Presto

PRESTO
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.
merclal 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.
Frr-nc c'ose 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., 417 South
Dearborn Street, Chicago, III.
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 6, 1924.
"SOME" PRODUCTION
A country newspaper published in a town
where there is located a very live piano in-
dustry recently printed an item to the effect
that "fifty Uprights and fifteen grands are
now being turned out every day at the piano
factory." The name of the manufacturer was
given, but he is one of the kind of men who
object to having their business reported in
detail. And the item appeared in the first
week of August.
What would you call that—for the item
was accurate as to the output of the piano
factory? Would you read it and whimper
about the piano business being "dead," or any-
thing of that kind? Why not, rather, use that
item to stimulate your own business, and ask
why it is that one manufacturer can be pro-
ducing sixty-five instruments every day, dur-
ing the "dull" season, while you acquire the
habit of telling your associates that trade is
"dull," or words to that effect?
Perhaps you will say that there must be a
reason beyond the understanding- of your
methods of making or selling pianos. Pos-
sibly you think the sixty-a-day manufacturer
—with fifteen of them grands—is giving them
away; that he is using them for advertising
purposes, just as baking powder manufac-
turers present their "samples" to thrifty
housewives.
If you have any such notion as that, you
certainly do not know the manufacturer who
is keeping his factory humming and his cus-
tomers supplied. You don't understand his
vision, and his "dreams" are not within the
realm of your imaginings.
The straight fact is that the piano is an
article that can be sold if it is properly pre-
sented, by really live salesmen. That the re-
tail end of it must be kept alive is obvious, if
the factories are to be kept busy. And it is
equally clear that the piano is an article that
must be made if it is to be sold. You can't
sell the thing that is not in existence, or in
promise of coming through. It's again the
man, and not the "times" that decides whether
trade shall be "dead," or very much alive.
September 6, 1924.
an active business, like that of piano selling,
there is no time or place for dull times.
Last week an item in Presto told of a new
* * *
metal action for pianos designed for export.
Today the music roll makers offer every
But there is nothing new about the metal possible help and support to the retail trade.
action idea. Many years ago—fully forty— A well-stocked music roll department should
Chickering & Sons produced an all-metal ac- be conspicuous in every piano store.
tion and made a specialty of it in their Style
* * *
10 upright, which was very popular at that
Get out that old prospect list and set the
period. But it was not long before the metal boys on the trail of the good citizens who, in
action was discarded and, in many instances, more or less remote days, promised to buy
actually taken out of finished Chickering "at some later time."
pianos and the wooden action substituted. It
* * *
[;; even true that at the time it was common The En-ar-co National News, a house or-
trade discussion that the metal action had gan, plays this one: "What's a nasty pianist?
given to the old Boston industry a hard blow, One who claws a mean batch of ivories."
from which it slowly recovered. When the
* * *
Chickering house became financially stranded,
It was just twenty years ago that the foun-
in the late '80's, there were not lacking piano dations of the big American Piano Co. factories
men who charged it to the metal action ex- were laid at Dispatch, now East Rochester,
periment.
New York. It was then the Foster-Arm-
There also have been metal player actions strong Company.
* * *
Mid, in one instance, it proved so good that it
was a stiff competitor because of its construc-
From now till Christmas—keep plugging.
tion and the material used. The argument As you end this year you will begin the new
that rubber was liable to lose its viscosity one.
afforded a fine opportunity for the agile sales-
man, and they made the best of it, with plaus-
ible reason. So that metal in piano actions
30 YEARS AGO IN THE TRADE
is not new, nor is it exactly a subject for an
From the Files of Presto
argument, inasmuch as it had been pretty
thoroughly tried.
September 6, 1894.
Whether metal is better for export, because
Major Howes, of the Hallet & Davis Co.,
of climatic conditions in other parts of the is Genial
expected to shed the light of his countenance on
world, is another matter, and may be tried to the Chicago music trade this week. At this writing
has probably arrived.
advantage. The pianos that have the greatest he Mason
& Hamlin at Antwerp. The Mason &
sale in foreign countries—all over the civilized Hamlin instruments intended for display at the
Exposition and wheih were not sent from
world—contain wooden actions. And they do Antwerp
Boston until about the middle of July, created a great
not seem to have had much trouble because of deal of interest when they were put on exhibition
climatic changes. And yet there is never an there.
Messrs. H. D. Cable and Geo. W. Tewksbury, of
end to improvement, and no lack of inventive the Chicago Cottage Organ Co., reached Chicago on
Sunday
Mr. Tewksbury will pay but a short
genius. If American pianos need metal actions visit to last.
this country, returning to Europe to spend
in order to win and hold the export trade, it still further time in travel.
It may be that Presto is not the first or the only
is certain that metal actions will be made, for
paper this week to publish the list of awards in musi-
our action industries are as progressive and cal instruments of the Antwerp Exposition as the
of two, at least, of our contemporaries are
competent as those of any nation—and more editors
now in Europe and presumably are looking to the
so.
interests of their respective publications. Should our
METAL ACTIONS
The Department of Commerce at Washing-
ton is trying to make manufacturers realize
that the production of seldom-used varieties
of "every day commodities" represents waste.
Of course the suggestion is not at all novel
in the piano industry, although there are still
too many styles turned out by some of the
manufacturers.
* # *
In nearly all lines of trade it is the ex-
pressed opinion of experts that an era of new
prosperity is just about to begin. The piano
is one of the things that is sensitive to the
general awakening of business. It is time for
the piano dealers to brace up and go after it.
* * *
Go out into the highways and by-ways and
collect all the past-due installments and open
accounts. We are all at the threshhold of bet-
ter times, and "the open door" is for the
salesman to go out of as well as for trade to
enter in.
* * *
The upward trend of trade is felt in the very
air. Few of the piano makers or dealers will
say that they can't detect it. The watchword
to the retail piano men is Get Busy.
* # *
There was never an honest dollar made by
talking "dull times." It's unfair to your
neighbors and equally unfair to yourself. In
publication of the Antwerp awards be the first, it is
worthy of remark that this paper was the first also to
publish the awards of the Midwinter Fair, at San
Francisco, as we were also the first to publish the
World's Columbian Exposition list, a year ago this
month.
20 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
From Presto, September 8, 1904.
Poole piano pushers prove pre-eminently progres-
sive. Profit pours persistently, provided Poole piano
pushers present Poole pianos properly. Particular
people prefer positive proof, presented pointedly.
Poole pianos progress pleasantly, proving Poole piano
profit plentiful.
Edgar C. Smith, manager of the retail department
of the W. W. Kimball Co., Chicago, was seen out
guiding a new and handsome automobile a day or
two ago, which indicates that he, too, has "caught the
fever" and is taking his medicine.
There is a steady upward tendency in the Price &
Teeple market. The Price & Teeple pianos are win-
ning a great demand, and the demand is due to the
popular character and real merit of the Price &
Teeple pianos. Something Price & Teeple special
next week.
The first of a new style Conover New System up-
right piano was delivered from factory to warerooms
of The Cable Company yesterday. The instrument
is the smallest yet produced by The Cable Company,
being but 4 feet 2 inches in height.
The strike in the Ludwig factory in New York is
practically over. The places of the men who went
on strike have been all filled and a full force will be
at work before the close of this month. And the
Ludwig pianos continue to give the utmost satisfac-
tion to trade and public.
President Fayette S. Cable, of the Cable-Nelson
Piano Co., says that the new factory at South Haven
will be ready by the first of the new year. The new
plant will be one of the largest in the piano indus-
try and it will also be one of the best. "Lakeside"
and "Cable-Nelson" pianos will be coming from
South Haven before next spring arrives.
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