RESTO
BIG FIELD FOR BABY GRANDS IN
AUSTRALIAj\NDJHE FAR EAST
November 6, 1920.
WAREROOM WARBLES
(A New One Every Week )
By The Presto Poick.
Trade Investigator and Traveler Estimates that a Great Demand for
American Pianos and Talking Machines Could Quickly Be
Established in Island Possessions.
By F. H. Williams
Within the last few years we have developed in
the United States the small apartment baby grand
piano. This latter piano would find a market of
not less than 100,000 a year in Australia and New
Zealand for the next few years if some American
manufacturers went after the business. There is
practically no competition in the piano field and
especially is this true with regard to these small baby
grands.
With talking machines in the United States we
have today most serious competition; hundreds of
new manufacturers have sprung up since the ex-
piration of certain phonograph patents. In foreign
fields there is hardly any competition and it would
pay a number of manufacturers to give serious con-
sideration to Australia and New Zealand and also
to the Far East.
Activities of Japanese.
Japan has found it very profitable to manufacture
both the baby grand piano and the talking machine
and offer them to the Australian market. The Amer-
ican manufacturer should not think that, because of
this fact, it would be useless for him to attempt the
market.
There is one thing that Japan cannot do and that
is to originate sales; she can copy anything that any-
body else does, she can-advertise after we have ad-
vertised, but she cannot start these things of her
own accord. Any live American manufacturer can
at very small expense put over an advertising cam-
paign on either of. these articles and get millions
of dollars worth of business before the Japanese
manufacturer even hears about it.
The general impression has been that only pianos
of cheap price and grade as well as talking machines
were desired in foreign markets, whereas as a mat-
ter of fact from South America to Europe, from
Australia to the Far East, there exists a ready mar-
ket for talking machines ranging in price from $150
gold and upwards and for baby grand pianos rang-
ing in price from $500 gold upwards.
The only thing that the American manufacturer
needs to do with both his piano and talking machine
is to use a few dollars' worth of good brass screws
to keep the glue from the wood from drying up and-
the casing falling apart. Surely this is an easy
matter.
Our Pianos Already There.
Here is millions of dollars worth of business wait-
ing, not glittering prospects, but actual down to
brass tack piano and talking machine business, and
•it would be a profitable investment for any manufac-
turer of these lines to make a tour to Australia and
New Zealand and see the opportunity with his own
eyes.
Some attempt has been made in these markets to sell
American uprights, and I found there such well known
makes as Acoustigrande, Haddorff, York, Apollo,
Emerson, Baldwin, Schomacker, Cable, Wing & Son,
Steinway, Vose & Sons, John Church & Company,
Everett,-'Martin Bros., Gulbransen, Kimball, Milton
and several other American makes.
Some of these pianos I saw at well-known hotels,
others in the homes of well-to-do people or officials
I visited. I would always make it a point to in-
quire why they had an American make piano and the
reply in the majority of instances indicated that they
preferred our piano tone as against local or English
makes.
Few Grands Are Seen.
I rarely saw a grand piano, except at two leading
hotels, and upon expressing the statement that we
were manufacturing, in the United States, a small
baby grand piano, I found much interest manifested
and gave the names of several leading makers of
these baby grands who, I have since ascertained,
were written to and several sales made. Now if this
little missionary work can bring about the sale of
twenty-five baby grands that I have accounted for,
what can real advertising do in Australia and New
Zealand?
It is true that the English uprights have a large
sale in'Australia, but'this is due to the fact that they
are preferred because they are smaller and can be
handled more easily and fit better in the small homes
than the large American upright.
I found a small upright piano, made in Japan, sim-
ilar to one we have often seen used in individual
class rooms in the American schools, and it was sell-
ing, delivered into Australia, for $200. This piano
I was told was not standing up very well and much
fault was found with its tone, so it can be readily
seen with that result it would be" impossible for
Japanese manufacturers to hold the market very long.
Japs Great Stencilers.
I also found several pianos made in Japan bearing
the well-known names as Sterling, Grand Opera, Ex-
celsior, America. Of course, anybody who visits the
factories in Japan at Osaka or Kobe will find that
they readily purchase an imitation of name, or any
make of piano they want. If they have the design
the Japenese will make them and promise delivery
to any part of the world.
While I was in South America I noticed several
of these Japanese pianos being sold in that market
under the names of well-known American brands
and, upofi looking up the exports of pianos from
Japan to South American countries, I found they ran
into quite large figures.
Dealers in Australia and New Zealand are content
with small profits, and although a large installment
business is done in pianos and organs, because there
is hardly any Australian family that does not at
least possess an organ, still there is a large cash
business awaiting the live wire manufacturer who
will go after the market.
Every bridal couple in Australia and New Zealand is
a prospect for an American piano if it was put up
to them in an attractive manner, so that the least
possible business is limited only by the number of
marriages performed yearly in these countries. With
the unusually large amount of marriages taking
place, according to their local papers recently, it
seems doubly attractive.
Pictorial Trade Marks Best.
Here in the United States on pianos we have been
accustomed to the simple use of the name as a trade
mark. I think that, so far as foreign markets are
concerned, and I speak especially of the markets of
Australia and New Zealand at present, trade marks
should be adopted with some sort of a pictorial de-
sign. For example, "The Always Faithful," using
a picture of the "Old Faithful Geyser" in Yellow-
stone.
Our piano concerns issue good catalogs and espe-
cially those that show the piano in use in up-to-date
hotels, theatres and the like, are good advertising
talking points—photographs that talk for themselves.
The markets of the Philippines should not be for-
gotten. The Filipino, like the Australian, is a mu-
sical person and likes the piano and has the money
to buy it, but just as long as we permit jewelry stores
to act as agents at Manila, just so long will the
market remain inactive. There, more than anywhere
else m the Far East, is there need of fine piano and
talking machine show rooms. Hundreds of thou-
sands of well-to-do visitors come to Manila annually,
and many sales could be made for all points in the
Far East from there.
Just a few of these sample rooms and you would
find native merchants from all parts of the Far East
ready to duplicate these rooms and act as your
agents, so that for future business in these lines,
Manila is a point that should not be overlooked.
Show Rooms Needed.
Likewise to get these American pianos in promi-
nent hotels in Japan and China, and down through
the Straits and into India, would create a large sale
for them.
Now in the Far East, with these show rooms, haste
might be felt necessary, but so far as the purchaser
was concerned it might be looked upon as vulgar, so
that patience is a great virtue and a rush of imme-
diate business from show rooms might take some
time. A purchaser, although keenly interested in a
piano and talking machine, now might wait six
months before placing the order.
A good American baby grand piano and a good
talking • machine has millions of dollars' .worth of
business awaiting them from Australia to. the Far
East and back to South America, and none of these
fields should be overlooked if we are after trade ex-
pansion in earnest.
OUR WESTERN WAYS.
They say out West they want 'em bad—
So bad they go and hunt 'em
With guns and pistols, like they had
Some bandits to confront 'em;
They write and wire for Baby Grands,
And send the. cash to buy 'em,
But still they say their soft demands
The factories deny 'em.
It hardly seems the thing at all
That cowboys go to prancing,
And get their guns to urge their call—
It sounds so like romancing;
Their souls all seem to burn and thirst
For music and its pleasures,
And so they try to do their worst
To confiscate her treasures.
That's why we sometimes read about
The sharp note of the pistol,
And how the Injuns' song and shout
Ring out as clear as crystal;
How rivals meet in western plains
Disguised by red bandannas.
And capture heavy laden trains
In search of Grand Pianos!
THE LITTLE MIESSNER
PIANO FOR SCHOOLS
Important Drive of R. H. Zinke Music Co., One of
the Features of Milwaukee Trade.
The R. H. Zinke Music Co., Milwaukee, exclusive
state distributor of the little Miessner piano, in co-
operation with the Jackson Piano Co., manufacturer
of the instrument, is going to unusual lengths in at-
tracting the attention of teachers attending the Wis-
consin Teachers' convention. The Miessner is now
being used in several hundred schools in Wisconsin,
from the state university down to the kindergartens,
and since a wider distribution of the Miessner in
this connection is dependent to a considerable mea-
sure upon the favorable regard of the teachers, the
Zinke and Jackson companies have a very definite
interest in the annual teachers' convention.
Music merchants of Milwaukee express themselves
as being confident that trade will show a marked
pick-up now that the national election is over and
the public has come from under a great mental strain
which gripped them for the last five or six months.
Reassuring statements made by leaders in finance
and industry are once more coming out more freely
to contribute to a happier psychological condition
of merchants as well as consumers.
ENTERTAIN 40 Q R S DEALERS.
Forty Q R S roll dealers from Milwaukee were
entertained on Tuesday of last week by the Q R S
Music Roll Company at the Q R S factory, Kedzie
avenue and West Forty-eighth place, Chicago. A
delicious and substantial lunch was served, and
Thomas M. Pletcher, president of the company, gave
an address of encouragement and instruction to the
dealers, telling them how to increase their sales.
The men w r ere shown the various up-to-date proc-
esses of manufacturing the rolls in the great plant.
They expressed amazement and pleasure at what
they saw, and many of them promised to return
again to go through the factory.
MUSIC DEALER BUYS HOTEL.
The Newport Hotel, Denver, Colo., a three-story
modern brick building containing a store room on.
the ground floor occupied by the Charles E. Wells
Music company and forty rooms on the second and
third floors was sold last week to Charles E. .Wells,
of the Charles E v We'ls Music Co., who intends the
property for a permanent home for his music busi-
ness and for an investment.
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