Music Trade Review

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Approach the Future with Due Caution
[0, this brings us to the next subject. The matter of
caution in planning for the future. The words of
warning of L. G. LaMair, president of Lyon & Healy,
Inc., Chicago, which were sounded in an article published
in The Review last February are very timely. "One of the
greatest services I think we as individuals or we as an
association can render," he said, "is to drive home to our
business associates and to our local merchants, whether
they be in the music business or any other business, the
idea that conducting a retail business will not be, with or
without the OPA, with or without any kind of Government
regulation, a simple task. . . . Most of us in the music busi-
ness have liquidated our installment accounts down to the
point where they are almost non-existent. Most of us have
substantially liquidated our inventory of merchandise. But
the time is going to come, within the next year, the next
two, three, five years, when a normal supply of merchan-
dise is available, when we will have to once more indulge
in that happy practice of trying to sell merchandise. To
the extent that we are successful, we are going to increase
our investment in our business, and we are going to do it
quite rapidly. . . . Sooner or later we are all going to be
confronted with the necessity of getting more capital in-
vested in our business, temporarily borrowing it if neces-
sary. If we can't do that, we are going ten have to curtail
our operations so that the volume of business we do is
voluntarily kept within the limits of the capital we employ
in the business." Evidently many dealers have heeded this
good advice and have kept their capital liquid. We are
glad to note that many have used some of it for modern-
ization. During the past month we have had marked evi-
dence of this from stories which we have received from
dealers in many parts of the country. There is another
phase of the present business which is somewhat different
than previously. Many stores which devoted their business
exclusively to pianos are now handling radio-phonographs
and radios. Previous to the war there were few who handled
this type of instrument and therefore the change is notice-
able.
Jewelry, Luggage and Pianos
E learned recently that jewelary had been taken
off the OPA list. This happened about six months
ago. Then we learned that luggage had been
eliminated also. Regarding the former we called up the
Editor of the leading jewelry trade paper and asked "How
come?" "Well," he said, "we have about 84 associations
in the jewelry industry so they got together and formed
a Jewelry Vigilance Committee which was adequately repre-
sented in Washington at all times-and kept pounding until
we got what we wanted." We found that a similar plan
was pursued by the luggage industry also. When this was
brought to the attention of William A. Mills, Secretary of
the National Association of Music Merchants, at the meeting
of the Music Council of America in New York recently he
said that jewelry had been taken off the list because pro-
duction had increased sufficiently to meet the demand. On
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW. JANUARY, 1946
the other hand, George A. Fernley, Secretary of the National
Piano Manufacturers Association who is also Secretary of
the Wholesale Jewelers Association, stated that the OPA
had so much trouble trying to put its finger on how to price
jewelers supplies that they finally gave it up as a bad job.
While this was going on the thought struck us that if
pianos had been taken off the list and could have been made
there might have been a million new pianos sold in the past
three years in place of the million reconditioned pianos
which changed hands. We don't know any better illustra-
tion of production meeting a demand than that.
Dealers Should Educate the Public on Tuning
V } \ ^\ WO flagrant cases of its itinerant tuning has been
II brought to our attention. One was where a tuner
-^- went into a home and told a customer that the metal
action brackets should be changed to wooden brackets,
took out the metal brackets and disappeared. The second
one was where a so-called tuner told a customer that there
was something wrong with the wrest plank on a piano and
told the customer it would cost $75 to fix it, collected $25
in advance and disappeared. In the first instance the
owner of the piano finally came to the manufacturer and
had to pay to have the piano repaired. In the second in-
stance the owner of the piano was out $25. In both in-
stances the owners of the pianos were at fault for not
investigating and finding out first who they were dealing
with. But, we believe dealers could advantageously put on
a campaign in their local territories advising their cus-
tomers how important it is to know who they are dealing
with. It doesn't do the dealer or the legitimate tuner any
good to have such happenings occur too often.
The 74% Increase in Retail Piano Pricing
V )t "^HE most recent ruling of the OPA gives the dealer
II a flat 74% mark-up on those pianos on which there
""^ has been established a wholesale ceiling price of
more than 20%. As near as we can judge this applies to
all pianos now being manufactured with the exception of
those made by ten manufacturers whose price ceilings over
and above the 13% originally granted, have not as yet
come through although they have been applied for. The
dealers do not feel any too enthusiastic about this new
ruling as they feel they are taking it on the chin. The
next step is to get pianos off the OPA list entirely as
well as all other musical instruments, which in our esti-
mation can only be done by concerted action through
the Congress. President Truman in his recent "fireside
chat" over the radio urged the public to contact their con-
gressmen and tell them what they thought of the present
deplorable situation. Now that you have had an invitation
from the "head man" we hope you have told them what
you think about it. The OPA claims that it can't release a
commodity from the pricing list until production equals
the demand. But, the question that has puzzled us is "How
can production be increased when wholesale price ceilings
are such that both in supplies and finished product no one
can operate profitably?" Perhaps you can figure it out.