Classic Mode

Music Trade Review

Issue: 1914 Vol. 58 N. 15

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
EDWARD LYMAN BILL - Editor and Proprietor
J. B. SPILLANE, Managing Editor
Executive and Reportorlal Stall:
B. BRITTAIN WILSON,
A. J. NICKLIN,
CARLETON CHACE,
AUGUST J. TIMPE,
BOSTON OFFICE:
,«TT
w,i 994 Washington
St
HN
H. WILSON,
Washington St.
Telephone, Main 6950.
PHILADELPHIA:
R. W. KAUFPMAN.
L. M. ROBINSON,
GLAD HENDERSON,
W M . B. WHITE,
L. E. BOWERS.
CHICAGO OFFICE:
E. P. VAN HARLINGEN, Consumers' Building.
^ T e i e p h o n e , Wabash 5774.
g8Q S Q & ^ ^
HENRY S. KINGWILL, Associate,
MINNEAPOLIS a n d ST. PAUL:
ADOLF EDSTEW.
ST. LOUIS :
CLYDE JENNINGS,
SAN FRANCISCO: S. H. GRAY, 88 First St.
DETROIT MICH.: MORRIS J. WHITE.
CINCINNATI. O.t JACOB W. WALTERS.
BALTIMORE, M D . : A. ROBERT FRENCH.
INDIANAPOLIS,IND.: STANLEY H. SMITH.
MILWAUKEE, WIS.: L. E. MEYER.
KANSAS CITY, MO.: E. P. ALLEN.
PITTSBURG, 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, $5.00.
ADVERTISEMENTS, $3.00 per inch, single column, per insertion.
On quarterly or
yearly contracts, a special discount is allowed. Advertising pages $90.00.
REMITTANCES, In other than currency forms, should be made payable to Edward
Lyman Bill.
Jind
Departments conducted by an expert wherein all ques
allU
tions of a technical nature relating to the tuning, regu
Dpnartinoilte
lating and repairing of pianos and player-pianos are
u t p d i iiiieuia. dealt withj will b e f o u n d i n an( , ther sect ; on o f thi8
paper. We also publish a number of reliable technical works, information concerning which
will be cheerfully given upon request.
PlflVPr
Exposition
Honors Won
by The Review
Paris Exposition, 1900
Silver Medal.. .Charleston Exposition, 1902
Grand Prix
Diploma
Pan-American Exposition, 1901
Gold Medal
St. Louis Exposition, 1904
Gold Medal. .Lewis-Clark Exposition, 1905
I.ONO DISTANCE TELEPHONES—NUMBERS 5982—5983 MADISON SQ.
Connecting 1 all Departments
Cable address: "Elblll, New York."
NEW
YORK,
APRIL
11,
1914
EDITORIAL
r
at least 25 per cent.; within five years they will depreciate 25
per cent, more, and after that I hesitate to predict.
"Several days ago I met a very wealthy banker that has four
daughters. I asked him how they were getting along with music
lessons. He thought it a very humorous question and laughed
heartily, saying that none of the girls have ever taken music
lessons; that the player-piano and Victrola furnished all the
music he wanted to hear, and they, at times, were monotonous.
I know of hundreds of cases where player-pianos have been pur-
chased, and after six or eight months' use are practically never
touched. The art of piano playing is now being discouraged by
mechanical inventions. The problem of the trade changes from
the simple one of piano construction to keeping pace with the
demand of the age for mechanical advancement. I am convinced
that the position of my banker friend is a true one; that the gen-
eral public is taking less and less interest in the art of piano
playing, and is looking constantly for more mechanical means
of gratifying its tastes. It is suggested that cheap player mech-
anisms be installed in the trade-ins. That would necessitate the
opening of miniature factories in every retail w'areroom of the
country. We all know how difficult it is to make even an ordi-
nary repair shop pay. Piano dealers are not trained, as a general
thing, to conduct manufacturing plants, and the cost of installa-
tion, etc., will run up, in some cases, to such proportions that the
situation will be made worse rather than improved.
"The solution of the whole problem is that the price of pianos
must be fixed by the manufacturers and the maximum allowance
for trade-ins agreed upon by the principal makers. Unless some
uniform system of allowances for trade-ins is agreed upon the
one-price system will languish and the endurance of the whole
industry will be put to the test. There are several million old
pianos to be traded-in for players.' The difficulty of getting them
in at a price that will allow profitable resale constantly becomes
worse. The solution of a valuation bv convention is the only
safe one.
Very truly yours.
I A HE trade-in problem continues to be greatly discussed in
A
music trade circles, and the move first inaugurated by
The Review to bring this great topic up for national discussion
has aroused widespread interest.
Philip Werlein, a former member of the National Associa-
tion of Piano Merchants, and a man whose opinions are always
listened to with careful consideration, has the following to say
to The Review concerning this matter:
"New Orleans, La., March 31.
"Edward Lyman Bill, New York City.
"Dear Sir—I read your article on trade-ins some time ago,
and take pleasure in offering my congratulations for the splendid
manner in which you brought this trade evil to the fore.
"The player-piano is now the foundation of the entire piano
trade, and every question that comes up must be discussed and
solved in its relation to the player-piano. In the past few years
the character of trade-ins has entirely changed. To-day it is
not an unusual thing for first-class pianos one, two and three
years old to be traded in part payment on player-pianos. The
first impulse of the customer is to go to the house from which
the piano was purchased, with the recollection fresh in mind
of the price paid for the upright piano, and the demand for
allowance on it is close to the original selling price of the piano.
"Player-pianos more nearly approach a fixed price system
than pianos formerly did, and the result in the case which I have
just referred to is: that the confidence of the customer in the
house must be eternally lost, or the allowance made for the
practically new instrument close to its retail value, the conse-
quence being that in this surrender for the sake of the good will
of the customer the player-piano is sold without any profit at all.
The dealer unconsciously deceives himself and carries the trade-
in at a valuation such as would have been correct some years
before this date.
"Ordinary upright pianos to-day have depreciated in value
"PHILIP WERLEIN."
Mr. Werlein agrees perfectly with The Review that the
player-piano is bringing about a new condition, and unless the
problems created by its ascendancy are met and carefully solved
in relation to traded-in pianos, much confusion and loss will
result therefrom. Mr. Werlein favors a uniform system of
allowances on trade-ins.
There is plenty of time to take this matter up for careful
consideration at the coming convention in June.
Many piano men have expressed themselves as thoroughly
agreeing with the sentiments expressed by The Music Trade
Review that this is THE most vital problem which the entire
music trade faces to-day.
Then why evade it?
Why put off its solution until some future time when condi-
tions grow materially worse?
Why not face the issue to-day and solve it properly?
T
HE artistic status of the piano business, due to the wide
influence which the piano exercises as an esthetic stimu-
lator in the home and in the concert hall, has ever been kept in
mind in the development of the vast business controlled by John
Wanamaker, and his views in this respect are very appropriately
emphasized in the letter which he sent to N. A. Secord, the
present general manager of the piano business, which was read
at the reunion of the Wanamaker piano salesmen, and which
was reported at length in last week's Review.
This dinner was arranged for the purpose of bringing to-
gether or hearing from the various men who have been employed
at sometime or other in the Wanamaker piano department, many
of whom are now occupying important managerial and execu-
tive positions with other concerns throughout the country. Mr.
Wanamaker in his letter said in part:
"This store, especially the piano branch of the store, with
its great educational outlook, is more than a store. It is literally
a school for the education of business men and women. And
when those we have trained find larger opportunities outside of
our organization, we are indeed happy to hear of their great
advancement. We are just as proud of those who go out into
new business avenues to assume larger and greater responsibili-
Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
ANENT KINDS OF PROFIT SHARING.
(Continued from page 3.)
over his rivals, or to play the most unfair tricks, if his own ends were fostered thereby. As a
result, huge fortunes were built up—sometimes out of the life blood of the weak.
Of course, certain elements of this method of fighting business battles still exist, and will
always exist, but the next generation will see much less of this strife than we see to-day.
It takes a long time to bring about great changes in fixed methods, but the spirit underlying
it is far stronger than many persons imagine.
Take as an illustration the co-operative system which has been adopted during the past few
years by a number of the largest manufacturing organizations.
A decade or two ago people would have thought a man crazy if he proposed to share his profits
with those who helped him make them.
The company that suggested such an idea would have been regarded as socialistic. That is not
the way in which we regard such methods now.
On the contrary, we admit that co-operation is one of the vital laws behind success—that the
more closely an employer and employe can co-operate the more money will be made and saved. As
a result, the wisdom of the profit-sharing system of doing business is no longer a question, and
there are more and more concerns adopting these methods, or others similar to them, every year,
and as I view it these men who give away vast fortunes, like Carnegie and others, are actuated by
a spirit which tends towards co-operation.
Their methods may be questioned—their motives impugned, but nevertheless they are giving
away to humanity something which they do not have to give. Therefore, it is the desire to share.
In other words, a profit-sharing impulse which causes them to act in such a manner.
We must understand that there is a great change moving resistlessly along.
Times are changing and conditions change with them. New ideas
have come to the front to be built into new institutions with new
ideals and new aims.
The move must be onward and upward. Progress is the watch-
word, and civilization cannot rest on dead men's dogmas, but on the
living, enlightened reason of humanity!
ties as are the great universities of the country, when they see
their students go out and take their places in the various walks
of life. If we were in business only to build business, it would
be a poor satisfaction for more than half a century of toiling and
trying. "Unless we build business men and women we have fallen
far short of our ideal.
"If we have laid the proper business foundation in the minds
and hearts of our associates, no matter where they go later, they
cannot yield to any temptation, however strong, to depart the
least fraction of an inch from the standards, principles and honor-
able dealing which has always been a part of this piano business.
My best wishes are always with you and your associates, and
with all true piano salesmen, no matter where they may be
laboring, for the good of the industry and of the music-loving
public."
This letter is conceived in that broad spirit for which Mr.
Wanamaker has long been noted, and he uttered a great truth
when he said: "If we were in business only to build business, it
would be a poor satisfaction for more than half a century of
toiling and trying. Unless we build business men and women
we have fallen far short of our ideals."
This is truly Wanamakerian, for the great merchant prince
has, during his lifetime, always aimed to associate high ideals
with great mercantile enterprise and weld them inseparably to-
gether. He is ever a student who is seeking new ideas to apply
to his business. The deeply imaginative and poetic side to his
character is evidenced not only in the always interesting little
essays which are a feature of his advertising, but in his private
offices and music room on the seventh floor of the Philadelphia
building, where he often retires for privacy, art, music, books
and figurative reminders of the great men who have been leaders
in the nation's history and progress, both in political and literary
spheres, abound, giving stimulus, pleasure and recreation to a
tnind often burdened with great cares.
Mr. Wanamaker is a remarkable product of American enter-
prise in the mercantile field, and his many-sidedness is evidenced
in his letter to the piano salesmen of his New York establishment.
L
AST week marked the opening of the seven months' celebration
to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the granting of
the first charter by the United Netherlands for trading at the port
of New York.
While the city has become great through its natural advantages,
no one can overlook the tremendous part played by our great manu-
facturers, who, through the quality and volume of their products
have made New York known and respected in every part of
the world.
The history of manufacturing in New York reads like a
romance. It is a story of absorbing human interest in which many
notable figures in the piand trade have played their part.
This celebration of the commercial birth of New York, running
back three hundred years, brings to mind that every business in
the piano, as well as other industries, had an insignificant beginning,
compassed very likely by a single brain and earnest labor, with
many heartbreaking years of experiments and daily thought to win
out in the battle for success.
It is to those early and earnest workers in the piano trade in
the years agone that we Owe so much to-day. Through their efforts
the American piano has become a national product, containing dis-
tinctive improvements, which had their birth through American
effort and application.
Nothing is more true than that products or businesses which
are the concrete result of years of study and effort—of days of
hardest toil and thought, come at last to represent and stand for
the character, ambitions and ideals of their founders.
Little wonder, then, that those concerns in the piano trade of
to-day, whose history goes back to the early days of American
manufacturing, should develop a pride of production and perfection
cff workmanship and unswerving loyalty to the highest business
ideals.
/
"T > HERE are at least four cities in the West and South where
J-
player-pianos, according to what seem to be very reliable
reports, constitute from seventy-five to ninety per cent- of the
total sales of the dealers.

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