Classic Mode

Presto

Issue: 1920 1793

PRESTO
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), "PRESTO," Chicago.
Entered as second-class matter Jan. 29, 1896, at 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 dascriptive 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 Bock 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, DECEMBER 4, 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—SPECIALLY ABOUT YOUR OWN
BUSINESS.
TALK PIANOS, NOT PRICES
There is further evidence of the kind that "'can't lie" in this issue
of Presto. It is the evidence that is fortified by figures. It shows
some of the prevailing costs of supplies as compared with the cost
oi the identical parts several years ago. But, interesting and con-
clusive, as the figures are, as showing why the piano dealers can not
expect wholesale prices to drop very soon, they are not the best kind
of ammunition to employ in making sales.
As a matter of fact, the better plan is to forget all about prices
ac the factories when a retail sale is in progress. Fix the margin of
fair profits and stick to the figures religiously, (iet away from the
worn-out system of making prices and then permitting the prospect
to do the selling at his own price. That was the way many piano
sales were made in the days when competition had not been regu-
lated, or softened, by the associations which now exert a wholesome
influence almost everywhere. That was the way the local animosities
were fostered and the dealers robbed of their profits. For when com-
petition became "fierce" the price cutting began and discretion was
blown to the winds.
Today there are retailers who seem to think only of what they
consider too-high prices. They neglect no opportunity to tell their
customers that pianos have kept pace with other things and gone
steadily upwards in cost. And in that way they remind their cus-
tomers that there may come a time when things will drop again
and actually many people may follow that suggestion to the conclu-
sion that the better way is to defer the purchase until the drop comes.
There are countless people who, for the time being, see only the
money side of the question. That they are denying themselves the
delights of a musical instrument, and its refining influences, does not
seem to occur to them. In other words, piano buyers are human
beings and they only need a suggestion to bring about a stampede.
Therefore when a piano salesman has a prospect his better way
is to let the price question alone and stick to the piano itself. In
December 4, 1920.
other words, talk piano and not prices. The customer will probably
have something to say about the latter, and it will not be necessary,
even then, for the salesman to go over the problem of the high cost
of anything. He has a fine instrument to sell. He knows what it is
worth. Probably the customer really thinks it is worth still more.
And if the piano is a good one the customer is probably right in that.
For only a few pianos are sold for as much as they are worth to the
buyer. And it is so seldom that a piano dealer retires from business
independently rich that it seems a mystery that anyone can even
vaguely suspect that prices in this trade have ever been high enough.
In some lines of business it is easily possible for the retailer to
cut prices on some item in his store without making a hole in his
profits. Even if he is foolish enough to give away some more or less
inconsequential article, he may be only doing a bit of advertising.
And, even so, he is doing no more than the piano dealers used to do
when they presented watches, coupons, stools and scarfs with every
sale or, often, before any sales had been made. In business things are
not always just what they seem, no matter how much we may think
they should be so. And a cut in prices of any article of trade need
not mean that everything else is about to take a tumble. When the
bakers take a cent off the price of bread, no one expects to buy mink
furs any lower. And when men's socks are sold at a "reduction sale"
no one thinks that pianos are equally in line for the cut prices. The
baker may have been asking too much, or he may be shrinking the
size of his loaf. The haberdasher may so adjust things as to make
up the difference in the profits of his shirts, collars and neck-ties.
But the piano dealer can neither shrink his players and grands nor
equalize by swelling the size of his installment interest. He must
sell at the price justified by the manufacturers' figures and the added
sum to be adjusted by the needs of his business as proportioned to
the number of instruments he sells. In this, too, piano selling differs
from other lines of trade. It is here that the problem of price stand-
ardization in the retail trade is hard to solve and to settle.
But never is there any good reason for talking high prices to a
piano prospect unless the subject is broached by the customer, and
then it should be made subservient to the piano itself. In other
words, always talk pianos and not prices.
NO CANCELLATIONS
From time immemorial the bad habit of cancelling orders has
been a sore spot in the piano business—in most lines of business.
And the custom had become so much a menace that several very
large wholesale concerns deemed it necessary to notify their cus-
tomers that it would no longer be tolerated. They declared that the
"integrity of business" demanded that the custom cease. And it will
cease in several lines of trade. What about the piano trade?
In times past it was very common for traveling salesmen to send
in orders and before the manufacturers could make acknowledgment
they received notice of cancellation. Perhaps as soon as the sales-
men had left the stores the weak-kneed merchants reconsidered and
sent out the countermands. They did not stop to consider what it
might mean to both the manufacturers and their salesmen. They did
not care that the latter had called, and urged the claims of the in-
struments they represented, at considerable cost in time and money.
They did not take into account the fact that but for their orders,
taken by the salesmen in good faith, some other local dealer might
have done the same thing and have treated the obligation with better
fairness. They thought only of their own convenience and mude
their countermand as if there could be but one side to the trans-
action.
There is nothing fair in such a transaction. The piano deal
who gives an order should not be guilty of such a breach of businej
integrity. He should have given deeper consideration to the rm
ter before giving the order. And if it was given to a traveling saj
man, the breach is the wider if a countermand follows without s<
very special reason, and it is not easy to think of a good reason 1
cancelling an order given in good faith. It is a violation of the rij
of the salesman which may lead to misunderstanding more disast
than mere money loss. It may even lead to rupture of relatiorj
tween an ambitious employee and his employer.
There is another phase of this question, however, in wlj
traveler at one time drew upon him the weight of the manuj
annoyance and the dealer's mild discredit. For there, ^
crept into the trade a habit of forcing orders based upoj
derstanding that the countermand might be made if a cj
or heart took place within a stipulated time. And the £
frequent enough to cause the countermand. Or possiij
the dealer to do some "shopping" w-hen the next travej
representing a rival house. Then the inducement of
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).
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f
December 4, 1920.
PRESTO
of some special feature in the instrument itself, served as the switch
by which the whole transaction was turned to another track. But
such things should not recur, and trade conditions certainly do not
justify them now, and perhaps never will do so.
Cancellations are the results of two prime causes—the hypnotic
salesman or the wobble-brained merchant who is sanguine today
and sunk in doubt tomorrow. Both causes are due to weakness and
there is little excuse for either of them. The only and remote jus-
tification is in disappointment on the part of the dealer in some im-
mediate transaction, or in a realization that the local financial market
has dropped below zero and does not warrant even the ordinary
chances of business. Of course no honorable man will place an order
with a manufacturer when he has reason to believe that he can not
meet the obligation at maturity or when he feels that his condition
does not justify the credit. That goes without saying.
But the habit of countermanding orders accepted in good faith
by the manufacturer, or his representative, indicates a poor consid-
eration on the merchant's part of the rights of his source of supplies.
If repeated frequently, the habit is enough to discredit any business
house and lay it open to suspicion. It is a good sign that some very
influential concerns are notifying their trade that cancellations will
not be accepted and that goods called for, and either delivered or
entered for shipment, belong to the customer and must be so con-
sidered. There is no other fair way. Certainly no piano manufac-
turer can be expected to predicate the force and output of his factory
upon orders which may at any moment be cancelled, rendering it nec-
essary to sell again or carry for future uncertainties. In business—
yes, even the piano business—fair play is about the first essential.
It is too much to demand of the manufacturer that his instruments
afford every assurance of values and supremacy, if the dealers refuse
to respect the integrity of their promises to buy and pay for those
instruments. Cut out the cancellations and do business upon business
principles.
Yes, "Give More Thought to Music," and give a lot of it also to
the way you are going to close the old year and open the new one.
The world brings to you about what you beckon for, and your busi-
STRONG UTTERANCE BY
DALLAS ASSOCIATION
Protest Against Unjust and Burdensome
Taxes, Immediate Effects of Which Are Felt
by Music Trade, Made in Resolution.
The Dallas Music Industries Association, Dallas,
Tex., at a special meeting held November 21, unani-
mously adopted the following declaration:
The Dallas Music Industries Association, at its
regular meeting November 21, desires to enter a
most vigorous protest against the penalizing of the
people of the United States, by a further increase
of the unjust and burdensome tax that has been
heretofore levied on pianos and musical instruments
through the popularity of which the people of this
country enjoy the stimulating and moralizing! effect
of music and through this medium are diverted and
entertained and mentally relieved of many of the
distressing results of existing conditions in business
and social life.
With| the aid of pianos and other musical instru-
ments, a great national and educational movement
has been launched and is well under way, under
the slogan, "Music in Industry," through which
greatly added efficiency has already been ob-
tained and many of the turbulent and threatening
disturbances in the field of labor have been counter-
acted and are being lessened by the introduction
of music into industry.
This work is being accomplished through the co-
operation of the great national associations con-
nected with the musical industry, assisted by local
civic music commissions, appointed for that purpose,
backed up and aided by local, organizations of the
music trade industry, none of which are more ac-
tive and energetic in participating in this great na-
tional movement, than the Music Trade Industries
Association of Dallas.
While the immediate burden of tax falls upon the
piano merchant, who is already overburdened with
other forms of federal, state and municipal taxes,
this specific tax is a direct blow at musical educa-
tion and an unjust form of opposition to a move-
ment that will do more to quell disturbances; dis-
courage Bolshevism, anarchy and riot, than any other
human force or factor, and this tax, instead of being
increased should be abolished by unanimous vote
of those who frame and direct' the levying of fed-
eral taxes, as from the very nature of the conditions
that have existed for several years and continue to
exist, these taxes must be passed along to the ulti-
mate consumer who should not suffer in the acqui-
sition of such a moral influence and entertaining
ness will be about what you determine to make it. "Give More
Thought to Music" and give a lot of it to the music your customers
will make with the instruments you may sell them.
* * *
Whatever you do, do it with the spirit that wins. Whether a
single sale in a small town or the supervision of many sales in a
large city, make every day one of the kind of enthusiasm that carries
far beyond the hour of your effort. Enthusiasm, and faith in the
pianos you represent, go further to win success than any other influ-
ence outside the piano itself.
* * *
Forget the high costs of things and inspire your prospects to
realize that it isn't a few dollars more or less but the quality of your
pianos and the satisfaction they give that counts in the long run.
Buying a piano isn't an every-day event with most people, and to
consider the price above all else is the last way to buy a fine instru-
ment. That's the point.
* * *
If you haven't settled upon the line you expect to push during
the New Year, it's time you did it. The manufacturers like the dealers
who push their instruments loyally and enthusiastically. Make
next year the one in which advertising will help. Tell your neigh-
bors about the splendid line you represent, and your business will
profit by it.
* * *
This is the month in which to get rid of the "store keepers," if
you have any in stock. Clean the place out. Then place your orders
for the instruments that have sold well and into which you have been
pvitting your local effort and advertising.
* * *
Again look over your list of irresolute prospects and get in as
many as you can before the old year dies. They want pianos even
though they like to talk about continuing to ''think it over."
* * *
Hang out your holiday piano banners. Get after the dilatory
prospects who have been "thinking about it" for months, even years,
past.
and sustaining force as is represented in music, and
the piano is the chief instrument and means through
which this great musical propaganda is being ad-
vanced for the benefit of all the people and not
alone forl those who enjoy the possession of an in-
strument in the home.
These and many other arguments justify this ut-
terance, as well as the passing of this protest by
unanimous vote of this association. The arguments
against this specific and burdensome taxation are
unlimited and convincing and this association by
contributing to the general protest, hopes that this
excise tax on pianos will be completely abolished.
PIANO TUNERS IN TWO
CITIES ARE ORGANIZED
Kansas City, Mo., and Wichita, Kans., Now Have
Branches of National Association.
The Kansas City, Mo., piano tuners held a meet-
ing at the Hotel Savoy Sunday afternoon, Novem-
ber 28, at which there was a large attendance. The
officers elected were: Frank Lupien, chairman;
Adolph Johnson, vice-chairman, and Carl M. Shafer,
secretary and treasurer. It was decided to hold a
regular meeting twice a month at the Savoy Hotel.
The piano tuners of Wichita, Kans., were pre-
sented with a charter by W. F. McClellan, national
secretary and treasurer of the National Association
of Tuners, Inc., at a meeting held Saturday evening
at the Hotel Lassen. There was a full attendance
of the members.
Large supplies of association pamphlets have been
ordered and a vigorous campaign of education on
the nature and care of the piano will be carried on
in both Kansas City and Wichita.
ROY ROSE BACK WITH Q R S CO.
There is no more enterprising salesman among the
wholesale men than Roy Rose. After an absence of
a few years, he has returned to his former fold and
associated himself once more with the Q R S Music
Co. as a member of the player roll sales force.
About twenty years ago Mr, Rose started at 399
West Madison street, Chicago, with the Q R S Co.
at its original factory when Melville Clark first be-
gan making 88-note rolls. Later he was with the
U. S. Music Co. and the Mel-O-Dee Company. Con-
gratulations are in order both to the Q R S Co. and
Mr. Rose over this new connection, which ought to
prove of mutual advantage to the contracting par-
ties.
GET-TOGETHER PARTIES
SHOW FINE SHOP SPIRIT
Occasional Social Affairs of Employes of General
Player Action Co. Are Great Successes.
That the employes of the General Player Action
Company, New York, are conducting its work with
a deep spirit of co-operation and good fellowship
is evident by the occasional social affairs held in the
factory building which are attended by almost every
employe of the concern. These affairs are now con-
sidered as an institution by the workers of the fac-
tory and the future date of a get-together party is
looked forward to with no small account of pleasant
anticipation.
The main factors of success in these occasional
good times are that the employes themselves ar-
range the date and rely more or less on the spirit
of get-together and shop loyalty. Little planning is
done in advance with the exception of providing
for good things to eat. Speeches and other activi-
ties come up as each occasion demands.
This get-together spirit of the employes of the
General Player Action Co.'s factory undoubtedly
produces a harmony in the work of the organiza-
tion which is in a large way responsible for the high
standard maintained in the General Player Action
Co.'s product. This is a plan which could be adopt-
ed more generally by manufacturing concerns with
resulting quality as good as those obtained by this
factory in the Bronx.
PLAYERPIANO AS GIFT.
The playerpin.no as a "gift worth while" was pre-
sented last week by The Bruce Co., Lincoln, 111. In
telling about the desirability of the instrument thi?
was printed: "One of our up-to-date p'ayerpianos
will make a gift of double usefulness. For those who
are not musically inclined and cannot manipulate
the keys with their own fingers, the player mechan-
ism will bring 1 all the joys of the latest musical com-
positions adapted to the piano. Likewise, if there
should be some member of the family who is tal-
ented, he or she can use this beautiful instrument
in the same manner as an ordinary piano."
A record holiday season in piano sales is now
assured in the store of the D. W. Lerch Co., Can-
ton, O. Every day is busy day in the handsome
warerooms at 210 Market avenue. North.
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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