PRESTO
Presto
THE AMERICAN MUSIC TRADE WEEKLY.
Published Every Saturday at 407 South Dearborn
Street, Old Colony Building, Chicago, 111.
C. A. D A N I E L L and F R A N K D. ABBOTT
-
Editors
Telephones, Local and Long Distance, Harrison 234.
Private Phones to all Departments. Cable Address (Com-
mercial Cable Co.'s Code), " P R E S T O , " 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, OCTOBER 20. 1923.
A LESSON IN VALUES
A piano merchant who had been selling
Newman Bros, pianos for a number of years
decided to make his home in Canada, where
he had made some successful investments. Of
course, he had no intention of giving up the
piano business and took with him the agency
for the Newman Bros, instruments.
"When the piailo dealer became located in
Canada, he for the first time realized that
there is a very heavy import tax on musical
instruments from this side, the St. Lawrence
River. He began to figure costs and to ^com-
pare them with pianos produced in the north-
ern country. Of course, with tax and freights
added, the sum total seemed somewhat inflat-
ed. But here is where piano quality, as re-
lated to values, has a fine illustration.
The dealer had sent in his order in advance
of any discussion of comparative prices and
with no reference to tariffs or transportation
charges. What he wanted was the Newman
Bros, piano and it did not for a moment seem
to him that he could relinquish the agency for
that instrument.
It is easy enough to compute the effect of
the items referred to, upon the dealers' in-
vestment in a carload of the Chicago pianos.
And it is the best possible evidence of reputa-
tion and standardization of values, that the
dealer, ready for business in Canada, set
aside all considerations other than that he
must have the same instruments up there that
proved successful and satisfying on this side
the line. No commendation could be more
convincing.
The incident is one in which any piano man-
ufacturer might find cause for pride—the kind
of pride that sustains reputation and inspires
to continued effort and determination to sus-
tain an established standard, and to permit
of no concessions to the cry for lower prices
at the expense of excellence. A good piano is
usuallv worth more than is asked for it and
wise dealers will not relinquish an agency
which has proved profitable, even if the fir*t
cost advances by reason of conditions over
which its manufacturer can have no control.
CULTIVATING CUSTOMERS
One of the useful articles in this week's
Presto tells how one piano merchant nurses
his trade. He cultivates close friendship with
neighbors with whom he does business, from
the newsboy on the corner to the social ac-
quaintance.
The plan is, of course, a good one. But
isn't the other way—that of "mixing," spread-
ing good feeling and the distribution of his
"patronage" among as many as possible—a
better way? The really successful piano sales-
man is the ever-courteous one, just as the
valuable employee, in any business, is the one
who realizes that every person who can talk
and wears shoes must be in a position to either
spread good will or to carry the news of dis-
trust and dislike broadcast.
There is no influence in business—retail
business, anyway, that is quite as insinuatingly
effective as courtesy. The employee who
treats a caller uncivilly, on the presumption
that he is not there for profit to the house,
may be turning away a force possible of do-
ing more harm than would the wages of the
crackle-brained clerk. We have known of
several direct losses of good piano sales due
entirely to the incivility of an advertising man
to a solicitor for a suburban newspaper. The
solicitor was of some importance in his "own
home town," and he didn't forget to "knock"
effectively whenever the business house in
which he was treated discourteously was
mentioned.
No business house can afford to employ any
influences that turn away business. No busi-
ness man is too big to cultivate customers.
And the business man who is close to a small
group of other business men, in the thought
that he is cultivating their trade, may be over-
looking a hundred others equally in line, or
even more promising, as customers.
YOUR ROLL TRADE
In a recent trade paper advertisement, the
United States Music Company said that
"players are bought to play rolls."
There is a volume of suggestion for piano
dealers in that statement of an obvious fact.
And yet it is a fact which, like many other
palpable truths, seems to be overlooked by the
very ones who should profit by it. If every
piano dealer in the country were to take ad-
vantage of the fact that "players are bought
to play rolls," there would be a greater de-
mand upon the music roll industries than the
total factory capacity could supply.
In this country the player roll can now
boast of some very comprehensive industries.
The aggregate of investment in ingenuity and
capital would astound most of the trade. It
would, in several instances, surpass the net
investment of all but a few of the piano indus-
tries. And the player industries are guided by
some of the keenest business intellects. They
have reached out until there is no country on
the earth where such names and symbols as
"U. S.," "Vocalstyle," "Columbia," "Q. R. S.,"
"Automatic" and some others are not familiar
to music loving people.
But all this notwithstanding there are still
scores, even hundreds, of music stores in which
October 20, 1923
the absolute necessity of close attention to the
music roll is seemingly not at all appreciated
and opportunities are neglected.
Within the past six months representatives
of Presto have taken pains to investigate this
phase of the business. And it was found that,
even in good cities of many thousands of peo-
ple—cities where imposing piano stores exist
—the music roll departments are so shabby, so
neglected, as to rather discourage than invite
trade.
Today the music roll makers offer every
possible help and support to the retail trade.
A well-stocked music roll department should
be conspicuous in every piano store. For, as
Mr. Friestedt, of the U. S. Music Co., aptly
says, "players are bought to play rolls."
The old joke about the cost of the "upkeep"
should hold good. When a player-piano goes
into the house only the first investment is
made. The music rolls should be kept moving
if the first investment is to be made a good
one.
E. F. LAPHAM DELEGATE TO
RIVER IMPROVEMENT MEET
Chicago Piano Man Represents Association of Com-
merce at Important Meeting This Week.
E. F. Lapham, of Grosvenor-Lapham & Co., piano
dealers. 410 S. Michigan avenue, Chicago, was ap-
pointed a delegate from the Chicago Association of
Commerce to the convention held in Chicago this
week to investigate the proposed improvement of the
Illinois, Ohio and Mississippi rivers in the interest of
deep water navigation. Five United States senators,
members of the committee to investigate the proposed
improvement, began a three days' hearing in the
rooms of the Sanitary District Commission on Mon-
day of this week.
Leading Chicago shippers and representatives of
various organizations interested in the improvement
and development of the Lakes-to-the-Gulf deep
waterway will appear before the committee in its
three-day session. On Wednesday the senators mak-
ing up the committee—David A. Reed, Pennsylvania;
Smith W. Brookhart, Iowa; Kenneth McKellar, Ten-
nessee: Edwin S. Broussard, Louisiana, and Medill
McCormick, Illinois—were guests of the Illinois
Chamber of Commerce and the Chicago Association
of Commerce at a luncheon at the Hotel La Salle.
ARTIST EXPRESSES HER
ADMIRATION FOR A. B. CHASE
Moist Piano Co., Chicago, Representing United Piano
Corporation Lines, Hears from Mme. Spravka.
The Moist Piano Company, Chicago, which repre-
sents the lines of the United Piano Corporation, in-
cluding the Celco, has received an excellent testi-
monial from Mine. Ella Spravka. The letter follows:
932 Wilson Ave., Chicago,
September 26, 1923.
Dear Sirs:
I have much pleasure in sending you the enclosed
photo. My admiration for the A. B. Chase piano is
most sincere and I hope to have ample opportunity to
play on these beautiful instruments. It is so satis-
factory to know that they are being handled by a
man of Mr. Moist's artistic insight and wonderful
energy.
Believe me, dear sirs.
Yours very sincerely,
(Signed) ELLA SPRAVKA.
BUSY GULFPORT FIRM.
J. A. Abram's Music Store, opposite Strand The-
ater, Gulfport, Miss., was established February, 1923.
It has a large and most complete stock of musical
goods. It handles Lyon & Healy grands, players-and
upright pianos, phonographs and everything ill
!
music.
HARDMAN IN RECITALS.
Edmund Burke, bass baritone ©f the Metropolitan
Opera Company, used a llardman piano tor his re-
cital at Aeolian Hall, New York, on Friday of this
week. Another artistic event in which a Hardman
piano was used was the concert of Leonidas Leonard!,
Hardman artist, before the Century Club in Wil-
mington, Del., last week.
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