PRESXO
PRESTO
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY AT 407 SOUTH DEAR-
BORN STREET, OLD COLONY BUILDING, CHICAGO, ILL.
C. A. DANIELL and FRANK D. ABBOTT
Editors
Telephones, Local and Long Distance, .Harrison 234. Private Phones to all De-
partments. Cable Address (Commercial Cable Co.'s Code), " P R E S T O , " Chicago.
Entered as second-class matter Jan. 29, 1896, a t the Post Office, Chicago, Illinois,
under Act of March 3, 1879.
Subscription, $2 a year; 6 months, $1; Foreign, $4. Payable In advance. No extra
charge in U. S. possessions, Canada, Cuba and Mexico.
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, SEPTEMBER 11, 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 SHIFTING
INDUSTRY
All over the country there are little hamlets which at some time
in their existence promised to grow into great cities. Every historian
has something to say about the points of interest which at some
earlier day were pointed out as the commercial centers of the future
or the prospective places of large industries. And so when some
careful chronicler of the American piano industry produces his his-
tory of the instrument, past and present, he will tell of the start,
struggles and finish of many whose names will by that time have
passed to forgetfulness. For piano making has been a shifting in-
dustry, and a long list of what have seemed names of promise in the
world of music have flashed up for a few years and died in the embers
of disappointment. And of course the places of their brief careers
have also faded away as the scenes of piano activity.
Will it be interesting to take a hurried look at some of the one-
time "piano towns" of the kind referred to? Will it be instructive or
in any way useful? Perhaps not largely, but everything that presents
historical facts, in any line of endeavor, must be of some value to
workers in the special field to which attention may be directed. And,
still more, it is often said that there is no manufactured article that
does so much in the upbuilding of a town or community as the piano.
No other product carries the name of the place of its manufacture
so far into the homes of the people, and keeps it there so long and so
conspicuously. There are pianos in homes thousands of miles distant
from the towns of their makers, which have been standing there for
five, ten, twenty or even fifty years. And, through all the years, the
pianos' names and the place of their creation have been shining
brightly upon the instruments' fall boards.
It is a fact but little known that the city of Dayton, Ohio, at one
time set forth claims to having produced the first complete American
piano. We all know that the old-time notion that Daniel Crehore,
of Milton, Mass., was the pioneer in this line, was fiction. And we
know that the story about John Jacob Astor having made the first
New York piano was not based upon fact. But how many in the
trade know that pianos were made in Milwaukee long before Chi-
September 11, 1920.
cago could lay claim to a piano maker? And of the later "piano
towns" that have lost their claims to the distinction implied there
are many. Prominent among them, because of the size and activities
of her one-time piano factories, is Erie, Pennsylvania. Most of us
still in harness can remember when the late C. C. Converse went to
Erie with the Burdett Organ Co., and later added pianos to his fac-
tory output. The Shaw Piano Co. became equally prominent, and
its factory was a very pretentious one. So, too, with the Colby Piano
Co., which grew to large proportions and drew to Erie a good many
competent, even distinguished, piano men.
Erie is no longer a "piano town" and there is no piano factory
there. So with Scranton, in the same state, while Pittsburgh, for some
reason, has never boasted a large piano industry. Michigan is a pro-
lific piano state, but many of the great industries are of Chicago
origin, and are "going strong." Of the towns which once claimed
piano activities, but which are now silent in that respect, it is im-
possible not to mention Ann Arbor, Jackson, Battle Creek and Sagi-
naw, all of which have been the scenes of musical instrument manu-
facture.
Indiana is one of the remarkable commonwealths with respect
to piano production as well as in the possession of poets and other
artists. But even Indiana has her share of deserted piano towns, of
which Peru may be termed the "late lamented." For Peru came very
near to the attainment of distinction as the home of the Chute &
Butler pianos, now no more. Ohio has quite a list of "former" piano
towns, among them being Springfield, Dayton and Ripley. It is fair
to say that both Peru and Springfield lost their piano factories by
fire and in no sense of failure.
If we were to go eastward it would be found that the list of
"has beens" would include a long row of otherwise thriving cities
and towns. There was, for instance, a time when Bridgeport, Conn.,
could boast of three thriving piano plants. There is no piano fac-
tory there now. When the reed organ was at the height of its pros-
perity, the "nutmeg state" was the world's center of that industry,
with Meriden, and Worcester, Mass., the head and front of it. Now
those industrial cities sustain their earlier reputations by the energies
and power of the Wilcox & White Co. and the Simplex Player Action
Co., respectively.
It is a shifting industry, truly, but the changes are, as a rule,
signs of progress. The piano has long been settled and fixed in its
place among the larger industries. The days of experimentation are
past, and it would be a very difficult matter for any prophet of the
future to point out any "piano town" of today as one doomed to lose
its place in the line of the music industries within the next decade.
The shifting from this time forward, promises to be in the way of
development, greater stability and improved methods of both manu-
facture and sale.
WHY SELL OUT?
It is a somewhat anomalistic condition that something like a
half-dozen going piano industries are willing to sell out if reason-
able propositions should happen to come their way. Considering that
the demand for instruments is not only good, but often beyond
precedent, and that there is reason to believe that it will so remain
for a long time to come, it may seem strange that any prosperous
piano industry should be in the market for a buyer. But a little re-
flection will show that there are reasons, and that the reasons have
to do, not with depression, but actually with a state of activity in
which the sole suggestion of doubt rests in the kind of perplexities
that pertain to underproduction due to an excessive demand. And
usually that is a condition welcomed by manufacturers in almost
any line of trade.
But of course there must be a cause for the readiness of so
many piano industries to embrace purchasers. One of the causes,
no doubt, is found in the rapid progress of the business during the
last few years. The controlling interests in the industries, having
attained one of the aims of all business within a comparatively
short time, and having some doubt as to the continuation of existing
attractive conditions, feel that they would prefer to make sure of
the results of their very active experiences. Others see in present
conditions a good time in which to sell, because their showing is
such as must seem an ample inducement to ambitious investors.
Still others, perhaps, do not like to cope with the uncertainties of
the restless and unreliable labor market. And the difficulties in
securing essential supplies also enter in, and help to decide even
prosperous piano manufacturers to flirt with what may seem the
unusually favorable time for "selling out."
Whatever the reasons, however, it is certain that some very
attractive opportunities present themselves to prospective purchasers
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/