Presto

PRESTO
Presro
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, NOVEMBER 3, 1923.
WHAT IS COMING?
After the reproducing piano—what? The
piano has not stood still for a day since the
player first came into sight. From the day
when Gaily, McTammany and Tremaine be-
gan to stir up the musical marvel, in the
early '80\s, to this time, the reproducing piano
has been developing. For, while many en-
gaged in the business do not know what the
word, as employed today, implies, the player
has been a reproducing instrument from the
first. It has reproduced what the human
fingers and brain have been. doing for two
centuries.
And when the reproducing piano, as we
have it in its present-day perfection, ceases
to stir the wonderment of the music-loving
public, and the playerpiano itself begins to
pall upon people who want good music that
comes easily, what will be the wonder then?
One of the worst conditions in the world is
that of looking back, and there are piano men
who do that thing when, by looking forward,
they might progress faster. The dealer who
thinks that the playerpiano is not what his
trade wants makes a mistake. He is living
with the older piano, and fails to take advan-
tage of what is new. The straight piano is a
good thing, and always will be. But there are
so many of them in the people's homes that
might be taken out, and players installed, that
there is the opportunity.
When the player begins to pall—if it ever
does—there will be something still newer.
That is certain. What it will be no one now
can even guess. But it will still belong to
the piano family, and the people who are now
buying players will then want the retailers to
take back the instruments they are selling
today.
A look ahead is the process that keeps the
world moving. The looking back to the reed
organ days, and beyond, is the way to stagna-
tion. It is what-is-to-be that contains the
elixir of life, and the what-has-been supplies
the sentiment and the contrast.
TRADE OUTLOOK
Every authority in business statistics and
finance agrees that the present is'a period of
promise—of more than that, for it is a time
of prosperity. It is a good time for the things
of elegance, even of luxury. The only things
that can put the brakes upon piano trade
progress are the habit of grunting about dull
times and the commonplace that "something
is wrong with the world."
Of course there is "something wrong with
the world." There always has been and al-
ways will be. But there is nothing wrong with
the pianos that are coming through faster
now than before in many years. The Guar-
anty Survey, of New York City, says that the
business skies are brighter than before in a
long time. The great increase in production
in other lines has touched the piano industry.
Most of the factories are going full tilt. The
larger industries are especially active. It is
a fact that there are piano houses ready to
contract for quantities of instruments, but
find it difficult to get half of their orders filled.
Usually this kind of talk may be harmful,
in a trade paper. It is as possible to be over-
optimistic as the other thing. But, with the
salesmen reporting good trade, with fewer
factories to produce than normally, and with
the stores in many vicinities all but cleaned
out of stock, why may we not be cheerful in
the piano business?
The big financiers, and the prophets of big
business, are telling the good news. Why not
repeat it where the hard-working piano deal-
ers may read it and get after the sluggish
prospects who are also doing well, and per-
haps do not realize it?
GENUINE
There may be nothing significant in the
fact that retail piano dealers in a good many
cities are advertising the names of their in-
struments with the word "genuine" added.
When used in such a connection, the inference
must be that there is also a spurious piano
or a misrepresentation of some kind. Pos-
sibly, as applied to pianos, the use of the word
in advertising means that the half slumbering
"stencil" warfare is to be resumed. And why
not?
In nearly every line of trade there is a fixed
rule by which name values of manufactured
articles are protected, and the names them-
selves mean a great deal to their owners as
well as to the public. In the piano business
any name may be used today, just as in times
past when the foremost men of the industry
were struggling to bring about some legisla-
tion by which to safeguard trade marks, and
earned reputations, which were being abused
by retail merchants who had no vision beyond
the immediate profit in the sale.
No matter how we may look at it, the sten-
cil is a doubtful trade expediency. It means
nothing to the retail buyer. The dealer can
not look his prospect squately in the eye and
say that the instrument is just what it pur-
ports to be. He can not direct attention to
any stability suggested by the name. The pur-
chaser can never "point with pride" to the fact
November 3, 1923
that his instrument bears a name of distinc-
tion.
It is a nondescript. The manufacturers get
the small margin of profit and that is all. One
large piano corporation values its trade names
—its distinctions—at four millions of dollars.
W r hat is the good will of a stencil worth?
Multiply it by a hundred and the asset is the
same. It's an old story, this of the "stencil,"
but it means the safety of the piano industry.
PIANO CLUB MEMBERS
HEAR JAMIE HERON TALK
Thomas W. Ross, Star in "Polly Preferred," Also
Present at Weekly Luncheon.
"Jamie" Heron was a luncheon guest of the Piano
Club of Chicago, at th"e Illinois Athletic Club on Mon-
day of this week. In the notice to members Presi-
dent McKenna described him as "a champion of eco-
nomic and local justice. He is a humorist as well as
a lecturer. He is called the 'Business Man's Poet.'
Before the war he played leading roles in many New
York theatrical productions. At the outbreak of the
war he offered his services and was appointed to
serve with the Shipping Board to do inspirational
speaking to speed up production. He is the author of
'The Measure of a Man,' published by Barse & Hop-
kins, New York City. He is a great favorite with
Rotary, Kiwanis and other service clubs. You can-
not afford to miss him."
The size of the luncheon crowd showed Mr. Mc-
Kenna's advice was taken.
Another attraction was Thomas W. Ross, star from
"Polly Preferred," now playing at the LaSalle The-
atre.
Members were reminded of the reception and dance
and a musical program at a downtown hotel about
the middle of November. Exact date later. This
will be informal and complimentary to members, their
ladies and their guests.
RECALLING TRADE EVENTS
OF FIFTY YEARS AGO
Rogers & Wilson, of Goshen, Indiana, Tell of Burdett
Organs Sold a Half Century Back.
With so many anniversary advertisements and an-
nouncements being published, piano dealers are apt
to forget that such birthdays are not restricted to the
great, nationally known commercial houses.
The list of firms in small towns which have con-
ducted business for over a half-century is a lengthy
one. A case in point is that of Rogers & Wilson, of
Goshen, Indiana, who published during the week of
the Chicago Fire Anniversary the following in an
advertisement in the Goshen Daily News-Times:
"Our pioneer music dealer, E. C. Wilson, went to
Chicago a few days after this date (the Chicago fire
of 1873) and purchased seven Burdett organs that
were saved from the fire by a faithful drayman of
Lyon & Healy, who were western distributors for
the Burdett factory. Some of these instruments are
still in use. We have forgotten most of the names
of those that purchased, but McClure, of New Paris,
Squire Isaac Kitson, of Syracuse, Solomon Berlin, of
Nappanee, and Eli Vernon, of Benton, were four that
we remember.
Mr. Wilson says he never made
enough money to compete with Ford, but feels proud
of the record that he never sold an instrument of any
kind that was not good and worth the money.
"Many an old lady, or man, can look back to the
day, fifty years ago, when the old-fashioned singing
school, led by Mowry and Wilson and the Burdett
organ played by E. C. Wilson, was a great event in
any community. Those days are gone forever, but
the old music house of Rogers & Wilson is still in
existence, giving its patrons a square deal, honest
goods at honest prices."
H. L. PELTIER INJURES HIMSELF.
The widely-known piano tuner and expert, H. L.
Peltier, met with a self-inflicted accident one day last
week which threatened to lay his hammer away for
a period. Happily, however, Mr. Peltier can still
use his pen, and possibly the tuning fraternity may
be the winner by the cut which the expert piano man
suffered. He was doing some experimental work—
probably on a new player action—when the draw
knife slipped and caught the gentlemans' left arm
just below the elbow. For a minute it looked serious
but Mr. Peltier says he will be ready to lay the
bearings again within two or three weeks.
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