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Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
VOL. LXXIII. No. 16
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., at 373 4th Ave., New York.
Possibilities
F
Oct. 15, 1921
«•«»• $8.00
£•£••
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Per Year
Piano Shortag
OR the past several months the wholesale piano traveler has again been an active factor in the trade. He
has covered the country in every direction, has gone into the small towns and the hamlets and has impor-
tuned the dealers for orders. He has not confined his efforts to securing orders for immediate delivery but
has endeavored to persuade the dealers to give some indication of their requirements for the Fall and
Winter months. The argument to the dealers has been that unless they gave the manufacturer some idea of
their actual requirements on the basis of a normal or even subnormal demand, in order that the manufacturer could
plan and carry on operations, the dealers would very likely find that they would be unable to get pianos quickly
enough later on when they were needed most. Oftentimes there were dealers who laughed loud and long at
what they termed the traveler's "little joke."
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4
As a matter of fact, the advice of the traveler or of the manufacturer in his letters to dealers was far
from being a joke. Right now there are a number of piano manufacturers in the East who are running around
in circles because they are behind in orders and see no chance of catching up for a number of weeks despite the
urgent call of their dealers for stock. It is not a question of the facilities of the various factories being taxed
to meet demands, or of orders being received in abnormal quantities. It is simply a question of endeavoring, with
badly depleted factory forces, to take care of a volume of orders that is subnormal rather than normal.
With only sufficient orders in sight to operate their plants at from thirty to fifty per cent of normal ca-
pacity, the majority of manufacturers did the only thing possible, either shut down entirely and then worked
full force for alternate periods or else kept running right along with skeleton forces. There was no other
alternative because of the fact that even for the strongest company to continue running full force and building
up great reserves of instruments to protect the dealers without any guarantee of orders meant flirting with the
bankruptcy court.
We now find in the piano manufacturing centers a situation where there are enough orders on hand to
warrant increasing operations twenty or thirty per cent, or even to capacity, with the manufacturers unable to
bring about such an increase because of the scarcity of labor. There are said to be 500,000 men out of employ-
ment in New York, but apparently skilled piano makers are not among them, for dozens of advertisements in
the want ad columns of the daily papers and the direct efforts of the manufacturers and their representatives
have failed to bring the desired response.
The manufacturers who some months ago stated that the refusal of dealers to anticipate requirements
and their failure to order on the chance of prices falling, or for other reasons, would, if persisted in, result in
disorganizing the manufacturing branch of the industry have the satisfaction, if it may be so called, of seeing
their prophecies fulfilled.
The aim of every manufacturer with a well-organized staff is to keep his organization intact. Many
piano manufacturers have been unable to do this without facing ruin, and the result has been that skilled piano
workers, tired of part time or intermittent work in their own line, have gone into other industries and just at
present appear to be inclined to remain in their new fields.
With the Fall business really getting under way, there come prospects of a piano shortage that is not
fancied, but real. It may be that through continued and earnest efforts the manufacturers will be able to bring
about a readjustment. Just now there are hundreds of pianos waiting to be made, but with no piano men to make
them.
During the war, when labor was scarce, it was understood that the shortage was only temporary, and
would be ended with the ceasing of hostilities. The shortage just now, however, presents a far greater problem
not only to the manufacturer but to the retailer who expects to do a fair amount of business between now and
January first.