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FEBRUARY 2,
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
1924
THE POINT OF REVIEW
wore the aspect of convention time last week.
N EW The YORK
mid-Winter meetings of the associations, combined with
the meeting of the Ampico Art Society, brought a great number of
piano men to town and the hotel lobbies heard more trade talk than
they will hear again until next June. Most of this was concentrated
at the Biltmore and the Waldorf which, being where the meetings
were held, naturally got the bulk of the crowd. Of all the men
who were in town probably one of the busiest was President Wat-
kin, of the Merchants' Association. Mr. Watkin had the satisfac-
tion of having his idea of affiliated local and State associations
adopted by the executive committee on a permanent basis. Ever
since the Dallas man went into office he has been steadily working
for this and, while it is provided for in the constitution of the
Association, the adoption of plans to put this section into practice
was sort of a personal victory for him. In giving the presidency to
the Empire of the Great Southwest, as it is more and more coming
to be termed, the Association made no mistake. President Watkin
not only works hard, but, what is better still, he makes the other
members of the Association work just as hard as he does.
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^ HERE is one thing the president of the Merchants' Association
. brought up before the meeting which is not often given much
thought to in figuring the assets of the music industry. He pointed
out that, according to the Government, there are 7,000 piano dealers
in the country. Some of us may disagree with those figures as being
too large, but this is no place for argument, for Mr. Watkin simply
used them as a basis to estimate the fixed capital investment of the
retailers. If we should figure that the average investment of a retail
music merchant is $5,000, this would represent a fixed investment of
$35,000,000, quite a large figure which probably errs on the side
of being too moderate. Add to this the value of the current stocks
carried, the value of the instalment paper held, and you get an
imposing figure that gives some idea of the extent of the merchants'
branch of the industry. Next time you figure just how big the
music industries are give a little consideration to this side of the
question.
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were awarded for distance traveled by men who attended
I F the prizes
meetings, as there usually are when class reunions are held
at college, the three men who would have put the rest of those
attending out of the running were George Q. Chase, of San Fran-
cisco; J. W. Boothe, of Los Angeles, and Ben Piatt, of Los Angeles.
Neither of these three men from the Pacific Coast had occasion to
spend a solitary moment while he was in New York, for manu-
facturers' representatives were right there all the time to prevent
him from doing it. The fact that they had traveled clear across
the country to attend those meetings gives some idea of the asso-
ciation enthusiasm on the Coast. At the same time it made us
wonder how many dealers in that section would travel the length
of the Coast to visit their own convention in San Francisco next
Summer. If the men who are in New York are representative,
100 per cent is our guess.
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VERY time we hear Mark P. Campbell talk the old Scotch tune
of "The Campbells Are Coming" runs through our head. For
Mr. Campbell doesn't belie his evident ancestry when he gets on
his feet to make a speech. Hard fact? and figures are always at
his command and they were there with a vengeance when he spoke
at the dinner of the New York Piano Manufacturers' Association.
Mr. Campbell's presentation of the sorry fact that the piano indus-
try has not advanced as have the wealth and population of the
country could not have been clearer, nor could he have driven home
the application of this situation with greater emphasis. He is a
hard hitter when he gets on his feet and doesn't spare the industry
of which he is a part. This is as it should be. Telling the truth
never hurt anyone yet—in fact, it has always done him good.
And as a teller of home truths the baby grand man takes the palm.
And, while we are on the subject of the manufacturers' dinner, it
is not out of order to congratulate J. W. Stevens, president of the
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New York Piano Manufacturers' Association, on the possession of
such a talented daughter. The two songs of her composition which
were sung gave extreme pleasure, as did her sympathetic accom-
paniments at the piano.
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A CCORDING to an announcement made last week, total gross
^ *• sales of the American Piano Co. last year were approxi-
mately $13,000,000. For those whose memories go back to the days
when the entire trade was startled by the announcement that this
corporation had been formed it is a statement that tells a tale. It
is one of careful and efficient management in carrying out a project
which a large body of opinion in the industry held to be impractical
and which went deeply against tradition always strong with piano
men. But George G. Foster and William B. Armstrong were and
are of the type with whom tradition, so far as it concerns manage-
ment, has no weight; it is strong only in its best side, that of main-
taining the tradition inherent in such names as the Knabe and
Chickering which descended into their care. They have accom-
plished a difficult task—that of maintaining the old handcraft meth-
ods of artistic production under the direction of corporate organ-
ization, and their achievement is a standing refutation to those who
proclaim the decay of this type of production in the face of modern
organization.
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things in the Estey sales contest which has
O NE just of been the striking
completed was the fact that credits were given to
retail salesmen, not only for the sale of instruments from the Estey
factories, but for the sale of instruments made by other manufac-
turers and which were handled by Estey retail representatives. In
The Reviewer's memory there have been few contests conducted
on such a broad basis. A salesman in this contest scored points even
though he sold a second-hand upright of any make. That is real
aid for the merchant and the sort of a contest that brings real
results to those dealers who were fortunate enough to have their
salesmen participate in it. Another good thing about the way in
which the credits were awarded was the fact that mere sales were
not the sole criterion. In retail selling a contest based on that
criterion alone is practically valueless. For mere volume of sales
is a poor guide to the value of a salesman to his house. The man
who never sells except on maximum terms, who obtains minimum
down payments, in whose vocabulary cash is an unknown word,
who fights for the maximum on every trade-in involved in one of
his sales, may close the year with an imposing volume, but may
show far less net profit than a fellow salesman who, while he did
not make so many sales, at the same time sold on shorter terms,
got a greater percentage of cash, and did not represent the customer
instead of the dealer when a trade-in was involved. The Estey
Piano Co. gave all these things careful consideration in planning
its contest and that is why it has been so valuable, not alone to
the company itself, but to every dealer whose salesmen participated
in the struggle for the prizes.
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HE travelers have lost the first round in the fight for inter-
T changeable
mileage books, but, like game fighters, they are
going to continue the struggle. The Supreme Court, in setting aside
the order of the Interstate Commerce Commission, did not hold the
act under which it was issued unconstitutional. So the men on the
road, through their national body, of which the Piano Travelers'
Association is a part, are going to carry on the fight. Why such
books should not be issued passeth human understanding. Why the
man on the road should not be afforded a little relief from the
expenses he is under and given a few conveniences nobody seems to
know. At best his life is not an easy one, as any man who has ever
had to make a train can testify. At worst—well, there is only one
word describes it and, this being a moral paper, we will not use it.
So here's hoping the next round in the fight goes in their favor, as
it most likely will, for they show no discouragement for this tem-
porary setback.
T H E REVIEWER.