Classic Mode

Presto

Issue: 1920 1771

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PRESTO
PRESTO
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY AT 407 SOUTH DEAR-
BORN STREET, OLD COLONY BUILDING, CHICAGO, ILL.
A. DANIELL and PRANK D. ABBOTT
Editors
Telephones: Chicago Tel. Co., Harrison 234; Auto. Tel. Co., Automatic 61<7Ml
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.
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r § * i n U . S. p o s s e s s i o n s , C a n a d a , C u b a a n d M e x i c o .
. - • • - - •
A d d r e s s all c o m m u n i c a t i o n s for t h e editorial or b u s i n e s s d e p a r t m e n t s to P R E S T O
PI4JPLISHING C O . , C h i c a g o , III.
tet -Thrte dollars per inch (13 ems pica) for single ingortiejia.
ttlOQth, less twenty-five per cent on yearly contracts. The
h F« r el(t$H|l
«P«ee. Payment Is not accepted f6r artlctes of tfe-
r or other matter appearing In the news columns. Business notices
by the word "advertisement?' in accordance with the Act of August
for advertislnjr'in the Year Book issue and Export Supplements of The
M be mkde Kfi&Wn upon application. The Presto Year Bdo'H and B»p«rt
ye theTEcuit ©xWniiye circulation, of any periodicals devoted to th
.t t$d$fc*nAWfmfli* .»n•'*» Parts of th^ world. ahd^re^h;j&%*t
e houses handling musical instruments of both the Eastern aha
e j s ' G u i d e i, the
. only
. reliable
. index to the American Muffaei
lyres aUjPianos and ftayer-Plano^i fives accurate esti
ntltns
a
dl(ecto?V
of
their
manufacturers.
lea a:
•H4 ajjd blher matter of general interest to thf
of jaws, phot
j>ted will be paid for. Addtess ail commublca'
i iAvffed knd W.
»ubirshinq Co., Chic
SATURDAY, JULY 3, 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
"GOOP 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.
July 3, 1920.
The manufacturers sought for new methods by which to keep the
wheels going 'round. And so branch stores were opened whenever
the big manufacturer found he could not induce some established
dealer to either buy or enter into the consignment agreement.
By these plans the piano manufacturers gradually tied up large
investments in finished instruments, and often the sums were aug-
mented by advances for freights, and even for the rents and running
expenses. The system became almost reckless and, of course, the
character of the retailers, as a class, was not improved in proportion
to the spread in their numbers. Also as a natural consequence, the
time came when the piano manufacturers realized that a change was
necessary. They began to draw in their lines of that kind of enter-
prise, and there soon remained only the dealers who had their own
stores, and the manufacturers' branches. And the consignment sys-
tem increased.
It was about that time that the manufacturers began to arrange
plans of wholesale installment systems. Some of them sent out their
travelers with propositions to deliver pianos on quarterly payments
of small amounts. At least one piano industry sold on monthly pay-
ments, taking the dealers monthly notes for each instrument. It may
easily be seen that the obligations of the smaller dealers grew with
a rapidity disproportionate to the credibility of the customers. And
soon that plan was suspended. The branch store became more and
more common, one Chicago manufacturer having them in nearly all
the cities of any size throughout the Middle-West.
The branch store investment on so large a scale became too
much of a burden and the branches were closed, the stores being
disposed of by special or forced sales. Only the most important
branch houses remained, and today those branches are valuable out-
lets to some of the larger and wealthiest industries.
'
There are consigned pianos still, but their number is very small
as compared with the proportion a good many years ago. Today
the piano business has outlived its consignment days and its dooms-
day-term selling systems. If W. W. Kimball were still here he
could no longer crack his joke about the piano trade being "not a
matter of time, but of eternity." The long time systems also have
gone, and no dealer today can look the manufacturer in the eye and
ask for three years' settlements with uncertain Security. It is npw
more nearly a cash transaction than ever before and it will continue
to be that kind of a business. One of the best lines of industry ajnd
trade, the piano business has been a long time finding its bearinjgs.
It has at last fallen into the control of men who know what the word
Business means and have the force of character and the financial
strength to conduct its larger affairs upon a basis of reason and
solidity. And the piano trade is, and will continue to be, the best
line of all for men of force and energy that wins in any pursuit
of life.
BETTER CONDITIONS
There was a time—not so very long ago—when it was customary
for music houses with jobbing piano departments to send out trav-
elers to find suitable men willing to embark in the retail trade. The
idea was not so much to sell pianos as to establish consignment
agents. The jobbing houses had contracts with the piano manufac-
turers by which they covered wide territory and agreed to take a
stated proportion of the factory output. Thus the jobbers financed
the manufacturers and carried the consignment agents.
There was a stereotyped contract form which was used by the
larger music houses in the piano departments. Usually the local con-
signment agent possessed no financial strength, but he was expected
to find one or two sureties who "went on" his contract, or bond, with
the jobber. Pianos were shipped to the consignment agent under
clearly stipulated conditions, and it was not often that new stores
were opened, the agent starting with his office under his hat and
his display room in his home.
L,ater it became less the custom to search for suitable agents to
sell pianos. The trade gradually developed and the consignment
agents became owners of regular warerooms. They began to look
for more makes of pianos than one or two, and the source of their
original supplies did not so nearly "own" them as at first. Then the
representatives of the manufacturers came along and gradually the
jobbers lost their control of the wide territory and the dealers did
business direct with the factories.
The consignment business continued and steadily grew great.
Large piano manufacturers saw opportunities in the consignment
system and encouraged it, until by far the greater proportion of
pianos in the stores throughout the country belonged to their makers,
and stood there by systems of sale with "strings to them." Natu-
rally, as with most good things, the consignment system became in
time overdone. The piano supply began to outstrip the demand.
A POOR PLANK
Isn't it perfectly beautiful, the calm consideration the officeholp-
ers, lawyers and political plank whittlers give to business affailrs
which do not affect them at all personally? Of course, it is propier
to expect the framers of laws and the shapers of the people's morajls
to suggest reforms and to correct evil customs. But in matters pi
business, of manufacturing and merchandising, there are so many
angles that the politician should give to them a deeper study than
merely the degree of delight with which he may thrill his "constitu-
ents." And he should not forget that while there is seemingly ; 10
blue sky to spread above and limit his fees in litigation or his salarii *s
and perquisites in political life, the manufacturer and the merchai it
may easily be squeezed to death between the law's unequal justi^
and the unrighteous suspicions and cupidity of the buying public.
About the first mouthful of profundity at the Democratic coj
vention in San Francisco was a proposition by Attorney Gene^
Palmer that a plank be inserted in the party platform providing "i
marking the producer's and manufacturer's cost price on commoJ
ties." The idea was, of course, to drive one more nail into the hi!
cost of living. And the proposition was a safe one from the polil
cian's standpoint. The manufacturers and merchants do not swir
the political parties. Their votes do not create a majority and
producers are not the kind of men to oppose any movement whic
may seem to have for its purpose the amelioration of the people's il
But it is very difficult to see just where such an enactment as
Palmer must have had in mind would lead to. It seems at once c
that any law of the kind could not be made to apply equally to a]
lands and classes of producers and manufacturers. In the piarj
business it would not serve any two industries just alike. And
the retail piano trade it would have the result of driving two-thirc
of the merchants out of business. Such a provision, strictly enforc<
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
July 3, 1920.
—as all laws should be enforced—might prove helpful to the public
in some lines of business, however much it might hurt the individual
merchants. It certainly would squeeze small business men out of the
lists and add to the volume of the great combinations, department
stores and rapidly multiplying schemes of chains of special stores.
In the piano business any such regulation would work havoc
without doing any good at all. On the contrary, such a law would be
a blow at music, for it would encourage the lowest priced pianos and
would discourage the manufacturers who aim to create the best in-
struments of music that can be made. The small piano dealers
would be put out of business because their prospects would not accept
the really reasonable profits shown by the price marking as anything
short of robbery. There is little "real money" in the retail piano
business anyway. It is not a "repeat" business. The dealer sells
today and seldom again to the same buyer. His small profit must
be sufficient to insure against a long pause and steady overhead, with
no waiting list of customers in sight. These are the inner facts fa-
miliar to all piano dealers. They are not any part of the elementary
study of the piano buying public.
I
Mr. Palmer's proposition doesn't apply to piano selling. It was
made by a lawyer and officeholder who would not pick up the prof-
its of the small piano dealer by the tail. But he would perhaps pause
to exclaim if he went to buy a piano and found the dealer had added
$100 to the "producer's cost." And the attorney general is not dif-
ferent from other people when they want to buy pianos and give no
deeper thought to the transaction than the price and the terms of
sale. The "marking of the producer's and manufacturer's cost price"
is not a fair proposition. If the producers and manufacturers and
merchants could have a political party of their own, they might find
a way by which to fix the cost price of legal fees and doctor's bills
and officeholders' pay, and some other of the to this time unknown
quantities. But no such party will come and all we can do is to
beg of the political platform hewers and candidates that they let us
down as easy as possible, that we may continue at least to pay the
rent and live.
AS OTHERS DO IT
Piano advertising isn't at all what it once was. It's better. To-
day the piano manufacturers have discovered that, no matter how
much they know about tone production and case design, they may
nt possess the dictionary familiarity nor the gift of expression by
which to say much in few words, and in a way to convince a skeptical
piublic or the prejudiced trade. And so they look around for some
bright, linguistic genius who also knows a little about musical instru-
nhents and can twist what he knows into such shape as to place the
individual piano just where it belongs, or where its maker thinks it
belongs.
And that's advertising as we have it today. Some of the young
men who do the copy writing are so gifted that the public can fairly
see the shining piano case, and hear the entrancing tone quality,
b y casting its discriminating eyes upon the printed lines. It would
b e a pleasure to name some of the publicity artists by whose genius
many pianos have quickly become famous. And, inasmuch as the
instruments are worthy of the efforts of the publicity genius, there
is cause for congratulation in the awakening of the advertising in-
inct in the piano industry.
But, even so, the piano industry can hardly be said to measure
to the deeds of the automobile men in the supreme exuberance
the publicity departments. Every newspaper and all of the gaily
vered magazines will demonstrate this truth. It is true that the
ano has been drawing upon the reservoirs of the advertising men
nger than the automobile. And there is, after all, a limit to the
sortment of adjectives and superlatives. But where do we find
piano promotion such a rich and rare collection of alluring head-
es as the automobile business contributed to a single newspaper
Sunday last? Here are some of them:
"The Truth That Embodies All Truth" is the modest claim of
e Cadillac. And it is followed by nineteen paragraphs in evidence
which one is this: "Humanity may be a million years old in point
f time, but it is as young as this morning's sun in its pursuit of
e ideal." That is worthy of Poor Richard, and others are just asl
Modestly good, as for instance these:
After two thousand years of disappointment and disillusion, the eternal
erities and the eternal values still prevail.
The elemental truths are still true; the man whose word is good is still
e secret hero of our inmost hearts.
Even though it be surrounded, and seemingly obscured by sham and pre-
nse, nothing in this world is discovered so surely as solid merit.
Nothing stands out so strikingly, by way of contrast, as genuineness
d genius.
No special and painstaking effort of hand or heart, or brain or brawn,
that goes to the building of something superior, is ever wasted.
Cheapness and compromise, substitution and surrender—these, in the long
run, are the real sources of waste.
Let him dedicate his life to the satisfaction of this restless hunger of the
human heart, and he can, if he will, remove himself beyond the reach of
rivalry.
This is the truth that embodies all truth; this is the truth that makes men
free.
There was a time when that would have been called "fine writ-
ing." Today it is called advertising. There isn't a reference to the
automobile in all the nineteen paragraphs. It cost the advertiser
considerable money to have it printed, and it is copyrighted by the
Cadillac Motor Company. But it reads more like an extract from
a Fourth of July speech or the introduction of a delegate at a political
convention. Was there ever a piano thus advertised, or even so
referred to in print? But, then, to some others.
The Chevrolet is announced only as "The Product of Experience"
and the advertising man doesn't indulge in either poetry or moralizing.
The Maxwell declares that its "Simplicity Is Due to Special Steel."
It is "a simple car" and the adv.-man is satisfied to say that "nearly
400,000 persons now drive a Maxwell." That's more like piano ad-
vertising. But listen to the LaFayette. Here the linguistic genius
declares boldly that "every element in the competent action is a natu-
ral consequence of the expert engineering that produced the car."
We do not recall anything like that in the struggles of the alliteration-
loving piano men who do the copy-making.
The Willard bears upon a point familiar to all piano men. "Since
the plates and insulators inside a battery cannot be seen, the trade-
mark on the outside is particularly important." That is the familiar
piano argument of name-value which has so often been discussed in
this paper.
Here, too, is the catch-line of the Chandler: "June is here and all
outdoors calls to you. The long roads to the country and hillside
and stream and woods open their arms to you." That is pretty writ-
ing again. But it is suggestive and presents a call to the automobile
prospect. Possibly we have had the piano adv. reminding us that
"The chill winter is near and the indoors calls to us. The long
nights and the warm lights and the friends who come, cry for sweet
music and merry song." Seems to us we have read something like
that. And so the advertising of the cars may in some respects be
like that of musical instruments. But not very much of it.
If there are any retailers who think it wise to hold off in placing
orders for pianos, on the theory that prices "must come down," those
dealers are making a mistake. There is no prospect of any decline
in prices for a very long time ahead. And the old-time figures have
gone forever, just as have most of the preposterous terms of sale.
* * *
The story of the Organola Company, which recently settled in
Vincennes, Ind., with a capital of $500,000, reads like a newspaper
supplement romance. And the entire history of the music trade
doesn't disclose a better illustration of the uses of persistency than;
that of Mr. C. C. Russell, inventor of the Organola.
* * *
It is a remarkable condition that at this time there is not a
single name-dispute in connection with the piano industry. All the
old-time disputes have been settled and the name values are greater
today than ever. (
Piano Store Manager
WANTED
A large financially responsible Chicago Piano
Manufacturer, with Branch Stores in several
of the principal cities of the U. S., has an open-
ing for a thoroughly experienced, aggressive
Manager or Sales Manager to take complete
charge of one of these Branch Stores. Liberal
salary and excellent future prospects for suc-
cessful manager. Can also use several experi-
enced floor salesmen. All applications strictly
confidential. Apply by letter today.
Address Chicago Manufacturer, Care Presto
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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