PRESTO
PRESTO
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A. DANIELL and FRANK D. ABBOTT
This week's story of the inspection of the Apollo factory at
DeKalb, and of the purpose of the gathering there, marks a new
development in one of America's most noted piano industries. It
will be read with very special interest by all members of the trade
and, more than all, by the representatives of the Apollo, who will
see in it still greater opportunities for the exercise of their energies
in promoting the instrument of their choice. And the only source of
regret in the matter may lie in the impossibility of securing the
Apollo grands as fast as the people will be ready to buy them.
Editor*
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" P R E S T O , " Chicago.
Entered as second-class matter Jan. 29, 1896, at the Post Office, Chicago. Illinois,
ft
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May IS, 1920.
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84, 1912.
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Presto w}ll 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 and industries in all parts of the world, and reach completely and
effectually 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 MustotJ
Instruments; it analyzes all Pianos and Player-Pianos, gives accurate estimates m
their values and contains a directory of their manufacturers.
8 items of news, photographs and other matter of general interest to the must«
trades are invited and when accepted will be paid for. Address all communication* to
Presto Publishing Co., Chicago, III.
SATURDAY, MAY 15, 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.
A GRAND INDUSTRY
There is no purpose in the caption of a play upon words. The
point is that one more large and noted industry has determined to
make grand pianos the preponderating purpose in the factory output.
The story of a visit to the factory of the Apollo Piano Co., at De
Kalb, 111., makes interesting reading in this issue of Presto. It is
still more important as an item of trade news, for it announces the
purpose of a great and thoroughly-grounded industry to make grand
pianos a leading feature of its energies and productiveness.
Apollo grand pianos are not new in the world of music. But to
the present time they have borne the same relationship to the up-
rights and player-pianos of the same make as in other ambitious in-
dustries. Now the plan is to produce grands—artistic grands—in
quantities such as to meet and expand the growing demand to which
but inadequate response has heretofore been given.
The name of Apollo in the piano world long since became a
power. From its very beginning the Apollo piano has sustained a
place among the finest specimens of the foremost American instru-
ments. There can not be too many industries turning out that kind
of pianos, and it requires special skill, and special facilities sustained
by special ambition, to produce grand pianos of the Apollo kind, in
quantities.
It is one of the healthful signs of the piano trade that the de-
mand for grands persists and grows more general. It is a feature
of the trade so well worth encouraging that there is scarcely a possi-
bility of the supply exceeding the demand. And the Apollo Piano Co.
is peculiarly equipped for grand production on a large scale. The
almost incalculable features cf the Apollophone grand make that
remarkable instrument one of the most attractive in the lists to
dealers who understand the trend of the trade and appreciate the
love of novelty and variety which is so large a part of American life,
in fact of the intellectual life of the world.
IT IS THE "TONK"
Several communications which have come to this paper seem to
suggest that the article in last week's issue, about a New York piano
and its export trade, caused a good deal of interest. In the article
it was said that a certain instrument which "is not today at all the
same that it was twenty years ago," had been threatened with a
breach between a foreign representative and its makers, because of
increased prices. The statement was made that whereas the selling
price has more than trebled within the two decades of its successful
existence, the figures were still less than their cost of production
might suggest. In other words, the prices are still too small to per-
mit of a profit to the manufacturers, proportionate to the margin
realized in other lines of industry. And there are other pianos to
which the same statement might equally be applied—no doubt of it.
In one of the communications on the subject, the name of the
piano which suggested last week's article is asked for. We can see no
reason for concealing its identity. Furthermore, the character of the
instrument would have given added weight to the arguments pre-
sented. The piano is the Tonk. And, of course, the industry whose
price-advance had been challenged by the foreign buyer, is that of
William Tonk & Bro., Inc., of New York City. The career of that
industry is an exceptionally interesting one.
Mr. William Tonk is one of the few piano manufacturers whose
entire life has been devoted to the study of musical instruments,
their manufacture and sale. It is merely a coincidence, too, that he
began his career in the business with the oldest Chicago piano house
now extant—that of Julius Bauer & Co. He therefore started in with
a concern that was imbued with the ambition to sell, and later to
produce, fine instruments. Mr. Tonk later became a large importer
of small musical instruments. And then he established the present
industry, the history of which reveals nothing less than an ambition
to produce pianos of the utmost refinement and beauty.
Twenty years ago what did it actually cost to make a good
piano? Even considering the comparative crudity of piano making
methods, the meagre equipments of the factories, and other phases of
an industry the progress of which may almost be said to have, in a
sense, just begun, what did a piano cost the manufacturer in 1900
as compared with the cost today? We, whose business it is to follow
the details of the industry and trade, can approximate the difference
almost to a dollar. But do the dealers know, especially do the buyers
of American pianos in distant colonies and remote dependencies
know? Probably not. Certainly no piano merchant can believe
that a piano that he bought twenty years ago should be had for any-
thing like the same price today. Twenty years ago the Tonk piano
was a fledgling. It had timorously started on its career. It had its
place to win and it came at a time of peculiar advantages, so far as
producing cost was concerned. It has grown in its ambitions and has
attained to a very special prominence in its demand abroad as well
as in this country. It has been as conservatively conducted as any
piano can be that is sustained by ambition. And it has acquired
fame of the kind that can come only to merit or, as we say in the
piano world, quality.
And since the first Tonk piano appeared the cost of everything
that goes into the piano has increased, in some special parts more
than 400 per cent. It is not a question of economical conduct of a
factory, nor in the processes of manufacture. The increase in every-
thing that contributes to the industry has forced the selling prices
upward. And the manufacturers have not profited at all by the in-
crease. On the contrary, taking the Tonk as a basis of proof, it is
absolutely certain that the piano manufacturers lose by every ad-
vance in the cost of raw materials and supplies.
There is more, to a foreign buyer of a fine American piano, than
the price represents. The confidence of the merchant and his neigh-
bors, due to years of the manufacturer's loyalty to ideals, is an asset.
The local fame of the piano that has sustained the highest commenda-
tion of the importer is an asset. The absolute integrity of the man-
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