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THE PRESTO BUYERS*
GUIDE CLASSIFIES ALL
PIANOS AND PLAYERS
AND THEIR MAKERS
PRESTO
E,tabli.hed 1884 THE AMERICAN MUSIC TRADE WEEKLY
NEW YORK LIFE
IN PIANO PLANTS
Glimpses Also at Activities in Piano Action
Manufacturing, the Phonograph and
Sheet Music Production Put
into Words.
By H. S. Newman.
Wessell, Nickel & Gross, 457 W. 45th street, the
famous piano action manufacturers, anticipate very
soon the extensive enlargement of their already ex-
tensive plant. When completed the company ex-
pects to be able to make shipments on short notice
—in fact, prompt shipments, which has from the
first been its rule, will be the inviolate slogan when
the increased facilities make it possible. Wessell,
Nickel & Gross were never so rushed with orders
as now, nor was the famous product ever so high
in the esteem of the trade.
Wessell, Nickel & Gross, during these past years
of stress and war, have been able to satisfactorily
meet the wants of their customers in America. But,
in order to do this, they have been compelled to
cancel thousands of foreign orders. While, naturally,
they ordinarily would want all business that came
to them, it has during the past few years been
"America first and last" with them. When their
American customers are fully at ease, any surplus
can go for export. Not all American manufac-
turers have, hewed to the line so closely in the
patriotic principle referred to.
THE PRESTO YEAR BOOK
IS THE ONLY ANNUAL
REVIEW OF
THE MUSIC TRADES
/« Cent.; $2.00 a Year
Manager J. D. McLean. He said the Boston factory
is shipping pianos just as fast as they could be
turned out. Mr. McLean was just leaving New
York for a short visit. He went to visit his
mother in Austin, Texas, and his ranch in West
Texas, where he will hunt and fish. On his way he
planned stop-overs in Chicago, St. Louis, Little
Rock, New Orleans, and Housotn to shake hands
with his many personal and business friends.
Mr. McLean is a self-made piano man, starting at
the bootom of the ladder. When a boy, he began
with the old Texas retailer, Thomas Goggan, at
San Antonio; from there he went to Bush & Gerts
and has now been for fifteen years with Mason &
Hamlin in New York.
Thrillers for Children.
The Talking Book Corporation, 1 West 34th
street, is an interesting place to visit—for grownups,
but if the children are brought along, possibly a
camp would have to be provided for an indefinite
stay. Fairy tales, Three Beans, Red Riding Hood,
Mother Goose Jingles, Nursery rhymes, Goodnight
lullabys, and everything—all to be played on the
phonograph! The record is a new guise, or dis-
guised, with handsome lithographs, animals, birds,
people and things appropriate to the subject. A
wonderful help to tired mothers, and elimination
of nurse girls.
Manager G. Franklin Springer is out of town, but
'tis plain that he is stirring up a great deal of
"Talking Book" trade.
HEAD OF BIG PLAYER
ACTION P U N T RESTS
A. G. Gulbransen, of Great Industry Which
He Founded, Is Spending a Few Week's
Vacation in the South.
A. G. Gulbransen, president of the Gulbransen-
Dickinson Company, Chicago, who with Mrs. Gul-
bransen has been in the South for more than two
weeks, left St. Augustine, Fla., Friday for points
farther south. Palm Beach and Miami are places
that are probably in the itinerary of Mr. and Mrs.
Gulbransen. Mr. Gulbransen has been in the steady
grind of business for many months, and the new
Gulbransen factory which is now going up had
caused him a great deal of extra thought, so that
the short vacation he is now taking will be to him
a real recreation and rest.
It isn't always safe to become personal in dis-
cussing the heads of large industries, but inasmuch
as Mr. Gulbransen is far away, the temptation is
great to recall the almost remarkable progress of
that gentleman as a manufacturer. When he first
CINCINNATI OFFERS
INTERESTING ITEMS
Prosperity at Tonk's.
Things bear a prosperous look at the factory of
Wm. Tonk & Bro., Inc., on Tenth avenue. Mr.
Tonk said that during February the difficulties due
to the storm had made it hard to get to and from
transportation depots which caused delays in get-
ing material and shipping out finished instruments.
Otherwise, Mr. Tonk said, business is good, work-
ers are returning to work, and with better weather
things will move more satisfactorily to both man-
ufacturers and dealers.
DeRivas & Harris Need Space.
At the DeRivas & Harris Mfg. Co., 135th street,
1 was told that business is so large they still lack
for sufficient factory space. Every foot of the plant
is utilized and with fine results, even if the dealers
do continually clamor for "more."
Aldcrofftt a Booster.
President Richard B. Aldcroftt is an enthusiastic
Music Trade Chamber of Commerce booster who
believes that now the organization has in process
of making a business influence for all in the piano
trade, which will be of high order, with competent
business men in the management, the feature is
sure to be vastly helped. Certainly Mr. Aldcroftt
himself has the energy and the ability to make the
organization a power in the industrial world.
A Call on Frank A. Decker.
At Decker & Sons, I met Frank A. Decker, who
still feels injured because Presto at any time did
some advertising for some other concern called
Decker. I told the conscientious and loyal head
of Decker & Son that he had nowhere a better
friend than Presto and its editors, who held the
memory of his father in reverence and regarded
him as most worthy of every good thing that any
maker of good pianos could crave. I told him
Presto would do him much good in all the ways at
his command. I also said that anyone dealing in
type could "pi a form," but after all the future was
the thing now more important than the past. Mr.
Decker is a fine representative of the best type of
piano maker, as I thought when he invited me to
call again.
A series of weekly meetings of the piano sales-
men from the Piano Club of Chicago will be held
in the offices of the American Steel & Wire Co. in
Room 1140, Continental & Commercial Bank Build-
ing, 208 South La Salle street. The first meeting
will take place on Friday, March 12, at 7:30 p. m.
The purpose of these meetings is to provide a way
so the salesmen may pool their intelligence in the
art and science of piano selling. Each salesman is
expected to make known some discovery he has
made in salesmanship. Anyone can contribute
some selling point without study or preparation
and should gladly do so when he realizes that for
every selling hint he gives, he will recieve fifty
new ones in return.
Ricordi's Sheet Music.
At G. Ricordi & Co.'s, 14 E. 43d street, I had a
talk with Mr. Maxwell, the manager. His cry is,
cannot get goods fast enough; thinks American,
all songs, rather than those of English writers, are
the thing today. He thinks the trade will come
back to old methods in selling sheet music, and will
be sold along with rolls and records. The phono-
graph retailers being new in the selling game Mr.
Maxwell believes they may eventually be enlisted
also in the sheet music business.
Mason & Hamlin Manager.
Mason & Hamlin Co., 313 5th Ave., are fortunate in
Charles W. Jordan died Sunday at his home, 25
Clayton street. Maiden, Mass. He was seventy
years old and had tuned pianos for the Mason &
Hamlin Company, giving his special attention to
concert grand work, and traveled with Madame
Melba and Madame Nordica on their tours. At
one period of his life he made a professional trip
to Mexico and South America, after which he went
into business for himself in Maiden. Mr. Jordan
was an all round musician, playing the violin and
viola.
Wurlitzer Head Active in Association Cam-
paign—Graul Enlarges, and Piano Tuners'
Secretary Speaks.
Rudolph Wurlitzer was appointed chairman of
the membership campaign which will start in a few
days to enroll those dealers in musical lines who
are not members of the association. Dam. Summey,
president of the local organization, presided at the
meeting.
The Otto Zimmerman Music Publishing Company
will construct its new plant on Third street, Cov-
ington, Ky. The site was purchased last week for
a consideration of $10,000. No definite plans of
construction have been decided upon as yet.
The William R. Graul Piano Company, which
occupies the second floor of the building at 129
East Fifth street, has leased the third floor of the
same building, which it will use as a music roll and
talking machine department.
W. F. MacClellan, secretary of the National As-
sociation of Piano Tuners, addressed the Cincinnati
Music Industries last week at the Chamber of
Commerce. Mr. MacClellan said that more than
400,000 pianos will be manufactured this year.
CHICAGO EXPERIENCE MEETINGS.
TUNED FOR GREAT ARTISTS.
A. G. GULBRANSEN.
came to notice of the trade, it was as an inventor.
He had perfected the now famous Gulbransen player
action. He had started in a small way out on Chi-
cago's West Side, having his shop in the corner of a
small piano factory. It was not long before atten-
tion had been drawn to the remarkable character-
istics of Mr. Gulbransen's action, and in time he had
a factory of his own in the loft of a large building.
Gradually the Gulbransen name grew into the
playerpiano world and a pushing piano manufacturer
undertook to market the little Gulbransen action.
It was a success. After a year or two new forces
added to Mr. Gulbransen's enterprise and the prog-
ress of the player action industry rapidly expanded
until the present great industry, of which Mr. Gul-
bransen is the head, was formed and the giant fac-
tories taken possession of. Additions have since
been made to the plant, until today it is one of the
show places of the trade.
Certainly Mr. Gulbransen has earned his rest, but
the force of his personality remains even when the
founder of the big industry is far away. " Mr. Gul-
bransen will be back, however, before his friends
out of town fully realize that he is away at all.
NEW ILLINOIS STORE.
The lines of pianos and players of the Bush &
Gerts Piano Co., Chicago, will be handled by J. S.
Lamb, who is opening a piano store in Cairo, 111.
The business has been incorporated underthe laws
of Illinois. Mr. Lamb has had wide experience in
the retail trade of Kentucky and Tennessee.
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