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MARCH 20, 1920
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
ST. LOUIS PIANO TRADE SHOWING SOME IMPROVEMENT
Local Piano Men Report Gradual Increase in Demand, but Stocks Are Still Extremely Low—
Grand Pianos Especially Wanted—Victor Dealers Meet—Personals and Other News
ST. LOUIS, MO., March 15.—Business is recu-
perating very slowly from its recent complicated
indisposition. There are times when it does
not seem to be recuperating at all, but the more
hopeful of the watchers insist that there is a
perceptible improvement in the patient's con-
dition. The principal difficulty now is malnutri-
tion, meaning that business has so little stock to
feed upon. The piano supply seems to grow
worse instead of better. The need for grands is
very great; the people want grands and it is
hard to get them to take anything else.
Two department managers, after waiting in
vain for fulfillment of factory promises and
burning up the wires in futile endeavors .to get
goods, packed their grips last week and hurried
away to New York. J. F. Ditzell, manager of
the Famous & Barr music department, told the
world as he started away that he wasn't coming
back until he had a lot of bills of lading in his
pocket, particularly bills of lading for grands.
Xo more promises for him, he said. He planned
to go to Boston as well as New York. "We can
sell all the grands that we can get," he said. Rus-
sell Elatn, manager of the Scruggs, Vandervoort
& Barney piano department, stood it till Satur-
day noon and then he pulled out for New York
with a determination to get goods or get the
reason why.
Speaking about grands, it was an old-timer
that came in at the Stix, Baer & Fuller piano
department the other day. A Steinway & Sons
parlor grand was taken in trade which was sold
forty years ago by the Balmer & Weber Music
House Co. Charles Balmer, of the Stix, Baer &
Fuller pianos sales force, is a son of Charles
Balmer, Sr., senior partner of the Balmer &
Weber firm. He recognized the instrument as
one that the old firm sold for $1,200. Its tone
was found to be excellently preserved. Man-
ager Dockstacler expects to dispose of it to an
out-of-town school that has been waiting for
such an instrument.
The Stix, Baer & Fuller Co. is going to have
a philharmonic orchestra. Bruno Heintze, of
the piano department, has been appointed direc-
tor and is getting his musicians lined up. There
are to be thirty-six of them, of both sexes. Re-
hearsals are delayed by the rebuilding opera-
tions that are in progress. Tn the reassignment
of space when the west wing is completed, room
will be provided for the orchestra. The Scruggs,
Vandervoort & Barney Dry Goods Co. and the
Famous & Barr Co. already have orchestras.
W. C. Willis of the Baldwin Piano Co., Louis-
ville, Ky., was here during the past week at-
tending the funeral of his mother-in-law. He
formerly lived in St. Louis and was connected
with the St. Louis Baldwin store.
E. Brady, formerly with the Wurlitzer Co.,
has taken a position as a piano salesman with
the Field-Lippman Piano Co.
Arthur Conrow, general manager of the Con-
norized Music Co., was in St. Louis Wednesday
FOTOPLAYER
for the finest
Motion Picture
Theatres
AMERICAN PHOTO
PLAYER CO.
San Francisco
New York
Chicago
and Thursday with Manager E. E. Fay of the
St. Louis store. He had come from New York
by way of Chicago and left here for Memphis,
New Orleans and Birmingham. He expected
to be back in New York by the seventeenth.
The Connorized Co. has closed a deal with the
Starr Piano Co., Richmond, Ind., to job the
Starr talking machine out of St. Louis in con-
nection with the Gennett record, also made by
the Starr Co., which the Connorized Co. has
been handling. Samples are expected in a few
days and stock within thirty days. The in-
itial order will amount to $10,000. Manager Fay
is looking for larger quarters, so that he can
properly display the machines. He announces
that he has already placed two very satisfac-
tory orders in St. Louis.
R. L. Hedges, manager of the Parks Music
House, Louisiana, Mo., was in St. Louis last
week and placed a large order for Connorized
music rolls.
The Tri-State Victor Dealers' Association met
Wednesday night at the American Annex Hotel
and re-elected the old officers, as follows: Val
Reis, St. Louis, president; A. E. Parks, Hannibal,
Mo., vice-president; Theodore Maetten, St.
Louis, secretary; Fred Lehman, East St. Louis,
treasurer. New directors were elected, as fol-
lows: J. B. Moran, Charles Lippman and Ed
Rauth, all of St. Louis. H. A. Beach, manager
of the traveling department of the Victor com-
pany, and Mr. Putnam and Mr. Wear, of the
Putnam-Page Co., of Peoria, 111., spoke. Mr.
Beach promised 100 per cent improvement in
production this year compared to last year.
Edison dealers of the St. Louis zone had a
convention Thursday at the Statler Hotel as the
guests of the Silverstone Music Co., St. Louis
distributors. It concluded with a banquet, at-
tended by about 110 dealers and their wives, at
which addresses were delivered by William Max-
well, vice-president of the Edison corporation;
F. B. T. Hollenberg, of Little Rock, Ark.; Mark
Silverstone, president of the Silverstone Music
Co.; J. W. Scott, Amberola supervisor, ami
others.
OLD ORGAN IN PITTSBURGH MUSEUM
Instrument Made by Joseph Downer a Relic of
Immigration Days in Mississippi Valley
PITTSBURGH, PA.. March 15.—What is said to be
one of the very earliest organs ever made west
of the Allegheny mountains is being added to
the collection of the Carnegie Museum here.
The maker of this organ, Joseph Downer, was
born in Brookline, Mass., in 1767. An interest-
ing diary in the possession of the Downer
family shows that an organ manufactured by
Joseph Downer "was sold to John May for a
horse, a watch, a certain amount of cash and
some negotiable notes."
In speaking of the organ, Dr. J. W. Holland,
director of the Carnegie Institute museum, says:
"Taken all in all, this organ, the first to be
heard in the great valley of the Ohio, is a most
interesting souvenir of former days when the
tide of immigration into the great valley of the
Mississippi was just beginning to flow."
NEW MUSIC STORE TO OPEN
Alterations have been started to the building
at 87 Asylum street, Hartford, Conn., for oc-
cupancy by McCoy's, Inc., a Waterbury music
house, which will open a store in Hartford as
soon as the new building is ready.
The Richardson Music Co., Los Angeles, Cal..
has leased the property at 727 West Seventh
street. The store will be entirely remodeled, the
interior to be a unique showroom of Spanish
design, with a sitting room and a stairway lead-
ing to a balcony.
Confidence—
its relation
to your sales
Before you can sell a prod-
uct well, you must believe
in it yourself. The earnest
zeal of the dealer who has
faith in his pianos will
swing many a deal when
ordinary "sales arguments"
fall flat. Confidence in the
instrument and knowledge
of the maker's integrity
give a great advantage to
those who sell
LESTER
PIANOS
Grand, Upright and Player
They know that the tone,
the action and the appear-
ance of every Lester are not
only flawless, but superior.
They know that the Lester
is made complete in one
factory, by the same men
who built the first Lester,
a third of a century ago.
There are no comebacks
on sales. Lasting satis-
faction is inbuilt. Yet the
Lester can be sold at a
fair price, yielding a good
profit to the dealer. Your
territory may be open.
Write to-day for full de-
tails.
LESTER PIANO CO.
Philadelphia