PRESTO
PRESTO
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY AT 407 SOUTH DEAR-
BORN STREET, OLD COLONY BUILDING, CHICAGO, ILL.
C. A. DANIELL and FRANK D. ABBOTT
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partments. Cable Address (Commercial Cable Co.'s Code), " P R E S T O , " 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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Address all communications for the editorial or business departments to PRESTO
PUBLISHING CO., 407 So. Dearborn Street, Chicago, III.
Advertising Rates:—Five dollars per inch (13 ems pica) for single insertions.
Complete schedule of rates for standing cards and special displays will be furnished
on request. The Presto does not sell its editorial space. Payment is not accepted for
articles of descriptive character or other matter appearing in the news columns. Busi-
ness notices will be indicated by the word "advertisement" in accordance with the
Act of August 24, 1912.
Rates for advertising in Presto Year Book Issue and Export Supplements of
Presto will be made known upon application. Presto Year Book and Export issues
have the most extensive circulation of any periodicals devoted to the musical in-
strument 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.
Presto Buyers' Guide is the only reliable index to the American Pianos and
Player-Pianos, it analyzes all instruments, classifies them, gives accurate estimates
of their value and contains a directory of their manufacturers.
Items of news and other matter of general interest to the music trades are in-
vited and when accepted will be paid for. All communications should be addressed to
Presto Publishing Co., 407 So. Dearborn Street, Chicago, III.
SATURDAY, JULY 10, 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 MUSIC TRADE SHOW
As was told in last week's Presto, there will be another Music
Show coincident with the next convention to be held in Chicago the
week of May 23, 1921. The change back to spring for the national
meeting is a grateful one, and the music show is to be a "trade"
instead of a "public" one, as heretofore. This is in accord with the
views of Mr. C. C. Conway, as expressed in an article published in
this paper shortly after the New York convention and show last
January. It is also in keeping with the opinions set forth in Presto
more than once.
I We believe that the wisdom of the decision to make the music
show an event designed to attract the trade, with no attempt to vie
with the musical festivals, or other events of general public concern,
is a good one. It is, in fact, as we have said before, the only plan that
can be made of substantial value to the interests whose welfare it is
designed to foster.
Consequently we believe that the association heads have struck
the right trail and that the result next June will prove it. And it is
certain that the attendance by hard working piano dealers and general
music merchants will vastly exceed that of last winter or, in fact, any
of the earlier shows maintained by the associations. It is possible
that not so many piano men may view the next Music Show in the
Chicago Coliseum as attended the great section I of the ever-memor-
able Columbian World's Exposition in Jackson Park. That event still
remains the high tide in exposition history. The number of pianos
then displayed was 311. There were also 116 reed organs. There
were also foreign-made pianos in considerable number.
It will be interesting to see how the display next June may com-
pare with that of thirty-three years ago. We believe that, in num-
bers, if not actually in interest because of novelty, the show next
June will equal and perhaps even surpass that of the famed White
City. We can see no reason why not.
There are, perhaps, more than twice as many American piano
industries today as in 1893. The organ industries of that period were
July 10, 1920.
numerous enough to compensate in mere numbers, or nearly so. But
today we have a large array of phonograph industries—active, alert
enterprises of the kind ready to join any collective movement designed
to benefit individuls or the business in a general way. Of course
phonographs will share in the Music Show in Chicago even more
fully than they did in the New York event. And, without doubt, too,
the displays of musical supplies and novelties will be more complete
than ever before in the history of the trade.
We are sure that the trade show is the right thing. The public
will not support an exclusively music exposition. The idea is too
old, and the lack of excitement is enough to create a doubt in advance.
The music show was for years a regular annual event in Cincinnati,
long before the May festivals, inaugurated by Theodore Thomas in
1875, or at about that time. The Music Trade Show is new, inasmuch
as that it enables the dealers and the manufacturers to get together
on a semi-confidential ground and to go over affairs of which the
public has no right to have any intimate knowledge. And the oppor-
tunity afforded the dealers to make comparisons and to offer sugges-
tions could be possible under no other circumstances.
Presto has plans of its own by which the next Music Show will
prove of special importance to its readers. The plans will present
opportunities never as yet put into operation, and the result will again
demonstrate the practical and permanent usefulness of the trade
paper.
PIANOS AND PHONOGRAPHS
When the phonograph first appeared this trade paper advised the
piano dealers to give it only such time and attention as seemed neces-
sary to prove their readiness to serve their customers as the result
of a demand. The idea was that if, as some seemed to think, the
phonograph threatened to assume the part of a rival to the piano, its
sale should not be permitted to interfere with the promotion of the
larger instrument. Notwithstanding that our advice to the piano
trade drew such attention that this paper has since been repeatedly
denied the advertising of several of the large talking machine indus-
tries, we still believe that our attitude was at the time right. For at
that time the talking machine was little more than a toy.
But the phonograph has now become an important item in the
music trade, and there are conditions associated with it wt ich the
trade should understand before it is too late to prolir by the demand
which now exists for talking machines by people who are. essentially
lovers of music and, therefore, the logical customers of the music
houses.
Naturally the music dealers look to their trade papers for the
information that helps to legitimate profit. When Presto advised
piano dealers to devote their energies to the sale of musical instru-
ments, the phonograph had not yet risen to the dignity implied by
the term. It was not a musical instrument. Today the phonographs
have been so far improved that there are many of them in which are
the powers of imitation which entitle them to the places they occupy
in the music houses. But there are too many active piano men who
are still permitting the "talking machine shops" to monopolize the
local business in talking machines. It is a mistake. The well-equipped
piano store is the logical phonograph shop. The music dealers are
the potential talking machine distributors.
The day is near when the phonograph can no longer continue to
spread as a specialty. Competition has now become such that no
particular phonograph, nor any two or three of them, can hope for
anything like a monopoly. The exclusiveness which has character-
ized the manufacturers of the oldest of the machines can not long
continue to regulate the trade, or to deny to the smaller merchants
their share in it. There are too many good talking machines for
a subsidized trade press to stand as a bar to the progress of all but
two or three of them.
Presto has heretofore stuck pretty closely to its original text in
the matter of piano dealers sacrificing the uprights and players in
order to sell phonographs. This paper has refused to be dictated to,
in the matter of advertising whatever phonographs it saw fit. It has
not been willing to have any talking machine industry say that if that
particular machine could not occupy space to the exclusion of all, or
of any, other machines, there could be no appropriation for adver-
tising at all. Other trade papers may do business in that lop-sided,
subservient manner if they think it pays. We don't.
Today the phonograph industry is a large one, even if still en-
cumbered by experimentation. Many of the absolutely reliable piano
manufacturers are now making phonographs, and good ones—as good
as the best of them. There are today phonographs in which there
are greater merits, and better selling points, than can be found in the
older machines, the selling power of which is very largely in their
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