Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
AUGUST 7, 1920
THE
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
COOLER WEATHER LIVENS UP MUSIC TRADE IN ST. LOUIS |"
End of Hot Wave Helps Retail Business in All Lines—Sales Totals for July Prove Up to Aver-
age—W. A. Lippman Returns From Pacific Coast—Moving Ordinance Passed
August 2.—There is one good
thing about bad business. A change for the
better, no matter how slight, makes everybody
feel good and they begin to talk about how
good business is. The next best thing to good
business is feeling good and saying nice things
about it. It is optimism like that which coaxes
coy business back to its best. It was falling
temperature which made a rising business last
week. The week before the weather was too
hot for anybody to buy pianos or anything else.
The first part of last week a delightful cool wave
came to town and people were disposed to buy
things out of sheer gratitude for the change.
The week before a piano salesman who spoke
to a prospect was inviting murder. Last week
prospects were civil and even affable and the
piano men made hay while the weather was
cool. All in all, July was not an unpleasant
month and the piano men seem to have done
about all that they could expect to do in July.
Business was better than expected at the Leh-
man Piano Co. Phil Lehman, president of that
company, says the firm's July business was 50
per cent better than its June business. And col-
lections were never better. It is surprising, Mr.
Lehman says, the way people are coming in and
paying their accounts.
,^ ;
Any piano manufacturers in Chicago, Detroit,
New York, Boston and Philadelphia who have
explanations to make for not producing more
pianos had better prepare to make them now.
E. A. Kieselhorst, president of the Kieselhorst
Piano Co., is coming to these cities and the only
things that he wants worse than explanations
are pianos. He will be about ten days on the
tour.
W. A. Lippman, secretary and manager of the
Field-Lippman Piano Co., is back sooner than
he expected to be from his motor tour to the
Pacific Coast. The increasing difficulty of get-
ting gasoline the further west one journeys
had something to do with his turning home-'
ward. He found that in places the scarcity was
so great that sales were being made to trucks
only.
The St. Louis City ordinance requiring mov-
ing companies to report to the City Register
the old and new addresses of persons moving
into, out of or from one place to another with-
in the city has been declared constitutional by
the Missouri Supreme Court. The ordinance,
which was passed for the purpose of. preventing
time-payment persons from "losing" themselves
and for the protection of merchants who have
sold musical instruments and other articles on
time payments, was attacked by some of the
moving companies, which wanted to save them-
selves the trouble of making the reports. An
injunction was sought and obtained in the Cir-
cuit Court, where the ordinance was held to be
unconstitutional. The Supreme Court held that
under a part of the State Constitution provid-
ing for the "licensing and regulation of all per-
sons or corporations doing business in the
State" the city had a right to enact and enforce
the ordinance. The decision reverses the de-
ST. LOUJS, MO.,
Why ReUnish?
You can save money on expensive Refinishing
jobs with the use of Campbell's Varnish Repair
Products.
Each Campbell Product is made for a specific
Wood Finish Repair and is perfectly suited to the
use for which intended.
Campbell's Products are composed of the high-
est class materials. Sold on 30 days' trial. If
any Campbell Product fails to give satisfaction,
it is returnable at full purchase price.
Write for booklet, "How to Re-
pair Damage to Varnished Surfaces."
The M. L. Campbell Co.
713 East 19th St.. Kansas City. Mo.
cree of the Circuit Court and nullifies the in-
junction.
J. E, Dockstader, manager of the Stix, Baer
& Fuller Dry Goods Co. piano department, has
gone East to circulate among the piano fac-
tories.
Employes of the Famous & Barr Co. music
salon had a picnic Saturday at the Famous Wel-
fare Farm on the Meramec. The trip was made
in automobiles.
SAYS BIG CREDITS ARE AVAILABLE
Federal Reserve Board Could Advance as Much
as $2,500,000,000 if Necessary—Controller J. S.
Williams Hits at High Interest Rates
WASHINGTON, D. C, August 2.—With the Fed-
eral Reserve System in a position to lend $2,-
500,000,000 there is absolutely no justification
for the unrest which prevails in some business
and financial quarters, John Skelton Williams,
controller of the currency, declared to-day.
Air. Williams said that the Reserve banks
now have an unused lending power of $750,000,-
000, which can, only in an emergency, be
stretched to $2,500,000,000. This unemployed
lending power equals, he asserted, the aggre-
gate amount of all the emergency currency put
forward at the outbreak of the war.
Interest rates in New York, ranging to 10, 12
and 15 per cent, are without justification, Mr.
Williams declared. He' said that New York
City was the only great community "of conse-
quence" in the whole world where such rates
were allowed. He deplored that this high rate
of interest in New York was having a bad effect
upon the rest of the country, adding that the
very banks which charged their customers as
high as 15 per cent could themselves obtain
money from Federal Reserve banks at 6 per
cent. Mr. Williams said in part:
"The action of the Federal Reserve banks in
restricting extension of credit for unessentials
and luxuries, and ill encouraging increased pro-
duction of commodities most needed, has been
distinctly beneficial and has, it is believed, been
a material influence in reducing the high cost
of living far and wide. Although the applica-
tion of the brakes seems to have had a jarring
effect upon nervous systems and has occasioned
unfounded fears of a money panic and commer-
cial crisis, there are in our country abundant
reasons for confidence and encouragement as to
the future.
"Those inclined to pessimistic views as to
our financial situation probably do not know, or
do not appreciate, the immensely significant fact
that our Federal Reserve banks have, at this
time, an unused lending power of $750,000,000,
and that if occasion required the board could,
by waiving reserve requirements on deposits
and notes only 10 per cent, increase the unused
lending power to two and a half billion dollars,
which is twenty-five times as much as all the
national banks of the country (which constitute
a large majority of the membership of the re-
serve system) were ever borrowing at any one
time on bills payable and rediscounts prior to
1913, the maximum of such borrowings at any
time up to 1013 having been only $100,000,000.
"In the face of such figures and facts as these
the fear expressed in some sections that there
might not be money enough available to move
the crops seems manifestly absurd."
MACK HOWE APPOINTED MANAGER
Mack Howe, one of the popular young busi-
ness men of Nashville, Tenn., has taken charge
of the Pathe department of the Sharp-Howse
Furniture Co. in that city. He has had consid-
erable experience in the piano and talking ma-
chine field and is well fitted to take charge of
the department in the Sharp-Howse store,
Christman
<(
The First Touch Tells"
For beauty of tone, for
symmetry of proportion
and for exquisiteness of
finish in a small Grand,
you may search far and
wide and not find the
equal of
The
Christman
Famous
Five-Foot
Studio Grand
Whole-souled admira-
tion and enthusiastic
comment have been the
invariable rule with
every dealer who has
viewed this superb crea-
tion of the Christman
factory.
A cordial invitation is ex-
tended to visit our factory
and see the actual manu-
facture of
Christman
Grands Players
Uprights
"The First Touch Tells"
Christman Piano Co.
597 E. 137th Street, New York