Presto

PRESTO
November 3, 192o
letters on the plucky piano was "Strohber," and it
hadn't been hurt at all!
THINGS SAID OR SUGGESTED
Has it ever occurred to anyone
that it is strange that some of the
lesser, smaller, or subsidiary, in-
industries — even if sometimes
more important—are better adver-
tisers than the malcers of pianos? Never has. Very
well, but do you knqw of any piano industry that in-
vests nearly $100,000 in special advertising at a clip,
and seems to regard it as a part of the day's work?
Is there any piano industry that not only puts such
fair-sized fortunes in the advertising pages, but aug-
ments the investment by putting forth, at short in-
tervals, expensive folders, leaflets and booklets de-
signed to let the world know just what is doing by the
special industry?
* * *
The player roll industries are
THE
doing all of that and often a good
MUSIC ROLL deal more. The music roll men
MEN.
may not keep awake nights read-
ing the trade papers, but they
know just what the trade papers are doing and say-
ing all the time. No other representatives of the
music trades are as frequently heard from as the
music roll men. It would be a dull week in the
trade paper offices were no word of reproof or ap-
proval to come in from some active music roll man.
And it would be as likely to freeze on July 4th as to
have a day pass in which no aspiring song writer
asked for the best way to get his new song in the
next list of the Q R S or the United States or the
Vocalstyle. The music roll is the livest problem in
present-day publicity and promotion, and the song
writers would perish without it.
* * *
It is not a popular topic. The
BUT
piano trade is doing well. It
WHY
seems probable that we are in for
DISCUSS IT? several very prosperous piano
years. And we need them! Nev-
ertheless, it remains as true now as twenty years ago
that selling stencil pianos for fine ones must be a
species of business on the bias. If the makers of
one-name piaflos cannot see that it is calculated to
hurt them, who else should be unhappy? Perhaps
there is another Will L. Bush even now polishing a
rusty sword with which to start a new campaign for
the protection of an innocent public. There are more
than one kinds of "reform" in need of drastic
attention.
HOW ,
ABOUT
THIS?
*
.•
•
The personnel of the music roll
WHO
industry, if analyzed, tells the
IS
story of the Why of the particular
RESPONSIBLE? push and prominence of the busi-
ness. The other day a trade
paper man took a visiting piano manufacturer in Chi-
cago to the Atlantic Hotel for a small luncheon.
Crossing Clark street, a trim auto delivery wagon
sped by on Van Buren street. As the eat-seekers
paused, the stranger within our gates remarked:
"There goes Tom Pletcher's wagon!" How did he
know? There was no such indication on the black,
piano-finished automobile. But how does everybody,
everywhere, know that the one-time mystifying
'"Q R S" means player rolls anyway?
Advertising—that's the answer. And the thing ad-
vertised may advertise the man behind«it, if there is
originality, novelty and force in the methods of adver-
tising employed. No one at this time need be told
that Mr. Pletcher's industry has its own way of adver-
tising. And in it is a good deal of the kind of force
that suggests the personality of "Tom" Pletcher, no
matter who it may be that makes the "copy."'
* * *
While we are talking about
AND
music roll men, how can we es-
ANOTHER
cape mention of the man who has
ONE, ALSO.
lifted the United States Music Co.
into a place so strong that no
rival can get by it without stepping off the walk?
It is impossible to discuss playerpianos and leave out
the music roll. Still less can you say much about
player rolls without giving emphasis to the letters that
spell United States. The man responsible has also
carved a good-sized niche in the side of the rock by
his manner of printed expression. It is "The Roll
of Honor" that, as a trade slogan, has become more
conspicuously recognized, perhaps, than any other
associated with the music trade.
President Arthur Friestedt is the man who has
done it. His trade letters, too, have added to good
trade literature. And Mr. Friestedt, be it known, is
the author of the incisive, forgettery-defying adver-
tising which has made the U. S. rolls as familiar in
the music-loving world as are "Sapolio" or the "Gold
Dust Twins" in the family kitchens.
*
*
*
A piano teacher was walking
BEATS
along a street in a small city in
HUMPTY
Illinois when he was arrested by
DUMPTY.
a heavy thumping sound, as some
heavy object falling. In a minute,
just ahead of him, he saw an upright piano, fastened
to a portable truck, come flying from a hall doorway.
It had catapulted down a steep flight of stairs—an
entire story—to the street. The piano shot over the
broad sidewalk and half way across the street. Natu-
rally the piano man hurried to see what damage had
been done. The crowd gathered quickly. ' The local
piano dealer, who had the job in charge, called for
volunteers and the instrument was soon right side up.
The dealer gingerly, and with some misgivings, loos-
ened the straps and lifted the fallboard. Then he
played that piano and started a stump speech on the
way some pianos defy not only time but ground and
lofty tumbling as well. The name in bright gold
It isn't strange that the "stencil
THE
racket" refuses to disappear from
the jungles of the piano trade. For
' GHOST OF
THE STENCIL. several years the one-time leading
topic in trade paper discussion
seemed to languish. Marc Blumenberg had died. He
had kept the bones of the stencil skeleton rattling for
a good many years. The rattle seems to be heard
again, even if rather faintly.
And no well-informed piano man will deny that
there is reason. No maker of really fine pianos will
say he would be sorry to know that the long-dormant
effort to frame legislation by which to regulate the
stencil has been successful. The any-old-name pianos
threaten to strangle ambition and choke the great
values which should belong to an established fame
well won.
* * *
If there is any piano man who
THE
has never read any of Mr. Pletch-
MANNER OF er's trade paper letters, that dealer
EXPRESSION, must have just arrived or he is
blind. There are men who are
entertaining because they remember what they read
and repeat intelligently. They are nearly as good as
a poll parrot. Other men are eloquent because they
serve their words without sauce or garnishment.
Their intellectual menus are meat, French-fried and
rice pudding, with a quart of champagne between.
And they satisfy the appetites of their listeners.
Thus, when Mr. Pletcher gave his plain, undis-
guised opinion of the brass band contest at a music
trade convention, no one failed to realize that some-
one was saying something in a way worth listening
to. The man who can talk like that, and say things
not quite as popular as useful, can also write a good,
advertisement and send a swift kick to the trade
paper.
IS "BABY AT PEDALS"
A REAL, HUMAN KIDDIE?
So Inquired Gulbransen-Dickinson Co.'s Correspond-
ent in Toledo, O., in Letter This Week.
For some time it has been the policy of the Gul-
bransen-Dickinson Co. to send out to inquirers who
respond to Gulbransen national advertising a card-
board cut-out of the Gulbransen baby trademark.
The coupon is in the form of a baby, and the reading
matter is "Send This Baby for a Baby."
In response to one of these ads appearing in a
national publication the Gulbransen-Dickinson Co. re-
ceived a rather amusing letter from Toledo, Ohio.
Here is what it said:
"I am writing for this baby. Now is this a real
baby or a baby doll, now if this is a baby, I do not
want it, but if it is a doll I want it. And I want to
know what to do, what I have to sell to get the baby
doll, now you send me the coupon, and I will send
you the money and send me the price of them."
BELL PROSPECTS ARE POOR.
Reports concerning the Bell Bros. Piano Co., of
Muncie, Indiana, piano manufacturers, do not give
much promise for the creditors of that concern. The
Muncie house has been in charge of receivers for
some time. It is now stated that it is "very doubt-
ful whether or not any dividends will be paid to the
general creditors."
THE LOADER A GREAT HELP TO SALESMEN
'"Normalcy" in the piano business wijl. return. whejx.prices .are reduced, when we. have good crops or prospects of good crops, and
when Salesmen, (The men who actually sell the piano to the user), get to wwk.
The Bowen Loader will greatly aid any energetic salesman. For Country work there's nothing like it,—for City work it's a help.
$110.00 for the Loader complete, including springs and cover.
Shipped on approval to responsible dealers.
BOWEN PIANO LOADER CO.,
Winston-Salem, N. C.
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