PRESTO
The American Music Trade Weekly
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SATURDAY, JANUARY 6, 1923.
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IT IS NOT CUSTOMARY WITH THIS PAPER TO PUBLISH REGU-
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AS YOU MAKE IT
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A new year has begun. What are we of the piano and general
music trade going to make out of it, or get out of it? That is the
question we are all asking, whether we realize it or not.
The year just closed was not a good one for many of us. The
manufacturers who broke even count themselves fairly lucky. They
don't stop to count any profits, and if they show no losses well and
good.
The retailers, as a rule, feel that they have done well if they have
kept faith with the manufacturers and closed the year with no more
indebtedness than they had at the year's beginning. And if they
have carried over into the new year a fair showing of prospects they
count these the results of the old year's work.
That is about the way the year begins. The assets are ample.
The experience added to the sum during 1922 will be valuable as time
passes. Most of it is represented by hard work often unproductive.
For it required a great dealof. effort to create a demand, or to close
sales, during 1922. Except a. few, in the larger cities, the retail piano
merchants found it difficult to. dispose of their share of the compara-
tively small output of the year preceding, and the first half of the
last, twelve months. And it is to their credit, as hustlers and as per-
sistent business men, that they are still with us, ready to make this
new year atone for the uncertainties of the immediate past.
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But for the almost startlingly sudden return of business the last
quarter of the year, 1922 would pass into history as one of the most
January 6, 1923.
unsatisfactory in the history, of the trade. And that it was so is a
new and convincing proof of the stability of the industry and trade,
no less than the ability of the piano to recover itself and resume its
progressive place.
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But it would be wrong to suppose that the piano presents an
exception with respect to the fortunes of its devotees during last year.
There were few of the industries or trades that did not feel this same
kind of pressure, from both within and without. In some of its po-
tential phases the piano business possesses elements of recuperation
not known to other lines of merchandise. It is, first of all, in its retail
aspects, a soliciting business. The demand for pianos may be forced.
The buyers may be found. The customary store-waiting may be
overcome by the active outside salesmen. And all of the energies
of the piano salesmen have been exercised with results impossible to
most other lines, especially of the semi-essential kind.
There were failures during the dead year. One or two of them
caused surprise to such of the piano men as knew the traditional per-
sonnel of the industry. To such the breaking up of the old Shoninger
industry was a shock. But it was, after all, only a case of bad man-
agement of a fossilized concern. Other failures were either but tem-
porary embarrassments, or breathing spells by which to get new wind.
The revivals were rather more encouraging than the failures were
depressing. And, today there is nothing in sight, for the piano in-
dustry and trade, but promise of good and of wholesome progress.
This new year will turn out well. It starts with a clear sky and
the sun shining. There are conditions which might be better, and
they will be better. The factories are almost denuded of finished
instruments. The stores are almost empty of stock. Which means
that the manufacturers will continue to receive calls which they can-
not promptly fill. It will afford them the opportunity to, in a meas-
ure, choose their customers. The retailers will find it slow getting
what they want. I t will enable them to hold out for fair profits^ and
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to deliver to such buyers as are reliable and reasonable.
The advertised pianos will continue to have the call of the deal-
ers. Piano names which have been familiarized by the trade press
will continue t6 be the leaders in the stores. They are the only pianos
that can be readily sold to the trade without the necessity of "sates"
and special methods on the part of the factory distributing depart-
ments.
All in all, the new year holds promise of good things for the
piano. The energetic factory administration will make it a good year.
Especially for good grades of instruments. The active, industrious
dealers will find more prospects than before in years. The salesmen
will realize better results from their efforts than they have been ac-
customed to. And it will be largely a Grand year. The small Grands,
and the little upright, will go readily. And the world will be happier
for it. So here's to a good one—this husky young '23!
LAST YEAR AND THIS
As always, there were a number of especially important topics
which came to the surface of trade discussion at repeated intervals
during the doubtful months of the year just closed. Some of the
topics had direct bearing upon passing events; others dealt with mat-
ters of permanent interest to the future of the piano industry and
trade.
In some branches of the music business there were such develop-
ments as must help to shape the business for years to come. Other
matters, which exercised some of the trade departments, had to do
with the promotion problems. The sheet music question was un-
usually active. The player roll progress was discussed from several
angles, and some of the plans for keeping the music roll industry
within bounds of profitable reason have worked out well. This phase
of the industry is discussed elsewhere in this issue of Presto by sev-
eral of the ones most interested.
Among the foremost topics of discussion during the year were,
as usual, the labor supply problem, the wholesale price question, the
maximum time for wholesale settlements, export trade possibilities,
the consignment plan—a number of the familiar subjects which have
haunted the piano business from almost the first, and which seem to
possess perpetual life.
Some of the topics which bubbled up in trade circles during the
year are discussed in this issue of Presto. But, most of all, it was the
state of trade at large that most disturbed members of the piano in-
dustry and trade during 1922. And, if looked upon as something past
and gone, the year was not, after all, so very bad. There were some
surprises, in the failure of certain old and, for years, substantial in-
dustries. The case of the Shoninger Piano Co., of New Haven, was
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