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REVIEW
THE
fflJSIC TIRADE
VOL. LXVIII. No. 15
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., at 373 4th Ave., New York.
April 12, 1919
Single Copies 10 Cents
$2.00 Per Year
Music Rolls
F
OR years, so far as the player-piano retailers are concerned, the music roll was looked upon as the step-
child of the industry—something to be complained about. Many a dealer—one might almost say the
average dealer—was firm in his belief that the music roll was a necessary evil; that it could not be handled
profitably.; that it simply occupied valuable space in the store, and must be shoved to one side for
something that promised quicker returns. Dealers claimed that they handled music rolls because they needed
them to demonstrate players, but so far as actually selling them was concerned it was regarded more or less as
a waste of time.
The foregoing statements may appear at first glance to be overdrawn, but as a matter of fact they sum
up the condition that existed to a large degree in the retail music roll field up to the beginning of the war, and
to approximately the same time as the general appearance of the word roll on the market. Some good, strong
educational work on the part of the music roll manufacturers, coupled with increasing manufacturing costs,
advancing prices and a distinct shortage of rolls, then served to bring about a considerable reform in business
methods.
Whereas some years ago discounts were overliberal—in fact, sufficient to enable the dealer to slash
prices unmercifully and still break close to even—the music roll makers found it necessary to shorten wholesale
discounts to a point where, although they offered a very substantial profit when rolls were sold at list prices,
they did not provide much leeway for profitable price-cutting. Roll prices went up to a certain extent, and
along came the word roll, retailing in the neighborhood of $i and representing sufficient profit in the sale of
half a dozen or so to prove worthy of the attention of the retailer and his salesmen. These various factors
were all calculated to place, and as a matter of fact did place, the trade on a substantial, businesslike basis,
but just when things began 'moving smoothly on the new plane the price cutters again made their appearance.
Just why sensible business men, with prospects before them of building up a substantial, attractive roll
business, should seek to pull down that branch of the trade without any resultant profit to themselves is beyond
understanding, yet reports come from various sections of the country telling of dealers who are slashing prices
until the confidence of the public in those dealers who are sticking to list quotations is being shaken.
Nowadays with player sales representing close to 75 per cent, of the piano sales total, with output increasing
steadily and with those instruments promising even a cleaner sweep of the field in the future, the dealer who
cannot see the writing on the wall, who is not willing" or prepared to handle this natural demand for rolls
on a businesslike basis, should be content to let someone else with more imagination go after that business
and not resort to dog-in-the-manger tactics.
That the report of the development of the music roll business is not simply a child of the imagination is
evidenced by the progress made by the manufacturing companies, the output of some individual concerns
having increased from a few thousand annually some years ago to well over a million rolls each year at the
present time, and with the demand for the latest cuttings still unsatisfied.
Someone is selling these rolls and making money on them, and this someone is the dealer who is taking
advantage of a natural situation by selling the rolls at the list prices and making a profit that enables him to
establish and carry on a substantial department, keep his roll stock up-to-date, employ competent sales help and
do the necessary advertising.
The average piano house of any standing acknowledges the wisdom of a one-price policy in the piano
business, and applies that system as the only logical one, yet there are houses to-day who would not deviate
one nickel in the matter of prices or terms to close a piano or player sale, but who at the same time do not
hesitate to announce cut-price sales of rolls.
(Continued on page 5)