interests the trade everywhere be-
cause the exhibition of invoices to possible customers showing
wholesale rates of competing pianos is not only a reprehensible
practice, but it is one which is absolutely destructive to sound busi-
ness methods, and cannot be too heartily condemned.
I
N asking for bids for pianos to supply the public schools of Pitts-
burgh, Pa., the Board of Education has specified that all pianos
offered in the bids must be of standard make and four feet eight
inches in height, stencils not being considered under any considera-
tion. It is also stated that the amount to be paid for the instru-
ments will be limited to $300 for each instrument. To all appear-
ances the proposition should be an attractive one for the piano men
to consider, but there comes to the front the question of price cut-
ting, and it is freely stated that the various dealers, owing to the
keen competition, will shave their bids to a point where the only
profit represented will be the advertising that will come to the suc-
cessful dealer through landing the contract.
Thirty pianos are desired and $300 is given as the maximum
figure to be paid, but it would seem as though, after making due
allowance for the fact that the instruments are for the city, are to
be purchased in a lot and by means of bids, that the dealers should
hold together sufficiently to secure a price approximating that which
they would obtain through the regular channels of trade. There
are a large number of pianos, sold under the names of their manu-
facturers and not to be classed as stencils, that are sold in the ordi-
nary way and singly and a price much lower than $300 and at the
same time show a fair profit for the dealer.
Advertising of any kind is well worth considering, but several
dealers who have already placed bids are questioning the advertis-
ing value of selling thirty pianos to the city at the approximate
wholesale price of the instruments. It is held by those who entered
into competition for school business in the past that such sales never
bring back enough business to make up the profit sacrificed on the
school instruments and the fact that in placing the contracts the
price at which the instruments are offered is necessarily made pub-
lic, prospective customers secure a false idea of the real value of
the instruments and of the fairness of the regular price.
A
N active movement is under way among those concerned in
patent matters throughout the country to interest Congress
in amending the Kahn law recently passed which is intended to
protect foreign exhibitors at the Panama-Pacific International Ex-
position from patent infringement while they are exhibiting.
The law forbids any person to "copy, imitate, reproduce or
republish any pattern, model, design, trade-mark, copyright or
manufactured article protected by the laws of any foreign country,"
imported for the exposition. The protection is extended for ihree
years after the exposition. It is contended that this practically
amounts to the granting of American patents and that the law will
work an injustice to American inventors. Manufacturers assert
that under the lax patent laws of many foreign countries it would
be possible for unscrupulous persons to obtain foreign patents on
articles already patented and in common use in the United States.

Page 5 Text:

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
Service Station for Piano and Player Buyers.
T least one piano department has taken a leaf from the book
A
of the automobile manufacturer and dealer and installed a
"service station'' for the convenience and accommodation of its
patrons. The service station in question has been opened in con-
nection with the piano department in the Philadelphia store of N.
Snellenburg & Co., and has for its object the promotion of satis-
faction on the part of purchasers of pianos long after the instru-
ments have been placed in the homes and paid for.
The service station will be under the direction of a competent
and experienced young lady who will call up every purchaser of a
piano or player-piano at regular intervals and inquire as to the con-
dition of the instrument and the manner in which it is giving satis-
faction. If there is anything wrong with the physical structure of
the piano or player an expert will be dispatched from the store to
look over the instrument and make necessary repairs or adjust-
ments. If there is some question regarding the operation of the
player-piano a competent representative will come from the store
for the purpose of furnishing desired instruction and thus enabling
the purchaser to get the proper service from the instrument.
The operation of the service station will be watched with in-
terest by the progressive members of the piano trade and the prob-
abilities are that after its success is proven similar stations will make
their appearance in other sections of the country. Service to cus-
tomers, even after the pianos have been fully paid for, has been
considered good business by a number of the more successful houses
from the simple fact that a satisfied customer is about as good an
advertisement and business booster as a piano merchant can pos-
sess. To organize a permanent service station, designed and
operated solely for the purpose of keeping in touch with and aiding
customers, has been viewed by most piano houses as tending strongly
toward the ideal and a trifle too expensive and uncertain for practi-
cal purposes. The Snellenburg plan of "beating the customer to
the complaint" should prove a decidedly profitable proposition cov-
ering expense with actual sales thus influenced.
The Deceptive Use of Personal Names.
T
HE deceptiveuse of personal names has been evidenced in vari-
ous lines of trade. In this'connection E. S. Rogers, writing
in a recent issue of Printers' Ink, says:
Every man's name is his own. Me has a right to go into any
lawful business and he has a right to use his own name in connec-
tion with it. These rights, of course, the law must recognize.
Hence it is. that personal names are not sanctioned as technical
trade-marks. A technical trade-mark right is exclusive, and to
give to one man who may bear a certain name the right to exclude
others, who may also bear the name, from all use of it would be
unconscionable. But, all rights are coupled with corresponding obli-
gations, and whether it be his own name or any other thing that
he owns a man must so use it .as not unnecesg^ily to damage his
neighbor.
"^ ' ; v t ' T
W^
It was a fashionable method of unfair trading a dozen years
ago for schemers to discover unknown persons bearing names made
valuable by others or for such comtrfercial nonentities to discover
themselves and by starting in a similar business to attempt to profit
by the patronymic coincidence. Few products known and adver-
tised under personal names have been free from this sort of piracy.
Rogers' Silverware, Pillsbury's Flour, Stuart's Dyspepsia Tablets,
Bull's Cough Syrup, Baker's Chocolate, Gato's Cigars, Hall's Safes,
Williams' Soaps, Royal Baking Powder, Beecham's Pills and many
other products known by a surname have been the victims of this
variety of thievery.
Where the parasite does not bear the name, but has deliberately
adopted a famous name to do business under, no difficulty is experi-
enced in putting a stop to his depredations. An absolute prohibi-
tion from all use of the name is decreed. In deciding a case where
fa man assumed the name (Pinet) of a well-known English boot-
maker for trade purposes, the matter was thus concisely put by a
distinguished English judge:
"I think the case is a very clear one. As regards this man,
who began life as an Irish solicitor under the name of Dutch, who
has since changed successively to the trades of money lender and
manufacturer of boots and shoes under various names, who, when
he wants to deal in money in Pall Mall, takes the name of Ransom,
and then changes subsequently to Gower, then again to Forbes
Gower, then when he goes into boots takes the name of Pinet, for
reasons which everyone knows, I think he is utterly wrong. He has
been guilty from first to last of a commonplace clumsy fraud, and
I think I should be wasting public time if I were to give any more
words to the position he has in the matter."
It ought to be clear to everyone with a conscience that should
Smith adopt the name Pillsbury and go into the flour business, or
the name of Baker and go to making chocolate, that he has but one
purpose, and that to steal the successful businesses so long con-
ducted under these names; that this sort of thing is a fraud on its
face and {he use of the name ought to be. stopped and stopped com-
\ ietely, and the sooner the better. Of course, Smith has the same
right to go into the flour or chocolate business as anyone. This is
legitimate enough. The fraud lies in the name adopted. By reason
of the long use of these names by their original bearers, a new Pills-
bury flour or a new Baker's chocolate must result in deceiving the
public and pirating the business already established under these
names. The deceptive effect would be the same, whether the new-
comer's name was Smith and he assumed the name Pillsbury or
Baker, or whether having the name he assumed the flour or choco-
late business to use it in.
But why, it is argued, should a man be kept out of the flour or
•chocolate business or be required to conduct it anonymously because
he happens to bear the name he does in fact bear? This, perhaps, is
no place to air individual views. I am unable personally to see the
difference between changing a" name to fit a business and changing
a business to fit a name, where the result is the same in either case,
namely, injury to a competitor and deception of the public. But
the courts do make a distinction and hold that it is fraudulent for a
man to adopt a famous name to do business under and stop the use
of the name entirely, though they permit a man having a famous
name to adopt a business and use the name in connection with it,
though they often restrict the use of the name in that business so
as to minimize its deceptive effect.
The difficulty of an equitable adjustment of rights under such
circumstances is enormous.
What distinctions will be sufficient must, of course, depend
upon the circumstances in each particular case. A distinction ample
w one trade would be utterly inadequate in another. For example,
a man named Royal, at Louisville, started to make baking powder
and used his name upon the front of his cans in large letters. j ;
Of course, this induced its sale as Royal Baking Powder, and
was a manifest fraud. He was enjoined because the court found it
was not necessary thus prominently to display the name. It was
recognized that he had a right to state that he made the product,
but was required by the court to place his name upon the back of
the cans.
A bicycle repairman, named William H. Rogers, of Plainfield,
N. J., decided to go into the silverware business and used the name
Rogers in connection with his plated ware. He was permitted to
do so only when he used his full name, "William H. Rogers" or
"W. H. Rogers," and in addition the words "Not the original
Rogers" or "Not connected with the original Rogers" all in type of
the same or greater size and clearness. These explanatory state-
ments must accompany the use of the name so as, to quote the
language of Mr. Justice Holmes, of the Supreme Court, "to give
the antidote with the bane."
It must be said that the courts ten years ago were more severe
in their restraint of t^e deceptive use of personal names than they
are to-day,
- - -••-* ~.~

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