Presto Buyers' Guide
Analyzes and Classifies
All American Pianos
and in Detail Tells of
Their Makers.
PRESTO
THE AMERICAN MUSIC TRADE WEEKLY
Presto Trade Lists
Three Uniform Book-
lets, the Only Complete
Directories of the Music
Industries.
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CHICAGO, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1923
and strictly informal. Invitations and guest tickets
will be mailed this week. "Bring your lady and in-
vite a friend and his lady. If he is in the trade and
not a member of the club, so much the better. Make
no other plans for the evening of November 21," is
the advice of President John McKenna.
WORK PROCEEDS IN
NEW VOSE PLANT
CORRESPONDENCE COURSE FOR
RETAIL MUSIC SALESMEN
Completion of Big Factory of Vose & Sons
Piano Co. Highly Significant of Great
Advantages for All Representatives
of Company.
CHEERFUL PLACE TO GO
IS C. KURTZMANN & CO.
Fine Old Industry at Buffalo Was Never Be-
fore So Active, and Output Is
Surprisingly Large.
ONE THIRD GRANDS
This Seventy-fifth Anniversary Year Is One of the
Most Prosperous in Long Career.
Buffalo is a piano center because the C. Kurtzmann
& Co. is located there, with factories so active and
producing such instruments that the piano world
recognize and piano dealers throughout the country
know and commend without exception. It doesn't
matter whether a dealer handles the Kurtzmann or
not, he will not deny to that instrument the credit
that belongs*to it, as a representative piano and the
creation of one of the strongest and most enterprising
industries associated with music the world over.
Some other pianos are in the same happy condition.
They bear names which in themselves are an impreg-
nable armor against the onslaughts of competition,
for Kurtzmann quality is absolutely fixed and beyond
criticism.
A visit at the Kurtzmann offices this week afforded
the encouragement that a piano man needs at this
time. The activities of the Buffalo industry are of a
kind to disarm pessimism, and to present proof that
the trade is demanding fine instruments in the pur-
chase of which the public is sustaining the better class
of trade.
It may surprise some even well-posted
members of the trade to know that the C. Kurtzmann
& Co. factories are producing in excess of 6,000 com-
pleted instruments annually, and the factory capacity
is such that this large productiveness of standard in-
struments can be increased at any time—and no doubt
will be before the next year gets far along. About
one-third the pianos from the Kurtzmann factories
are grands, and the ratio is growing fast.
The Buffalo industry is now in its 75th year. This
is the anniversary year, and Buffalo has been largely
the gainer by reason of the Kurtzmann piano, for,
from the first, the aim has been to sustain the name
as one symbolizing artistic merit and dependability in
all things. It would be easy to fill a page on the
subject of C. Kurtzmann & Co. of Buffalo. But the
trade is as familiar with its traditions, and the Kurtz-
mann pianos are as firmly fixed among dealers of
ambition as the stars in the firmament. Nor is it the
least interesting consideration, at this time, that it
was said in the offices of the Buffalo industry that the
proportion of "straight" uprights produced is about
one-third of the total output. That looks like a re-
vival of the hand-played piano. It would do any
grouchy piano man good to visit C. Kurtzmann &
Co. at this time.
PIANO CLUB OF CHICAGO
HEARS MISS VAUGHN DE LEATH
"Original
Radio Girl" Enjoys Return Event at
Luncheon This Week.
Miss Vaughn De Leath, the "Original Radio Girl/'
was a luncheon guest of the Piano Club of Chicago on
Monday of this week and brought her clever songs,
stories and pianologues. She was a guest previously
on her return from Australia. Miss De Leath
is the managing director of Station W D T, Ship-
owners' Radio Service, New York City; she is a
record artist of note and she is now appearing in
an important part in the supporting cast of Lionel
Barrymore in "Laugh, Clown, Laugh," at Powers
Theatre. She is a busy young lady but she's strong
for the Piano Club of Chicago.
The annual musicale, reception and dance of the
club will be held on November 21 in the Florentine
Room at the Congress Hotel.
This will be the biggest event of the year, and
will be complimentary to members and their guests,
Richard W. Lawrence Names Committee to Carry
Out Purposes Started.
Richard W. Lawrence, president of the Music In-
dustries Chamber of Commerce, has appointed the
following committee of New York piano men to de-
velop a correspondence course for salesmen in retail
music stores:
E. Paul Hamilton, Chickering warerooms; James
F. Ryan, Rudolph Wurlitzer Company; C. T. Purdy,
Hardman Peck & Company; William H. Alfring,
Aeolian Company; William J. Haussler, C. Bruno &
Sons, and George Schofield, Pease-Behning Com-
pany.
The appointment of the committee is the outcome
of a proposal made by Mr. Hamilton, and it is ex-
pected that through its activities, results of great
value will be accomplished in the matter of raising
the standards of retail salesmanship in music stores.
NEW INCORPORATIONS
IN MUSIC GOODS TRADE
New and Old Concerns Secure Charters in Various
Places.
Max Friedman Music Publishing Co., Buffalo,
N. Y.; $25,000; M. Friedman, and P. and H. R.
Shapiro.
The Esenbe Co., Pittsburgh, Pa.; $5,000; Harry M.
Swartz, Lebanon, Pa., and others.
Austin-Klinger Piano Co., Toledo, O.; $10,000; Ed-
ward J. Austin and others.
The Grimes-Lawing Piano Co., Fort Worth, Tex.;
$5,000; B. A. Grimes, J. D. Lawing and Mrs. W. J.
Lawing.
The Cathedral Pipe Organ Co., 810 Broad street,
Newark, N. J.; $125,000; to manufacture pipe organs.
Paul Specht, Manhattan; theater proprietors; $10,-
000; P. Specht, W. G. Lovatt, S. Schwartzman. At-
torney, H. S. Hechheimer, 1450 Broadway.
R. K. MAYNARD IN CHICAGO.
The Pacific Coast manager for the M. Schulz Co.,
Chicago, is at headquarters this week. Mr. Maynard
reports trade as being active in his section, with prom-
ise of being still better. A. M. Prinz, the Northwest
representative of the M. Schulz Co., is also in Chicago
this week. Mr. Prinz covers Wisconsin, Minnesota,
Iowa and the Dakotas for the M. Schulz lines.
G. L. MANSFIELD WILL SPEAK.
G. L. Mansfield, general traveler for C. Kurtzmann
& Co., of Buffalo, has accepted the invitation to speak
at the annual dinner of the sales force of the Pear-
son Music House at Indianapolis, on January 6th.
He will deliver an address on "Salesmanship." No
one who knows Mr. Mansfield will doubt that it
will be worth going a long way to hear.
BACK HOME AND OPTIMISTIC.
Stil Harcourt, of the Story & Clark Piano Co., Chi-
cago, has just returned from a three weeks' trip
through the eastern states. The Repro-Phraso de-
mand is big and growing rapidly, according to Mr.
Harcourt, who returned by the way of Springfield,
Columbus and Cincinnati in a very enthusiastic frame
of mind.
NEW YORK FAILURE.
Louis Hammerschlag, doing business as Louis
Hammerschlag Company, dealing in music, at 41
Union square, has been put into bankruptcy by Jacob
Zattlin, a creditor to extent of $400; A. M. Friedland,
$100; Sol. Glasberg, $100.
BEAUTY AND UTILITY
Dual Features in Great Modern Manufacturing Struc-
ture in Watertown, Matters of Local Pride and
Piano Trade Advantages at All Points.
Work is now proceeding in all departments of the
new factory of the Vose & Sons Piano Co., in Water-
town, Greater Boston, about twenty minutes' ride
from the center of the city. The new building not
only provides accommodation for present require-
ments, but insures provision for facilities for the
natural growth of the Vose output.
The exterior of the new structure suggests the
greatly increased facilities of the Vose & Sons Piano
Co. But in the architectural design beauty is com-
bined with utility. It is an appropriate housing of a
great and ambitious industry, and is another cause for
Boston's pride in the architectural attractiveness of its
industrial plants.
Everything Modern.
But above all the new Vose factory is truly modern
and efficiency is the slogan that animates every phase
of the activities. It is a fact that many months were
devoted to research before even a tentative plan of
construction was drafted. The final accepted plans
were an assurance of the ideals of the Vose family to
have the latest and best and most approved structure
to house the latest equipments in piano making ma-
chinery and scientific devices used in the manufactur-
ing processes.
To provide for the rapidly increasing demand for
instruments bearing the name ''Vose & Sons," it was
considered imperative to plan for facilities for the
future. The great growth in the demand for the Vose
grands was in itself a reason for providing for great
floor space. It is a well known fact with manufac-
turers that a factory eighty feet wide is far more
admirably adapted to the building of grand pianos
than the more congested buildings of less modern
type.
Beauty and Utility.
The new factory of the Vose & Sons Piano Co. is
wide and spacious, constructed of reinforced concrete
faced with a rich colored red brick which makes it
highly attractive from an architectural standpoint. In
the new factory much attention has been given to
light, both daylight and artificial light. In fact, every
foot of space in the entire structure affords an abund-
ance of light and illumination. The ventilating sys-
tem is another splendid feature that renders the new
factory healthful and a pleasant place to work.
Advantages for Dealers.
Of course all these modern improvements result in
the efficiency of employes as well as in economies in
manufacture in which the dealer who buys the Vose
instruments is a sharer. Every phase in the mod-
ernity of the factory of the Vose & Sons Piano Co. is
reflected in the quality and price of the Vose instru-
ments. The busy floors within the walls and the lum-
ber yards, drying kilns, railroad transportation facili-
ties without, are all part of the accommodations which
permit the company to make more pianos today and
insure a future product surpassing in quality and mod-
erate price any effort of the company in the past.
The representatives of the Vose & Sons Piano Co.
are quick to appreciate this fact for the Vose & Sons
pianos have always been big values with the strength
of appeal and unfailing selling power. In the new
structure it is the aim of the Vose & Sons Piano Co.
to give more value and quality than ever before, and
the new factory with its ample floor space and splen-
did facilities augurs well for the Vose dealers.
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