Presto

PRESTO
presto
THE AMERICAN MUSIC TRADE WEEKLY.
Published Every Saturday at 407 South Dearborn
Street, Old Colony Building, Chicago, 111.
C. A. DANIELL and FRANK D. ABBOTT -
Editors
Telephones, Local and Long Distance, Harrison 234.
Private Phones to all Departments. Cable Address (Com-
mercial 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 United States
possessions, Cuba and Mexico. Rates for advertising on
application.
Items of news and other matter are solicited and if
of general interest to the music trade will be paid for
at space rates. Usually piano merchants or salesmen
in the smaller cities are the best occasional corre-
spondents> and their assistance is invited.
Forms close at noon every Thursday. News mat-
ter 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 current
week, to insure classification, must not be later than
Wednesday noon.
Address all communications for the editorial or business
departments to PRESTO PUBLISHING CO., 407 So.
Dearborn Street, Chicago, III.
• SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1923.
FOUR HOURS' WORK
One of the electrical "wonder workers" has
decided that within a hundred years, or less,
it will not be necessary for men to work more
than four hours a day. Proficiency, plus the
rapidity of electric appliances, together with
the increased number of expert workers in all
lines, will render it impossible to employ more
than about twenty hours a week in their labor
of any kind.
The idea may seem pleasing to some of the
younger men. They envisage short days of
toil and long days of golf, whizz-car and
spooning with satisfaction. But if the four-
hour-day ever comes, old-time sports will not
be possible for there will not be fish enough
to go 'round; there will be no more shooting
because game will be more and more scarce ;
there can be little "hiking" because the roads
will be monopolized by the motor cars; of
course, sleep will be as popular as ever, and
probably more so. With only four hours in
which to be busy, the day will not start before
noon, and might end at six, if with many it
has any end at all. Sunlight saving will seem
more absurd than it is today.
But what about the piano business? Un-
less it becomes more of a "game" than now,
it will become a problem. If it doesn't take
the place of tennis and croquet, and become
a species of pleasure—more even than now—
how will the salesmen do any work in four
hours? It is a matter of record that some
piano sales have required nearly twenty hours
to "close." Not long ago a correspondent in
Indiana wrote to Presto about a sale he
closed, in Wayne county, in which the pros-
pect came to the store at 9 a. m. and made his
purchase at ten the same evening.
Another told of a customer who drove in
from the country and after looking at the
pianos all evening, went to the hotel for the
night, at the dealer's invitation. He resumed
negotiations the next morning at sun-up and
finally, after dinner the second day, decided
to "look around." Having done that, he re-
turned and at midnight he started back home
with an upright piano in his ample wagon.
Those two sales consumed, respectively, 14
and about 20 hours. And it's a safe wager
that the salesmen "worked" every minute of
the time except the few hours the last one
found for fitful sleep.
How many pianos could you sell in four
hours ? How many salesmen ever closed a
single sale in less time? Many, no doubt. But
they are in the large city warerooms. In the
smaller places the piano dealers do not expect
to do business so fast. They find their pros-
pects, make friends of them, discuss every-
thing but pianos for a few weeks, and finally
either close the sale or give up in despair.
Four years may do for the electricians. Prof.
Steinmetz may be right about it, but if ever
the time comes when American business is
done in four hours, the mortality schedules
will have to be revised. Men who like to
work will not be satisfied with so short a
period of daily delight. Like the lady who
was asked by a bow-legged floor walker to
"walk this way," they'd die first, or very soon
after.
GOOD OLD NAME
Doesn't it seem good to realize that the
fine old name of Estey, in its original asso-
ciation, still survives, and that the instruments
for which it so long exclusively stood are in
demand today just as seventy years ago, when
the Estey industry was founded. At first it
was Estey & Burdett, later becoming the
Estey Organ Company, with a long array of
very active factories paralleling one another
in the beautiful town of Brattleboro in the
green hills of Vermont.
Practically all other exclusively reed organ
industries have gone. It is true that there
are other reed organ factories—a few—but
the Estey has only one contemporary that
dates well back so far into the past. And the
name of Estey is an asset invaluable to any
musical instrument, due, of course, to the in-
itiative of the late Jacob Estey followed by
Col. Julius J. Estey, and then the grandsons
of the founder of the name as associated with
things musical.
If there is any industry that seems to over-
top the rest as a pioneer today, it is that of
Estey. And it is with a sense of almost pe-
culiar satisfaction that one sees the Estey
organ still active, and being promoted with
modern energy after full seventy years of hon-
orable life in the interests of real music and
genuinely artistic creative industry.
TEACHING HOW
Passing along a by-street in Albany, N. Y.,
recently, the eye was attracted by a window
sign which read: "Hair Bobbing Taught.' In
New York City a bootblack "parlor," in the
down-town district, has a special stand for
novitiates in the art of putting a polish upon
the uppers. Youngsters are taught how to
operate the brush and apply the- "dope" by
which the shine is supposed to stay.
The Business Research Service of the La
Salle Institute issues lessons on salesmanship
covering every line of salesmanship but
pianos. Nowhere can a young man gain prac-
tical advance ideas of what is required in
piano selling outside of the piano wareroom
itself. And yet selling pianos demands more
of the powers of persuasion than almost any
September'8, 1923
other line of business. Automobile schools
are quite elaborate. They conduct the stu-
dent from the twist of the steering wheel al-
most to mechanical engineering. Pianos are
not supposed to need anything of the kind,
but the question is why?
Would it pay some alert young man, who
thinks he knows what it means to be a first-
class piano salesman, to establish a special
school of salesmanship in the uprights and
grands—players, also, of course.
After all, how many piano salesmen have
any intimate understanding of the player
mechanism? Can they correct the minor
troubles of the pneumatic action as readily as
the average garage helper can tinker the ob-
stinate motor car back to going condition?
Every piano house wants accomplished
salesmen. Probably more young men try
piano selling and fail than the number of those
who succeed to it. There may not be a field
sufficient to insure large fortunes in a school
specializing in piano salesmanship. But it
would assume somewhat of the aspect of a
philanthropy. And that's something!
DEALER TELLS HOW HE LIKES
HENRY G. JOHNSON PIANO
Letter Received at Chicago Office Last Week Ex-
presses Satisfaction of Instrument Received.
The Henry G. Johnson Piano Mfg. Co., Bellevuc,
Iowa, has many satisfied dealers who have made
profitable sales and do not hesitate to express their
appreciation of the instruments. Following is from
Willey's Music House, 124 Third street, Baraboo,
Wis., received by the Chicago office of the Henry
G. Johnson Co., 20 W. Jackson boulevard:
"Gentlemen: Rec'd the piano O. K. Well pleased
with it."
CARTWRIGHT MUSIC SHOP
OPENS IN WISCONSIN TOWN
Attractions Provided for the Opening Day to New
Large and Enthusiastic Crowds.
The Cartwright Music Shop was opened in Green-
castle, Ind., last week. A splendid musical program
marked the opening.
One of the features of the day was the giving away
of an outing phonograph and another was the giving
away of a small Victor dog to the first ten customers
each hour during the afternoon of opening day. The
first ten customers after 1 o'clock were given a dog;
then the first ten customers after 2 o'clock received
a dog and so on through the afternoon. A musical
program during the day added greatly to the event.
The Cartwright Music Store has been remodeled
and beautified and with its stock of Victor phono-
graphs and pianos is most attractive.
FRANK E. MORTON IS NOW
PRESIDENT OF GARAGE CO.
Former Piano Expert Heads New Organization Just
Formed by Prominent Chicago Men.
There has been a good deal of interest evinced as
to what Frank E. Morton, long acoustical expert with
the American Steel & Wire Co., and later of the
Jackson-Morton Piano Co., of Milwaukee, would de-
cide upon permanently. Mr. Morton is now in the
automobile business.
He is president of a new organization, the purpose
of which is to relieve the parking congestion on the
northwest side in Chicago. The new garage is one
of the largest in Chicago. It opened for business
last week and is said to be the last word in modern
automobile housing. And that answers the questions
of many of Mr. Morton's friends in the piano
industry.
BUYS STORE IN OHIO.
Mr. and Mrs. Earl Oberlin, of Bryan, Ohio, have
moved to Grover Hill, in that state, where Mr.
Oberlin has purchased the music business of Mr.
Kohn, who has been in the business in the latter
place for 24 years,
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/