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JULY 23,
1921
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
ST. LOUIS PIANO DEALERS DOING GOOD SUMMER TRADE
Comparative Figures for 1920 and 1921 Show That This Season Is Fully Equal to That of
Last Year in Respect of Business Done—Real Salesmanship Producing Results
ST. LOUIS, MO., July 18.—St. Louis piano men
who have some leisure time this Summer are
amusing themselves by studying the figures on
this Summer's business and the figures on last
Summer's business. They are finding that it
not only passes the time but affords encourage-
ment. The comparison discloses a see-saw situ-
ation. Some months of the Spring and Sum-
mer have run ahead of the same months last
year and some have run behind. The encour-
agement consists in the prospect that when an
average is struck it will be found that this Sum-
mer is as good as last, and some dealers are
optimistic enough to expect that the year will
compare favorably with last year. Just now
there is a slight improvement in the piano situ-
ation. Grands and player-pianos are going bet-
ter than they did in the Spring. The suggested
explanation is that when the general business
depression set in many who were able to buy
the best in pianos or players and were thinking
of buying put off doing so because they were
in other lines of business and were not able
to see how bad business was going to be. Now
that they can see their way clear they are will-
ing to buy and are buying. It is hard, however,
to move the medium and lower-priced instru-
ments because of the continuing precariousness
of employment.
If all piano salesmen had the energy and per-
sistence of a young man at the Scruggs, Van-
dervoort & Barney piano department less
would be heard about poor business. This
young man is O. A. Lovell. At the beginning
of last month he told Manager Elam that he
believed that if he put on a night-rding cam-
paign he could do business. Elam told him to
go as far as he liked. He worked every night,
hauling people to the store in his machine and
getting their signatures on the dotted line. At
the end of the month he counted up and found
that he had made sixteen good sales, mostly of
high-priced players. Manager Elam was glad
to get rid of them because he was overstocked
and the normal demand for them was light. Of
course, the young man worked hard, but he got
results which justified hard work.
No more meetings of the Music Merchants'
Association of St. Louis are to be held until
cooler weather comes. The meetings will be
resumed in September and, to make up for lost
time, three a month will be held. Besides the
usual monthly night meeting for the active
members there will be two unusual mid-day
meetings for everybody, actives and associates,
at which entertainment will be provided.
There is good picking at Belleville, 111., for a
piano salesman who can persuade owners of
organs to trade them in for pianos. The per-
sonal property assessment in Belleville shows
that there are 1,052 organs in that town and
only 1,503 pianos.
When Mrs. Phil A. Lehman, wife of the
president of the Lehman Piano Co., boarded a
Fourth street car the other day she had a $500
gold mesh bag with some money in it. When
she got off she did not have either. It had
been taken from her lap by a sneak thief. Mr.
Lehman notified the police.
E. P. Johnson, who makes the Weaver piano
at Ottawa, 111., and the Seebold piano at Elgin,
111., was here the latter part of the week. He
said the Ottawa factory had been kept going,
but there had been some short time at the
Elgin factory.
Harry S. Talbot, of the Starck Piano Co., has
returned from an automobile trip to Wisconsin.
E. W. Lunte has returned from a vacation trip
to Chicago.
E. W. Furbush, of the Haddorff Piano Co.,
Chicago, was here last week. Other visitors
were Mr. Allen, of Kohler & Campbell, New
York, and Mr. Jones, representing the J. P.
Seeburg line.
Miss Laura Pickel, of the Field-Lippman
Piano Co., has returned from an automobile
vacation trip to Kansas City.
E. A. Kieselhorst, president of the Kieselhorst
Piano Co., and his wife and sons will motor East
in August and the oldest of the boys, Wallace,
will be placed in Yale.
Russell Elam, manager of the Scruggs, Van-
dervoort & Barney piano department, will go
to the Missouri Ozarks early in August for ten
days' fishing and will go from there to Kansas
City, where he will spend two weeks.
William L. Lindhorst, formerly with the Con-
roy Piano Co., has joined the Baldwin Co.
GOOD BUSINESS IN INDIANAPOLIS FOR LIVE DEALERS
Statements From Retail Piano Men Disagree as to the Real Condition of Business, but Those
Who Are Hustling Are Finding Little Reason for Complaining—News of the Week
.INDIANAPOLIS, IND., July 19.—Not infrequently
these days one hears a music dealer speak thus:
"Business is rotten. If retailers tell you they
are doing more business now than a year ago
they are lying. There isn't any business."
Just to avoid hard feelings and to prevent
the stirring up of strife, a certain hustling In-
dianapolis piano dealer's name will be left out
of this bona-fide quotation from an interview
with him. He said some good, worth-while stuff
and he spoke honestly with no thought of brag-
ging or boosting his own game. Fournushing
means nothing to this dealer; he believes only
in hard work. He said:
"Business is good with us, but I don't want to
go down the street saying so. If I did the other
fellows would say I was lying. It's the truth,
though; business is so good with us that we
have paid our expenses this month so far and
have made a good profit. It is the best July
we have had in several years and is not far
behind some of our Decembers.
"You ask if business generally is not slow,
and want to know how we do it? Sure, busi-
ness is slower than it was; it is decidedly poor in
lots of lines. But what does that mean? It
just means that a man must get out and work.
The business is to be had if you go after it.
We are working, I tell you, working day and
night and Sundays. A piano dealer has every
opportunity in the world to go out and get
after the business.
"One of our salesmen worked on a prospect
for several days, but he couldn't close the deal.
Finally I decided to help him, at his sugges-
tion, and so we went together to see the woman.
I was determined to make the deal or break it
on that trip. I handled her kind of rough, I
expect; put it up to her that she either wanted
the player or she didn't and that we were
offering her more for her old player than she
could get a month or two later. Well, she
finally agreed to buy and the next day we
delivered the instrument.
"Here's the interesting feature. That woman
got rather annoyed, I guess, because we were
persistent. She said a salesman from another
piano' store had called on her and had offered
her $50 more for her old player than we offered
her and then had not bothered her any more.
That was surely thoughtful of him, I told her,
but we were not conducting our business ac-
cording to the other fellow's rules.
"You see, that other salesman was one of the
kind who are saying business is rotten. He had
the edge on us, to begin with, in the better price
he offered that woman for her old player, but
he fell down on the job and we sold the cus-
tomer. Now, I say you've got to be a little
rough in order to get people out of the trance
they have fallen into. That's where most of
the hard times come from, just the idea people
get that they'll wait a little longer before they
buy. There is just as much money in the coun-
try now as ever, although, of course, frozen
credits are affecting many lines. But, anyway,
the business is to be had—if you go after it."
The ten leading music houses of the city
joined in an advertisement announcing early
closing for the Summer. They close daily at
5 p. m. and Saturdays at 1 p. m. Not all the
dealers joined in the movement. In explana-
tion the advertisement said: "It is only to be
regretted that the decision of the music stores
to close early was not quite unanimous. The
leading music stores, however, have subscribed
to this movement and are confident that they
will have the commendation and co-operation
of the public for so doing."
A sale conducted the last three weeks by
the Pearson Piano Co., principally for the pur-
pose of closing out used instruments, has
brought favorable results, according to Man-
ager Stockdale. The sale is being held at the
Shelbyville, Muncie, Kokomo and Columbus
stores of the company and will be continued,
Mr. Stockdale said, as long as results warrant.
The Fuller & Ryde Music Co. has largely
increased sales of Victor records of "My Old
Kentucky Home" and "Old Black Joe," as
played by Foster and Hanford on saws, by a
window display gotten up with the co-operation
of E. C. Atkins & Co., saw manufacturers of
this city.
An artistic arrangement of the records, to-
gether with saws, attracted much attention. The
display cards provided by the saw company
were suitable, as, for instance: "You can spoil
enough lumber with a poor saw to buy an At-
kins saw and a piano," "Using Atkins saws is
like kissing a pretty girl; when you try it you
want more," "If you had teeth like an Atkins
saw and as good a temper you'd 'cut up' more."
The industrial situation in this city shows
little change. In some lines operations are at
normal or close to normal, but 'for the most
part the automobile and kindred industries con-
tinue to mark time.
KIMBALL STORE IN PLATTSBURG
The W. W. Kimball Co., piano manufacturer,
has opened a store in Plattsburg, Mo., with spe-
cial display of Kimball musical instruments, in-
cluding pianos, player-pianos, talking machines,
etc. The store will be in charge of a factory
representative.
VAN OLINDA JOINS THOMAS STORE
ALBANY, N. Y., July 18.—Edgar S. Van Olinda,
well-known local musician, has become asso-
ciated with the Thomas Music Store, Inc., 101
North Pearl street. The establishment handles
pianos, Victrolas, sheet music and other musical
instruments and supplies.
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