Presto

PRESTO
The American Music Trade Weekly
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY AT 407 SOUTH DEAR-
BORN STREET, OLD COLONY BUILDING, CHICAGO, ILL.
Editors
C. A. DANIELL and FRANK D. ABBOTT
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-clasa 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 United States possessions, 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.
Photographs of general trade interest are always welcome, and when used, if of
special concern, a charge will be made to cover cost of the engravings.
Rates for advertising in Presto Year Book Issue and Export Supplements of
Presto will be made known upon application. Presto Tear 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 tha 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 inelr 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, OCTOBER 28, 1922.
October 28, 1922.
steadily on. Old methods are permitted to rule, and the things that
belong to the progressive age are disregarded or despised. The re-
sult is inevitable. Others in the field play upon what belongs to the
industry afflicted with dry rot. Others take away what, by years of
conscientious effort, belongs to the one thus afflicted. A little effort,
and little spirit of the times, would save it. A little latter-day en-
terprise would keep it at the front and enable it to easily discount the
best of its earlier attainments.
The Shoninger piano will continue, but with a changed vision of
what is required. And there are other famous, or at least firmly cred-
itable, pianos which are in the same fix. Their responsible heads do
not realize it, but they are drifting to a like halting of what might, if
well directed, be a greater progress than ever before. They are mak-
ing pianos and shipping them. But that is all. They are not progress-
ing. They are not adding to either their list of customers or to the
factory dimensions or equipment. They present a marked contrast,
with their retrogressive methods, to the intense energies of the other
kind—the industries that move restlessly ahead, and build larger and
larger, keeping their names more and more, to the front and com-
pelling the trade, and the piano world, generally, to know them and
to buy their products, because the retailers will sell them and, often,
them only.
Look over the field of the piano industry and trade, and you will
put your finger upon the two classes of industries without much hes-
itancy. Every piano dealer knows them. Many dealers are grad-
ually dropping the pianos of the non-progressive kind in favor of the
more active and profit-producing. And price has nothing at all to do
with it. The higher the price the better the instrument. The better
the instrument the better the customer. The everlasting rule of pro-
portion holds good in the piano business as everywhere else.
PRESTO CORRESPONDENCE
BUSINESS
IT IS NOT CUSTOMARY WITH THIS PAPER TO PUBLISH REGU-
LAR CORRESPONDENCE FROM ANY POINTS. WE, HOWEVER,
HAVE RESIDENT REPRESENTATIVES IN NEW YORK, BOSTON,
SAN FRANCISCO, PORTLAND, CINCINNATI, INDIANAPOLIS, MIL-
WAUKEE AND OTHER LEADING MUSIC TRADE CENTERS, WHO
KEEP THIS PAPER INFORMED OF TRADE EVENTS AS THEY HAP-
PEN. AND PRESTO IS ALWAYS GLAD TO RECEIVE REAL NEWS
OF THE TRADE FROM WHATEVER SOURCES ANYWHERE AND
MATTER FROM SPECIAL CORRESPONDENTS, IF USED, WILL BE
PAID FOR AT SPACE RATES. USUALLY PIANO MERCHANTS OR
SALESMEN IN THE SMALLER CITIES, ARE THE BEST OCCA-
SIONAL CORRESPONDENTS, AND THEIR ASSISTANCE IS INVITED.
Whatever has to do with the advancement, promotion or stabili-
zation of the material things of art or industry is business. The busi-
ness of the piano manufacturer would be of no special importance
without the business of the retail merchant. The business of the re-
tailer would be small, and lacking in any degree of development, but
for the energies and intelligent ambitions of the piano salesmen.
Everything in business is dependent for its development upon co-
operative and systematic union of effort and direction. And in the
piano business the trade paper has its place in much more than a dual
capacity. It might be enough if the trade paper gave the news of the
business in its diverse departments, and served as the medium of ad-
vertising the products of the industries to the dealers or retailers.
Originally those were the twin purposes of the trade paper. But,
as time passed and the trade paper gathered influence and the confi-
dence of business men, it broadened out, whether designedly or not,
into a medium of exchange by which employers and employes were
brought together, and the producing and selling departments of tha
business found ready and convenient source of the most vital means
to progress and success.
Nor is this all. The trade paper has become the chief subject of
both the complaint springing from misunderstanding, injured self-in-
terest, selfish pride and a hundred other motives and commendation,
based upon recognition of fair conduct, influence, understanding and
Avillingness to serve. No trade paper can expect to have the unan-
imous praise and support of all the manufacturers and workers in the
industry it seeks to serve, and whose esteem it may want to have.
There are jealousies in business, as in politics, and there are little
minds directing special interests of large industries, as there are
biased and unfair minds governing in public places. All that any trade
paper can do is to use its intelligence and influence to further busi-
ness as may seem good for the larger interests. And in this the
strength of the trade paper finds its best expression.
It is here that the well conducted trade paper becomes, even
against its original purposes, a medium of interchange between the
manufacturers and the workers or employees. And in this the trade
paper has an intimate influence which coordinates with its usefulness
as a medium of publicity. It makes still stronger the link which joins
together the industries and the merchants.
What has been said is well illustrated in the "Where Doubts Are
Dispelled" department of Presto, where often in a single issue, twenty
or more questions, concerning pianos and other trade topics, are
answered. It is equally, or even more clearly, seen in the calls that
come from manufacturers for workers in factories and for salesmen
on the road. The same applies to the requests for expert player
demonstrators and retail salesmen for stores and outside piano sell-
ADVERTISING INFORMATION
Forms close promptly at noon every Thursday. News matter for
publication should be in not later than eleven o'clock on the same
day. Advertising copy should be in hand before Tuesday, five p. m.,
to insure preferred position. Full page display copy should be- in
hand by Monday noon preceding publication day. Want advs. for cur-
rent week, to insure classification, must be at office of publication not
later than Wednesday noon.
DRY ROT
Nothing in business is more deplorable than to see a well estab-
lished industry, with a good name and a product of quality, even dis-
tinction, slowly decaying because of lack of energy and a disposition
to "let well enough alone." And this condition is especially melan-
choly in a famous old piano industry. It is dry rot, simple and unmis-
takable. No line of industry is wholly exempt from notable in-
stances of the kind. Certainly the piano industry has had its ex-
amples of the condition to which reference is made.
Recently the newspapers everywhere told of the application for
a receiver by the B. Shoninger Company, of New Haven and New
York. It would get you guessing to name any piano industry that has
stood higher, financially and otherwise, than the one founded seventy-
two years ago by the late Bernard Shoninger. There had never, until
recent years, been a suggestion of anything but straightfonvard and
sterling progress, conservative but steady, in connection with the
name. From the ancient little melodion to the modern playerpiano,
the New Haven house has moved forward. The name of Shoninger
has stood so high that it had passed everywhere as flawless assurance
of credit. And yet a receiver is appointed.
Conservatism is an admirable characteristic. But, like virtue,
itself, if carried too far, conservatism takes on another meaning and
becomes destructive. It is destructive as the moth is destructive in
a rich garment. Its inroads are not seen but the disintegration goes
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/