PRESTO
September 4, 1920.
considerable number of dealers doing a sizable business in players
but carrying only about enough rolls for give away stock."
The plain lesson is that the player roll department should be given
its proper importance in every piano store. It is true that every
playerpiano sold increases the market for player rolls. It is also true
that playerpiano dealers should provide for increases of stock to
accommodate that increase. If they do not so provide they must not
be surprised that the customers go to the more alert "neighborhood'*
stores. In such commodities as rolls and records it is thought the
buyer is likely to go where he can get the best service. If that is
'round the corner from his residence away out on the edge of the
city or in the suburban town, he considers it rather fortunate. The
Bulletin cleverly sums up the situation:
"The roll is a 'convenience line,' and the average buyer is apt to
make his purchases where he gets the best service. The neighborhood
store is handy, and is likely to get the business for that reason, unless
the larger downtown dealer can offer advantages in the way of better
selection, deliveries, etc. The best way to fight the neighborhood store
t's to anticipate it—head it off—get the business first, and hold it!"
WITHIN TWENTY YEARS
Less than twenty years ago the last serious effort was made to
effect a combination of the American piano industries. It was pretty
generally understood that the promoters of the ambitious scheme had
behind it capital to the extent of $19,000,000. Practically every piano
factory of any consequence at all was contemplated as a factor in the
combination, and the proposition was a liberal one so far as concerned
the compensation to individual owners. It was proposed to inventory
every plant and to pay in cash for every material asset in shape of
buildings and contents, as well as for everything "on hoofs and on
wheels." In those days the auto-truck played no part in the piano
industry.
So it is seen that the promise of the combination was a good one.
And, in consequence, it was unusual for a manufacturer to turn a deaf
ear to the proposition. But there were obstacles in the way of suc-
cessful accomplishment of the enterprise, of a kind no one could have
foreseen. And chief among them was the fact that, as the facts be-
came clear, there didn't seem to be substantial property enough in-
vested in piano manufacture to justify anything like the sum fixed by
the capitalists as the minimum upon which a satisfactory annual re-
turn might have been predicated. Every effort was made, within
legitimate bounds, to swell the possessions of the industry to the
desired figures. It couldn't be done. In some cases the assessed val-
ues of good names, added to the material assets, might easily have
reached the required figures. But good will in the piano business is
not even yet a recognized quantity when real money is the considera-
ST. LOUIS PIANO MAN
CONFIRMS A REPORT
An Incident of Russell Elam's Vacation
Proves to Him the Sad Truth of a
General Statement.
Russell Elam, manager of the piano department
of Scruggs, Vandervoort & Barney. St. Louis, is em-
joying a vacation in the Ozarks, where he says he
lias a splendid opportunity of witnessing the phe-
nomena of things that won't stay put. Not that he
lacks acquaintance with the phenomena every day
in St. Louis, for instances jar him at every turn.
The quality of elusiveness in certain people and
things usually provide Mr. Elam with daily and
even hourly chances for the study of characteristics.
He discovers a piano prospect, perhaps, which prom-
ises well. The prospective buyer of piano or player
is properly treated with a convincing line of argu-
ment and seems impressed. Everything looks like
a successful closing when the villain competitor en-
ters and—you know what very often happens.
Or maybe an important piano trade meeting ap-
proaches and it fills the St. Louis piano men with
the desire to oratorically lay bare the facts that
make a trade custom a problem. Like the others, Mr.
Elam is inspired to contribute to the problem solving.
Me primes himself with the elements and qualities
that constitute a trade evil. He prepares himself for a
masterly handling of his theme. Then when it
comes to his turn to speak and he is about to arise,
P. E. Conroy or J. E. Kieselhorst jumps up and beats
him to the oration, saying in a loud, practiced voice
everything that Mr. Elam had committed to mem-
ory. Bingo goes an opportunity.
When he climbed up Old Baldy, the highest of
Missouri's baby grand mountains, one day last week
tion. That is, the good will, save in exceptional instances, is not
measured by millions.
And so the scheme of a combination fell through, twenty years
ago, because the capital represented by the aggregate of industries
producing pianos did not represent as much as twenty millions of
dollars. There was not much said about it at the time. The large
piano industries whose owners had agreed to "go in" were indifferent.
The smaller manufacturers openly confessed their disappointment.
And the capitalists, who "held the bag," were inexorable. They
would not consider a prolonged effort to show that their expert esti-
mators were inefficient or prejudiced. They only knew that the
figures submitted failed to disclose a total investment of enough to
justify the "combination" and so their money was converted into a
plan just then being formulated in the automobile industry.
The purpose of this reminiscence is not merely to rehearse his-
tory. It is rather, to draw a contrast between the material values
involved in piano manufacture twenty years ago and today.
Within a few months a large piano industry, with headquarters
in New York City, was approached by the representative of another
individual piano manufacturer in the same city, with a proposition of
purchase. The larger industry agreed to give the matter consideration
and in time an inventory had been completed and a meeting arranged
with the proposed purchaser. It was then shown that the real assets
of the great New York concern exceeded the total sum which had
ben proposed as an offset to the entire industry twenty years ago.
The proposed individual purchaser of the great New York piano in-
dustry is a man of wealth who has been in the industry and trade for
a great many years. He is reportedly a multi-millionaire. His offer
was, as is commonly reported in New York, $12,000,000. As has been
said, his offer was promptly turned down. And the gentleman was
told that he could buy the great piano plant, together with its sev-
eral branches, for $18,000,000 cash. The counter proposition was
rejected.
This being a true story, could there be a better evidence of the
development of the American piano industry than that of the past
twenty years, during which a single great plant has been developed
to a position which parallels in money values that of the sum total
of all the piano industries less than a quarter-century ago, as esti-
mated by competent experts? The character of a business changes
with the changes in the vision of the men who make it. The piano
industry has been one of slow development because it could only
grow with the mental and material progress of the people. It has
finally attained to a point of such power that no one is surprised to
find a single industry the value of which may be estimated in the
millions whereas not so very long ago thousands would have been
large enough.
he could recall hundreds of things that had proved
elusive if he had been in a. retrospective mood. Rut
his mind was on his steps, for the path up to Andy
Buchanan's shanty, perched on the shoulder of the
mountain, was steep and rugged. It was with a
tired grunt he sank into the hickory rocker the
mountaineer set out for him.
"'My, what a view," he exclaimed, admiringly, as
he looked over the succession of forest-covered hills,
ranging from luxuriant greens to the delicate blues
of distant ranges. "'Gee, what a swell place to live!"
"Huh! You alls wouldn't say so if you had to tramp
down yander every time you wanted a dram a' co'n
whisky," said Andy Buchanan, with a disgusted
sweep of his corncob towards the village in the val-
lay three miles away.
"Why tramp every time you want a shot of
hootch?" asked Mr. Elam. "Why don't you keep a
couple of bottles of whisky?"
"Keep? Keep!" echoed the old man. "Whisky
don't keep!'
"That's what they all say," agreed the piano man.
JULY TRADE FIGURES.
Tulv exports were valued at $654,000,000, against
C00.000 in June of this year, and $569,000,000 in
Ju'y of last year. Kxports for the seven months'
period ending" with July amounted to $4,902,000,000,
nn inccrase of 6 per cent over the exports of $4,626,-
000 000 in the first seven months of last year. Im-
ports in Tuly were valued at $537,000,000, compared
with $553,000,000 in June, 1920, and $344,000,000 in
July of 1919. For the seven months ended with July
imports were $3,482,000,000, an increase of 78 per
cent over the imports of $1,954,000,000 in the first
seven months of 1919. The excess of exports over
imports amounted to $117,000,000 in July and $1,420,-
000 000 in the seven months ending with July of this
year, as compared with $225,000,000 for July and
$2,672,000,000 for the seven months ending with July
of last year.
R. B. ALDCROFTT GOES
TO WISCONSIN MEETING
Has a Passing Word with Presto Man in Chicago
on the Way Through.
R. B. Aldcroftt, president of De Rivas & Haris
Mfg. Co., Inc., New York, arrived in Chicago on
Tuesday of this week en route to the Wisconsin
Piano Dealers' Association meeting at Milwaukee,
where he was billed to speak about the work of the
Music Industries Chamber of Commerce, of which
he is president.
To a Presto representative, who met him at M.
J. Kennedy's office in the Republic Building. Chi-
cago, Mr. Aldcroft said that R. H. Zinke, of Milwau-
kee, was expecting a very large attendance at the.
convention. Mr. Aldcroftt had just hung up the re-
ceiver after telephoning to Frank E. Morton, of the
American Steel & Wire Company, who had assured
him that he, too, would attend. "There will be ad-
dresses on a number of timely topics," Mr. Aldcroftt
said.
Mr. Grim, traveler for the Tonk Mfg. Co., Chi-
cago, who was present, said: "There will be a dis-
appointed crowd of music trade men at Milwaukee
when they seek hotel accommodations, for the state
fair is on at that city and every room is occupied.
Never has Milwaukee -had such throngs of well-to-
do visitors as arc there right now."
GERMAN TUNING FIGURES.
At a meeting of the Rhine-Westphalian Piano
Dealers' Union, held in Essen on July 13, it was de-
cided inter alia, that the present charges for piano
tuning should continue, viz.: For a cottage 20
marks; for a grand, 25 marks; for local services and
for outside work the same fees plus fares and other
expenses.
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