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
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SATURDAY, MAY 26, 1923
PRESTO CORRESPONDENCE
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 P1IANO MERCHANTS OR
SALESMEN IN THE SMALLER CITIES, ARE THE BEST OCCA-
SIONAL CORRESPONDENTS, AND THEIR ASSISTANCE IS INVITED.
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.
A BUSY WEEK
The week of June 4th will be a busy one for all who heed the call
to Chicago and the Prosperity Convention. None of the earlier gath-
erings of the men of things musical has presented so large a measure
of diversified interest. It won't be easy for all to attend to the
serious purposes of the occasion. But there will be a sufficient pro-
portion of the association members who will heed the suggestion
of Presidents Chickering and Butler to attend the business meetings,
and not let the "passing show" divert them too much.
Of course, in view of the fact that it will be a trade convention,
everything that concerns actual business will share the particular
interest of business men. The Chicago music stores and piano fac-
tories will demand some share of time and attention. The city sights,
and the splendid parks and amusement gardens, will draw a good
many away from the vicinity of the Drake, at times. And, to not a
few, some of the near-by cities which are also famous because of
their beauty and the activities of their piano factories, will be the
temporary objectives. One of Chicago's summer delights is the trip
to Milwaukee, or across the lake to the Michigan ports of piano
renown. The time required is small. The Wisconsin city has two
notable piano factories : Waltham and Miessner, while the Kreiter
headquarters is also there, as well as a larger array of fine retail
stores than any other city of like size in the country. Across the
lake the cities of Grand Haven, Holland, South Haven and Muskegon,
are piano making points, where the factories, respectively, of the
May 26, 1923
Story & Clark Piano Co., the Bush & Lane Piano Co., the Cable-Nel-
son Piano Co., and the Chase-Hackley Piano Co., are located.
And very short trips from Chicago, by rail, are Rockford and the
great Haddorff Piano Co. plant; Hammond, Ind., and the Straube
Piano Co.; LaPorte and the Hobart M. Cable Co., to say nothing of
a dozen more whose homes are but little further away.
Chicago itself is show enough for the entertainment of a week.
But, with the group, of special piano displays at the Drake, Great
Northern, and other hotels, as well as the premanent exhibits on
Wabash avenue and the famous "Boul Mich," the allurements to con-
vention visitors will be greater this year than ever before. It will
tax every minute of the week to keep up with the procession, even
if the natural American tendency to follow the brass bands, which
will blow in great numbers, can be resisted. It will require some
fortitude, as well as boundless capacity for the delights of investiga-
tion and social communion, to get all possible out of convention week
this year. And it is now right upon us.
THE EXHIBITS
If the exhibits coincident with the convention were all that the
week meant to the piano men who will visit them, there would still
be attraction enough to justify a long journey to Chicago.
It is probable that the opportunities for examining closely the
foremost instruments of modern industry will be better than ever
before in the history of the trade. The noisy expositions at Madison
Square Garden and Grand Central Palace, New York, and at the
Coliseum in Chicago, were not to be compared with the present plan
of separate displays, at which the instruments may be investigated
in semi-private way, and actual business be transacted under almost
wareroom or office style.
And the number of exhibits is sufficiently large to enable most
of the visiting dealers the best of facilities for comparing the lines
they already carry with other instruments in which there may be
sources of profit. It isn't wise to drop a good piano, in which local
effort has been invested, for something else unless the change prom-
ises very considerable advantages. But it is equally poor business
to continue to exert influence and effort in a line that for any reason
has lost ground, or which, because of any change in administration,
may" promise to do so.
One of the purposes of the convention is to afford opportunities
of investigation for the dealers. The displays in Chicago offer those
opportunities as never before. Dealers should make the most of
them. The trade paper that is well informed knows all of the inside
facts concerning all pianos, and can tell just what the average dealer
must know about them if he wants to get the most out of his busi-
ness. The office of Presto is a permanent bureau of information in
piano matters. Any questions in which the interests of both manu-
facturers and dealers are interested will be answered here. We be-
lieve that to be one of the legitimate functions of the well-appointed
trade paper, and we invite dealers in Chicago during convention week
to make use of the facilities we offer at any time.
There will be a number of novelties at the convention displays.
Among them will be several new pianos from old industries. Of this
character will be the new "Waverly" line of the Waltham Piano Co;
the recently created small grand of the Haddorff Piano Co.; the
"Dulci Tone" of the Jesse French & Sons Piano Co.; the rehabili-
tated and improved "Bradbury," of W. O. Haines & Co.; the "Artro-
nome," of the Straube Piano Co.; the "Strohber Diminutive," of
Smith, Barnes & Strohber Co., and a lot more whose names are given
in the complete list of exhibitors on another page.
Of course in the cases of the great Chicago industries, it will be
a part of the dealers' instruction to visit the headquarters at Wabash
avenue, of such concerns as The Cable Company, Steger & Sons Piano,
Mfg. Co., the Story & Clark Piano Co., Lyon & Healy, and the rest
of the industries represented by offices in the Republic building on
State street.
The convention displays will command a good share of the deal-
ers' time. That is inevitable. And the dealers should also make this
feature of their week's experiences profitable.
Some of the music trade papers are aping the daily newspapers
in printing comparative tables of their preponderance of advertising
increase over all of their contemporaries. It's harmless diversion, of
no interest to trade paper readers and equally unreliable. Fatness
doesn't make a great trade paper.
* * *
The story in this Presto about the reorganization and re-financ-
ing of the old Biddle Piano Co. of New York, has an added interest in
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