Presto

PRESTO
8
Presto
THE AMERICAN MUSIC TRADE WEEKLY.
Published Every Saturday at 417 South Dearborn
Street, Chicago, Illinois.
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
ci general interest to the music trade will be paid for
at space rates. Usually piano merchants or salesmen
in the smaller cit'es are the best occasional corre-
spondents, and their assistance is invited.
F T - " C r V s e a t 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 d : splay 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., 417 South
Dearborn Street, Chicago, III.
SATURDAY, APRIL 5, 1924.
RADIO RISKS
As may have been expected, radio is just
now a fruitful source of revenue from small
swindlers who use newspaper advertising
space. From many sections come reports of
fake concerns, and schemes designed to cap-
ture unearned cash from unsuspecting people
who read about the wonders of radio and
want to experience some of them.
These small frauds are perpetrated not alone
upon householders and amateur experimenters
in radio research., but upon music dealers as
well. As is customary with a large proportion
of honest people, whatever appears in print
must be so. And the radio fakers take ad-
vantage of honest people. The other kind do
not make good picking. Consequently it is
wise for the average music dealer to know
something about the. advertising radio con-
cerns whose promises seem large in the news-
paper columns, and special publications de-
voted to "bargains" of all or any kind.
Of course, the papers try to keep out the
fraudulent advertising, but they can't always
do it. Therefore, it is well for the prospective
dealer in the things of the new craze to see
what is behind the advertisement before let-
ting go of any money, or placing too much
credit in what is promised. Radio as a busi-
ness is not an easy matter. It is advancing
and, as with all new things, it changes rapidly,
And until it becomes stabilized, as a commer-
cial proposition, caution seems to be a good
word.
at first appeal to merchants in established
lines of commerce. Selling pianos seemed
rather to belong to the professional side of
life, and it had been largely left to the teach-
ers of music, or to musicians who, not liking
the teaching end of things, combined business
with their art. And so when the piano indus-
try began to spread, the manufacturers or
their established representatives found it
necessary to seek the right kind of selling
ability and give it a start on the way to sub-
stantial results.
A similar system has of late been adopted
by forceful manufacturers' representatives,
but with a difference in keeping with the en-
larged plan of the trade and industry and the
possibilities of a better way.
Of late years it has become almost a rule
with experienced travelers in the piano in-
dustry to establish agencies by assisting in
the organization of local companies, or firms,
well adapted fo piano selling. Men of the
right personal force and initiative are found,
in suitable cities and towns, who combine their
resources of capital and ability, and open new
piano stores.
Of course, they feature and vigorously push
•_he instruments represented by the organizer
and "coach" by whose energy and experience
the new houses came into being. One veteran
piano traveler told Presto of nearly a dozen
such houses which have been organized, at
his suggestion, within a short time.
The plan is a good one and there are a thou-
sand thriving communities in which stores may
still be started. Active business men seeking
the right way to success can make no mistake
if they give the subject consideration at this
time.
THE PRECIOUS "PARCEL"
An incident that illustrates one of the re-
markable changes which have come over the
piano within the past quarter century came
to light last week. It was the sale of a sec-
ond-hand instrument of the recently-despised
"stencil" tribe that brought $2,700 at an auc-
tion sale in New York City.
Turn your memory back twenty years or so
and consider what would have been said of
such a transaction at that period. A strange
name on even a fine piano is no longer cause
for conniptions on the part of the most moral
piano dealer, or even the almost-virtuous
trade paper editor. It has become the regu-
lar thing for piano manufacturers, possessed
of quite distinguished names, to bend willing
ears to the blandishments of the dealers who
order in carload lots. It is no longer startling
to find pianos of identical make and style in
rival warerooms, bearing different names, but
obviously of the same make. The world is
getting bigger and the piano industry is not
so exacting in some matters as it once was.
But a $2,700 stencil piano is even yet a
rather rare affair. And this especially when it
is sold at auction and, save for some gold
BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES
stripes on the walnut case and a bench to
When pianos first began to play their part match, is not different, presumably, from a
in the commercial world, in anything like a thousand other stencil pianos which may be
large way. it was customary for jobbers to had by the dozen for half the price paid for
single out active business men in live towns the old one in New York last week.
and equip them as "consignment agents."
The $2,700 stencil in the case bears the
Special contracts were devised and active strange name of "Parcel," according to the
piano agents multiplied throughout the coun- newspaper stories. It is a baby grand, and
try, quickly developing business houses which
about the only important thing about it is
in some cases, became great and still exist.
the possibility that the auction sales of "rare
The plan grew out of the difficulty to inter- furniture" with a gilded stripe "at the crown,
est men of capital in a business which did not sides and foot," may soon become quite the
April 5, 1924.
thing in fashionable circles, with the enter-
prising town piano dealers acting as masters
of ceremonies. In view of the disappearance
of the "lady leaving town," and the "private
family in distress" having alreadv disposed of
all its pianos, the auction sale of rare old in-
struments with gilded stripes may serve the
purpose quite well.
In any event, it is a rather strange condi-
tion that a stencil piano which twenty years
ago would, by its name alone, have represent-
ed at most but smiles of expert derision,
should today easily sell at public auction for
$2,700. Time changes, and with it the piano
changes also.
SEVEN WAYS TO SALES
OF MIESSNER PIANOS
Manufacturers of the Little Piano with the Big
Tone Announce Interesting Book for
Dealers and Salesmen.
The Miessner Piano Co., 126 Reed street, Milwau-
kee, Wis., reminds old piano houses doing an estab-
lished business that there is new business and new
profits in handling the Miessner piano, "The Little
Piano with the Big Tone." The thought of a new
field is always interesting to the piano merchant keen
to expand his business. The proposition of the Miess-
ner Piano Co., however, is but a new phase of activity
in the old field and the phase comprises seven allur-
ing ways that have scarcely been touched.
"Selling the Miessner in no way interferes with
your regular sales," says the Milwaukee company.
"For the Miessner is built for specialized uses—uses
that the ordinary pianos you are now handling cannot
fill; so each Miessner sale is simply 'plus profit.' "
In a message to music dealers this week the Miess-
ner Piano Co. announces the new booklet prepared
for exclusive use &i Miessner dealers and which tells
how the alert dealer can reach out and get. "It is
new business that you must pass up if you don't sell
the Miessner. It outlines the way to big cash sales in
seven new fields. Let us send you complete informa-
tion about the possibilities of the Miessner piano," is
the suggestion to the trade by the Miessner Piano
Co.
The big tone is a really marvelous quality in the
little Miessner, which is three feet seven inches high,
four feet six inches wide and two feet in depth. The
instruments arc used extensively in small homes,
apartments, clubs, colleges and public schools. Its
wonderful adaptability to numerous uses is told in
the booklet prepared by the Miessner Piano Co.
A POOR PLACE FOR WORK
IS THE "GOLDEN WEST"
So Says Prominent Piano Manufacturer, Who Re-
cently Returned from the "Promised Land."
A prominent Chicago piano man who has often
traveled extensively in California and other Pacific
Coast states declares that it is not a suitable country
for the average wage-worker of the East to tackle.
He saw while there men who had been holding re-
sponsible positions back east who now were waiters,
or even bus boys, in ordinary restaurants.
There are men at the heads of families often; men
too poor and too proud to go back to the East. Many
of these men had gone out there with high hopes of
bettering their chances in life. Some, of course, had
gone for health and these were not so bitterly dis-
appointed. Some had got so poor living in the Far
West that they found it impossible to finance them-
selves and their families to railroad fare to get back
east.
A more observing or reliable man does not exist in
the piano trade than Presto's informant. He says
that California is a delightful place for the man with
plenty of means, or for the man who secures a good
position as manager or mechanic before starting. But
it is the last ditch for the fellow who gets stranded
out there.
MUSIC STORE ROBBED.
Overpowering Miss Harriet Klinenberg, 17-year-
old daughter of Joseph Klinenberg, who was alone in
her father's music store, at 4915 South Ashland ave-
nue, Chicago, a well-dressed bandit, posing as a cus-
tomer, took $45 from the cash register and escaped.
Miss Klinenberg said that the robber shoved his hand
against her mouth while he opened the register and
took the money with the other hand.
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