Classic Mode

Presto

Issue: 1920 1762

PRESTO
PRESTO
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY AT 407 SOUTH DEAR-
BORN STREET, OLD COLONY BUILDING, CHICAGO, ILL.
Q. A. DANIELL and FRANK D. ABBOTT
Editors
Telephones: Chicago Tel. Co., Harrison 234; Auto. Tel. Co., Automatic 61-703.
Private Phones to all Departments. Cable Address (Commercial Cable Co.'s Code),
"PRESTO," Chicago.
Entered as second-class matter Jan. 29, 1896, at the Post Office, Chicago. Illinois,
%
under Act of March 3, 1879.
Subscription, $2 a year; 6 months, $1; Foreign, $4. Payable In advance. No « t r »
•iiarge in y: S. Dossessions, Canada, Cuba and Mexico.
-
Address all communications for the editorial or business departments to PRESTO
PUBLISHING CO., Chicago, III.
Advertising Ratesi^Ttaree dollars per Inch (13 ems pica) for single insertions^
Six dollars per inch per month, less twenty-five per cent on yearly contracts. The
Presto does not sell its editorial space. Payment is not accepted for articles of de-
scriptive character or other matter appearing in the news columns. Business notices
will be indicated by the word "advertisement" in accordance with the Act of August
84, 1912.
Rates for advertising in the Tear Book issue and Export Supplements of The
Presto will be made known upon application. The Presto Year Book and Export
issues have the most extensive circulation of any periodicals devoted to the musical
instrument trades anrl industries in all parts of the world, and reach completely and
•ffectually all the houses handling musical instruments of both the Eastern and West-
ern hemispheres.
The Presto Buyeis' Guide Is the only reliable index to the American Musical
Instruments; it analyzes all Pianos and Player-Pianos, gives accurate estimates m
tbeir values and contains a directory of their manufacturers.
8 items of news, photographs and other matter of g-eneral Interest to the musS«
trades are invited and when accepted will be paid for. Address all communications to
presto Publishing Co.. Chicago. III.
SATURDAY, MAY 1, 1920.
TO CORRESPONDENTS.
PRESTO IS ALWAYS GLAD TO RECEIVE NEWS OF THE
TRADE—ALL KINDS OF NEWS EXCEPT PERSONAL SLANDER
AND STORIES OF PETTY MISDEEDS BY INDIVIDUALS. PRESTO
WILL PRINT THE NAMES OF CORRESPONDENTS WHO SEND IN
"GOOD STUFF" OR ARE ON THE REGULAR STAFF. DON'T SEND
ANY PRETTY SKETCHES, LITERARY ARTICLES OR "PEN-PIC-
TURES." JUST PLAIN NEWS ABOUT THE TRADE—NOT ABOUT
CONCERTS OR AMATEUR MUSICAL ENTERTAINMENTS, BUT
ABOUT THE MEN WHO MAKE MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS AND
THOSE WHO SELL THEM. REPORTS OF NEW STORES AND
THE MEN WHO MAKE RECORDS AS SALESMEN ARE GOOD. OF-
TEN THE PIANO SALESMEN ARE THE BEST CORRESPONDENTS
BECAUSE THEY KNOW WHAT THEY LIKE TO READ AND HAVE
THE OPPORTUNITIES FOR FINDING OUT WHAT IS "DOING" IN
THE TRADE IN THEIR VICINITY. SEND IN THE N E W S -
ALL YOU CAN GET OF IT—ESPECIALLY ABOUT YOUR OWN
BUSINESS.
THE TRADING POST
There is one feature of Presto which, we have reason to believe,
is regarded by the trade with as much interest as the most startling
column of news, and certainly with more profit to many who read.
We mean the page of adlets, or classified cards, wherein members of
the piano trade set forth their wants and tell of opportunities not
elsewhere set forth. And we know positively that Presto's Want
Advs. every week produce results in which the trade shares most
satisfactorily. We could present hundreds of irrefutable proofs of
this statement.
Whether it is a dealer in search of a man to fill some special
position, or a worker in some department of the business looking for
a location, the little want advs. are certain to produce the results
desired. Or whether it is a dealer with some special equipment to
sell, or a manufacturer desirous of disposing of his entire industry,
the little want adv. is almost certain to bring together the buyer and
the seller. It is almost a rule that, as says the Holley Music House,
of Carroll, Iowa, this week, "the Presto Adv. service is O. K.; we sold
the Loader."
Possibly that may not have been a fair test, because the article
sold by a single want adv. insertion was one that the trade wants and
watches for. The Atwood Loader never lacks a buyer, and probably
it would have been as easy to sell fifty of them as it was to dispose of
one, by a Presto want adv. But the same report comes in other cases.
Every week hundreds of replies to the little Presto advs. come to the
office of this paper and are forwarded to the advertisers. The result is
new connections, better positions, cash for surplus articles, and every
other attainment possible in the lesser, but still very important,
affairs of the trade.
Because an article is advertised for sale is not evidence that the
thing is not indorsed by the advertiser, or that it lacks any of its
original value. Not long ago a piano business, invoicing many thou-
May 1, 1920.
sands of dollars, was advertised on page 30 of Presto. It was sold
within two weeks, and the buyer found a good thing because the orig-
inal owner was obliged to retire to look after a large estate. The
Piano Loader adv. was inserted by the Holley Music House because
that concern had installed large auto trucks for delivery purposes.
The Atwood Loader was snapped up, as Mr. Holley intimates, as
scon as the adlet appeared. All piano dealers know what the Loader
is, and they would not permit an opportunity to get one for a dollar
less than factory price, to pass unprofitted.
It may be too much to say that no other influence has placed
capable piano men in positions of responsibility to such an extent as
Presto's Want Advs. We could name—but we wouldn't—two man-
agers of large industries, several factory superintendents, many
traveling representatives and salesmen, who have found their way to
what they most wanted by means of the adlets. And we do not recall
any of the little trade inspirers that has utterly failed of their pur-
pose, though at times there have been some whose purport suggested
the near-impossible.
Advertising in the piano trade is as old as the business itself. But
the uses of the classified column has only recently become recognized
as the logical and almost invincible source of interchange of wants
and the ironer-out of the rough places in the trade. The page of little
want advs. is the trading post of the trade.
ASKING WHY
At this moment most business men are asking why? To one
associated with pianos it seems that piano men especially are just
now asking why? But it's the same in nearly all lines, and the only
difference is in the conditions by which the various lines of trade are
made to differ.
To the average piano merchant it isn't easy to understand why
instruments are so hard to buy. Dealers from nearly everywhere
crowd into the piano-making centers searching for stock. They leave
home to visit the factories, feeling sure that, by coming in person,
the results that letters failed to produce may quickly be attained. But
they find that their orders are not filled promptly because the manu-
facturers cannot produce the goods. They find that the manufacturers
are even more concerned about their inability to make prompt ship-
ments than the dealers are themselves. And then, very naturally,
the dealer who has left home on a bootless mission, perhaps, again
asks why?
He is told that it is impossible for the piano manufacturers to
get the necessary supplies. If the dealer wants more specific informa-
tion, he is told that it is impossible to secure the needed wood with
which to make the cases; or he is told that it isn't possible to get
hardware; or that it is impossible to buy actions. In other words,
everything that goes with the instrument is short in deliveries and
no arguments can make it possible for the producers to increase
production in the degree so absolutely necessary. The source of fun-
damentals reply to the impatient demands very much as the piano
manufacturers answer the demands of the dealers. And again the
piano merchants ask Why?
If they press their interrogation it is explained that skilled work-
ers are hard to get. The lumbermen are not cutting the timber and
hauling it in sufficient quantities. And lumber of the kind required is
getting scarce. The factory superintendents find it almost impossible
to engage the kind of piano workers essential to the needs of the
industry. Why?
It is true that there are just as many workers possessing the
requisite knowledge of piano making. The laborers are as numerous
as ever. But they are not working in the piano factories. Why?
It has been estimated that more trained piano workers have
deserted the musical instrument field in favor of the automobile
industry alone than the total number of makers of the uprights and
grands a half century ago. And that, in the aggregate, means a great
many skilled piano workers who have shifted their allegiance. And
why have they left piano manufacture in favor of the car industry?
Plain enough. It pays better. The automobile industry is compara-
tively a new one. It is on the high tide of prosperity. The makers
of the favorite cars do not hesitate to offer big wages, and the workers
cross the road to take advantage of the fact. The piano workers have
never been over-well paid—in many of the factories. They are paid
better now than ever before. Why have they not been well paid in
years past?
The piano business, from factory to retail store, was for years
conducted on lines of seeming disregard of good business principles.
The manufacturers, until comparatively recently, seemed to try to
see how near to actual cost of production they could deliver the
goods. The dealers, until recently, tried to undersell their neigh-
Enhanced content © 2008-2009 and presented by MBSI - The Musical Box Society International (www.mbsi.org) and the International Arcade Museum (www.arcade-museum.com).
All Rights Reserved. Digitized from the archives of the MBSI with support from NAMM - The International Music Products Association (www.namm.org).
Additional enhancement, optimization, and distribution by the International Arcade Museum. An extensive collection of Presto can be found online at http://www.arcade-museum.com/library/
PRESTO
May 1, 1920.
bors with, often, an utter disregard of either themselves or their
creditors. The consequence was a lack of profit at both ends. And
that lack has kept the piano makers and the piano merchants so fully
occupied with discounting paper that little time was left for the real
end of all good business.
We have been talking of the piano business as it was conducted
in years gone by. Today it is different. So that the answer to the
Why is not now what it might have been before the change for the
better came. But the conditions that now annoy the trade have their
starting point back in the times when things were as has been stated.
In time the workers who have deserted the piano factories because
other lines offer them, or seem to offer them, larger reward for their
skill, will come back again. And when they do come back things
will be better and production will again be more nearly adequate.
Of course the unrest that has disturbed nearly all departments of
industry has contributed to the lack of piano workers. The piano
factories, especially in the East, have suffered from this cause almost
as much as any other industry. That, too, is righting itself. But the
advanced cost of everything that goes into pianos is a condition that
can not soon be overcome by even the return of the workers, or the
cessation of the strikes. It is something that demands a proportionate
increase in the manufacturers' prices, and a corresponding advance
in the selling prices of the retailers.
Perhaps the fact that pianos are not plentiful is the tonic most
needed to cure some of the evil habits by which the piano trade was
nearly ruined in the days of greater plenty. And if that is so it is
well for the trade to have reason to ask Why? For in finding the
answer the dealers may also find the way out of the old-time mis-
takes and make the piano trade again the best business on earth—
as it should be.
THE SEASON AND THE SHOW
The Music Industries Chamber of Commerce has started a wise
investigation. The purpose is to discover the feeling of the piano
trade, and associated interests, as to which season is best for holding
the annual convention, and whether or not the show is wanted. We
believe that these two questions are of vital importance to the music
trade's associations, and we hope that the piano men, and other music
merchants, will respond promptly and conclusively.
Of course it may not be just the thing for a trade paper to voice
a positive opinion in such matters. Only the men who sell the goods
can say whether their business will be most hurt, if at all, by absence
from the store in mid-winter, or by a two weeks' vacation in the
Springtime or Summer. And perhaps the question of a show, and its
effects upon the manufacturers, can only be judged in the factory
offices. It may, furthermore, be said that to measure the matter from
so small a point of view is not wise for the dealer. But to the average
piano dealer—the "small" dealer—it is often a matter of large im-
portance. And usually the average dealer has many reasons why
some certain season may suit him best to turn his back upon the
scenes of his work in search of combined education and entertainment.
Usually the winter is the better season for piano selling. In the
new months of the year the people's homes are thrown open to the
Spring sunshine and out-of-doors begins to woo. The dealer may as
well break away and let his prospects take a long breath, meanwhile
thinking over the advantages of the beautiful playerpiano about which
they have been told so much. And then, too, the dealer's side of it.
The rare inducements of the Springtime and Summer for sight seeing
and the delights of change and open-air recreation. The convention
in New York City is more than a series of business meetings. The
great city is filled with points of interest. The visitor finds himself
thrilled with the rush of the streets, and the city parks, all along
famed Broadway, seem to welcome him with their greenery and birds
of song. Then, too, Coney Island begins to blaze at night, the boats
are running and the attractions are so numerous that after the meet-
ings the only problem is where not- to go.
Same when the convention is in Chicago. Spring and Summer are
waking the wonders of the boulevards and the great public parks. The
towers at night sparkle with electricity and the lake invites the lover
of the swelling waves. Winter in both New York and Chicago sug-
gests shivering misery, snow drifts, blizzards, delayed trains and
general demoralization. With no opportunity for the kind of cheer
that once drew merry crowds into the brilliantly lighted cafes, there
seems a dullness exaggerated, however good the change really may
be for all of us.
So that, when the votes are counted, it is probable that the time
for holding the conventions will be changed back again to June.
What do you say? Presto invites you to tell us that, and if enough
of you do it we will be glad to give up the space in which to make
your choice clearly known.
About the Music Show, this paper has from the first expressed its
views. The judgment of Mr. C. C. Conway seemed to us a wise one.
In both New York and Chicago, permanent music shows exist which,
in many respects, surpass anything that can be gathered together for
a few weeks' parade. The annual convention of the music trade is for
the music trade man, and not for the entertainment of the public.
Perhaps we are wrong. In any event we will be glad to sustain the
views of the manufacturers and the merchants whether the verdict
be for a show or no show.
THE MAN AHEAD
Good advice for both employer and employe is "Think in the
terms of the man that's ahead of the man that's ahead of you." By
thinking in that way, the employe learns the secret springs of success
that have been tapped by the employer. By thinking in that way, the
employer learns the secret springs of success that have been tapped
by his customers, by his rivals in business, by pioneers in special lines
of endeavor everywhere.
Arthur Brisbane, the "highest salaried editor in the world," ac-
cording to the Hearst newspapers, has said that nothing can perma-
nently rule the world but brains, and he's palpably right when brains
works in brainy fashion, which it doesn't often do. Just now muscle
seems to be sitting in the seat of the mighty. The white collar crowd
are somewhere near the bottom of the heap. A machinist's helper
draws three or four times as much wages today as an editorial writer
or a bookkeeper. The machinist's helper on Sundays wears silk shirts
at $12 and $16 apiece, while the bookkeeper and editor are seriously
considering joining the overalls brigade. Many of them are moving
out of their flats because they can not stand the latest raise in rents.
But the poor brain-worm is supposed to be getting ready to turn.
And the business man is getting ready to turn. The turn is expected
some time before the presidential election or thereabouts. And great
will be the turning thereof, so they say. The bubble of high prices is
said to be slated for a puncture before many moons. The war taught
men and women new forms of initiative and new ways of becoming
independent of long-cherished modes of doing things. It brought the
farmer and the piano manufacturer into their own—it put class in the
piano merchants' business. It remains to be seen whether or not
brains will so guide the affairs of their own and their employes as to
make the seeming ills of trade and industry real blessings to the world,
including the possessors of the brains and experience. It is not cer-
tain that conditions of today are really bad. There are philosophers
who see in the new order of things a better world, of greater oppor-
tunities and broader progress. It will depend upon how brains acts
and lays plans for the future.
The piano industry is controlled by men of brains. We have no
doubt as to its future. It is greater today than ever. It has only re-
cently emerged from the uncertain light of experimentation in its
methods and progress. It is a substantial, ambitious and steadily
developing department of the nation's business. Whatever the change
due to altered conditions and a new world, the piano industry and
trade will move forward and the results of the change will funda-
mentally be betterment. So don't let yourself be startled by the
threats and prophecies of what is going to be. You are all right, and
there is little suggestion of storms on the horizon of the business in
which you are engaged.
Among the uninvented things that will make some men rich are
a woman's waist material that can not be seen at all; a phonograph
from which the sounds of scratching and sepulchral tones have been
entirely eliminated; a wireless piano; a bowless violin; a cough-drop
that will immediately cure singers' hoarseness, and an automatic
workman who will immediately do the bidding of any boss without
ever a thought of going on strike. And, even more wonderful, the
Reproducing piano that will perform exactly like all the great pianists
combined with the artists themselves thousands of miles away.
Periods of rest in Eastern shoe factories are permitted, during
which the workers "smoke and chat." Perhaps the piano factories will
pause awhile for the toilers to play and sing.
The latest in the exposition line is the "Used Automobile Show."
Will that diversion ever worry the piano trade? Not just now, in
any event.
Do you want another Music Trade Show? If you do, and there
are enough of you, it will be in Chicago—perhaps next summer.
Enhanced content © 2008-2009 and presented by MBSI - The Musical Box Society International (www.mbsi.org) and the International Arcade Museum (www.arcade-museum.com).
All Rights Reserved. Digitized from the archives of the MBSI with support from NAMM - The International Music Products Association (www.namm.org).
Additional enhancement, optimization, and distribution by the International Arcade Museum. An extensive collection of Presto can be found online at http://www.arcade-museum.com/library/

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