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REVIEW
THE
VOL. LXXIX. No. 17 Published Every Saturday. Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., 383 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. Oct. 25, 1924
Single Copies 10 Cents
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Justified Building for the Future
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O M E of these days the Government agencies in their constantly expanding work of compiling informa-
tion and statistics for the guidance of business men will develop a table of business mortality with a
view to indicating the percentage of manufacturers and merchants in various lines of trade who give
up the business ghost each year, as well as figures showing the average business life of concerns in
various lines.
This information to a limited degree has been compiled by various industries of their own volition,
and from facts available it is quite evident that the music industry, or at least the piano trade itself, has little
to be ashamed of when it comes to a question of business stability. It is true that piano dealers come and go,
but there are comparatively few industries wherein can be found such a substantial proportion of houses which
have operated under the same names and most generally under the same direct management for periods rang-
ing from twenty-five years to a full century.
In the retail field the palm unquestionably goes to the Seigling Music House of Charleston, S. C , which
has passed the century mark and is still going strong. Considering the age of the industry, this record is
little short of remarkable. But then we have a score or more of prominent concerns who have passed the
half century mark or are crowding that mark very closely. The A. Hospe Co., of Omaha, for instance,
celebrated its fiftieth anniversary this week; Houck, of Memphis, its forty-first; Lyon & Healy, Inc., Chicago,
its sixtieth, and so on.
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It requires little effort to bring to mind concerns in the retail trade with a half century of business suc-
cess back of them, or who are approaching that enviable goal. Among them the Dreher Piano Co., of Cleveland;
Goggan & Bro., of San Antonio; Droop & Sons Co., of Washington; Heppe, of Philadelphia; Watkin, of
Dallas; Sherman, Clay & Co., San Francisco; Ditson, of Boston, and a number of others of equal standing
may be mentioned.
W e sometimes hear the piano trade criticized for its conservatism, and perhaps as a trade it is con-
servative when compared with other and younger industries, but it is probably this inclination to be cautious
that makes for solidity and permanence—the idea of giving value and building up a following that continues
from generation to generation. It is a noteworthy fact that the outstanding crashes in the retail piano field
during the past decade or two have in most cases been those concerns which have thrown overboard the policy
of conservatism and have gone after sensational records with results that have been disastrous.
When the average retailer looks over the record of the trade, finds that the average business life of the
dealer is long as compared with other industries, that the failures are few in proportion, and that long business
life has an advertising and sales value, he will gain a new conception of the logic of building not for to-day
but for the future. He will, for instance, appreciate the real meaning of the music advancement work that has
developed so strongly throughout the country and the direct results of which have not perhaps manifested them-
selves in his own store. He will also gauge his advertising and his business practices along lines that will
make for public confidence and will shun the bargain type of business as of the moment.
It is an acknowledged fact that those retailers in the trade who have seen their business enjoy long and
prosperous life are those who make the quality appeal, who handle, and have handled, instruments of recog-
nized standing in their respective grades, and who have put back of those instruments their own energy with
a view to making them permanent factors in their local territories.
Age alone means very little, for it is quite as likely to bring with it decay as progress. But when a
retail house can look back over a half or even a quarter century of successful growth, and can present to the
public a sound going institution, it speaks well not only for the concern itself but for the industry of which it
is a part.
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