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-
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 vear; 6 months, $1; Foreign, 94.
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., 417 South
Dearborn Street, Chicago, III.
SATURDAY. DKCEMBER 20, 1924.
ABOUT TRADE NEWS
According- to an article in last week's
Presto, one of New York's prominent piano
men thinks that not all of the "news" in Presto
is exclusive to this paper. Of course not. No
publication that cares for its credit, or reli-
ability, could manufacture all of its news
merely for the purpose of having it solely for
its own. And perhaps the New York expert
in wholesaling- pianos believes that Presto
doesn't print all the news that might possibly
be gathered, even of the authenticated kind.
Of course not, again. A great proportion of
the trade news is not consequential, or it may
pertain to private matters of a kind that could
not possibly help anyone, while it might result
in injury somewhere.
But if our friend will compare Presto with
any other music trade paper, fairly and with-
out bias in favor of any other, he will dis-
cover that the American Music Trade Weekly
puts forth more constructive ideas, and pre-
sents more news of real importance, than any
of its ably edited, always versatile and read-
able contemporaries.
Presto tries to be constructive and never
destructive. It gives news that others will
not give because it is more independent in its
utterances. It is not sustained, to any great
extent, by any single piano, or other industry.
It does not feel the pressure, financial, men-
tal or moral, to slight the good news of any
industry, small or large. And it prefers a use-
ful suggestion of any help to the retailers to
any sensation about individuals or any report
disclosing the figures in a failure.
We are not now insinuating that a half
dozen of the beautiful, and highly artistic,
pages of any good and great piano industry
would be turned coldly from our door. There
is no sign reading "no admission" anywhere
about the entrances to Presto. It is as genial
to welcome a good advertiser as any trade
paper could be.
Nor does Presto like to be threatened that
if it publishes the page of any honest, if small,
industry the displays of some larger one will
be withheld. All that we can say, in such a
case is, with a polite obeisance and something-
like a celluloid tear in the eye: "Well, then
withhold"—or something Shakespearean like
that.
It will bear inspection—this statement—
that Presto does print the news, and some-
times "more than is fit to print" if it is to the
interest of its friends.
What kind of news is lacking, in the judg-
ment of the fine New York piano-man
critic, we do not know. If he will tell us, we
will print his letter, Avithout charge, in the
guise of news—which it will certainly be—
to us.
December 20, 1924.
expression. And, as Lyon & Healy says,
"there's just as much fun in it."
Many a salesman w r ho may seem to have
fired his last charge and finds his prospect still
unsubdued, may add the Lyon & Healy argu-
ment and bring victory from threatened de-
feat.
Something like fifty readers have notified
Presto that the portrait which appeared last
week as that of the late Paul J. Healy is really
an old one of his elder brother, James. A re-
markable resemblance exists between the sons
of the founder of Lyon & Healy, but that fact
doesn't excuse the cut room boy who handed
out the wrong one last week. We fess up and
apologize.
:];
A NEW VIEWPOINT
Why does the whole family need a piano?
Of course, mother and daughter must have
one. Xo real home can be complete unless
they do have one. But it has always been a
matter of dispute in American homes as to
whether dad and brothers need a piano. They
have been supposed to belong to the order of
bipeds that need nothing better than fish
poles, baseball bats, swimming pools and
squirrel guns. But things are changing, as
someone else has said with reference to re-
ligion and other sports.
And one rather striking evidence of the
change, as related to pianos and music gener-
ally, is suggested in an advertisement of the
house of Lyon & Healy. In that adv. the fol-
lowing paragraph appears:
When you can play a musical instrument you can be
proud of yourself. It is like being able to swim, box
well, or play a rattling good game in football. If you
can "hold down third base," you can play a musical in-
strument. Learning one is no harder than the other.
And there's just as much fun in both. If you don't
think so, look around at some of the fellows with their
saxophones and banjos. Down here we shall be glad
to help you get started. Come in. Prices are right and
you can buy on the easy-payment plan.
Next to music itself—the thought upper-
most is that playing upon an instrument is
also a species of sport—indoor sport, presum-
ably, but a kind of exhilaration brother to
baseball and golf. It is as much a part of the
training of a husky young man as any of the
other, and probably less refining, athletic ex-
ercises. The idea seems a good one, whether
from the standpoint of health and strength or
merely that of business stimulation.
If we can make the heads of families real-
ize that their sons need such exercise as the
piano affords, it must result in a still greater
demand for the instrument. And, carried to
its ultimate effect, it must prove the means of
selling better pianos than common. For, if
the piano is to take its place as the practicing
ground for the development of athletics, as
well as of delicate and facile finger touch, the
instrument must be sufficiently staunch to sus-
tain a one-hundred-year warranty. And that
will mean the kind of workmanship that jus-
tifies the customary installment easy payment
plan.
But, jesting aside, the Lyon & Healy adv.
makes prominent a suggestion which should
prove useful to the trade everywhere. For
it is a fact that the sons of the family have, of
late years, been permitted to develop their
football and golfing genius at the expense of
music and the things that make them better
by way of refinement. Music is alone in its
all-around educational influences. The instru-
ment of music is the medium of the higher
:|;
^
It is clear that the radio industry is over-
done. It started with too much speed and
changes are coming so fast as to bewilder the
public. The patent offices are jammed with
improvements, most of which will be forgot-
ten before their inventors are a year older.
* * *
At last the old pianos are to meet a better
fate than that of making bonfires. The New
York school board is using them for manual
training school purposes, with the end that the
useless old instruments are turned into beau-
tiful music and radio cabinets.
* * *
Wisconsin is to have another piano factory.
And the city of Jauesville will be the gainer
at Chicago's expense. Labor conditions,
which always worry the Chicago manufac-
turers, are accountable for it.
* * *
The general belief among piano men is
that there is to be a distinct revival of the
"straight" piano. Observers say that the re-
cent spirit in the trade clearly foreshadowed
the condition.
30 YEARS AGO IN THE TRADE
From the Files of Presto
(December 20, 1894.)
At.a specially called meeting of the Piano Manu-
facturers' Association of New York and vicinity to
make a proper memorial on the death of John Jacob
Decker, one of the founders of the Association, suit-
able resolutions were passed.
The proposed "L" loop on Wabash avenue, Chi-
cago, does not appear to be so sure of construction
as it did. some three weeks ago, when it was gener-
ally thought that the property owners on that street
would interpose no strong" objections.
The holiday business is running along merrily now
and purchasers eager for bargains are thronging the
piano warerooms. The sales may not equal those of
former years, but still there are enough to lighten
up the hearts of the dealers.
Newman Bros. Co., have taken the Eastern terri-
tory, formerly controlled by Jack Haynes, of New
York, and will work the lield vigorously themselves.
It is a large and valuable territory and should be
productive for the company.
20 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
(From Presto December 22, 1904.)
Same to you and many of them! The holly is
green and the Star shines bright. Music belongs to
Christmas, too, and people who make pianos, and
people who sell them to other people who play them,
should be merry. Are you?
In the death of W. W. Kimball, aged 76 years,
president of the W. W. Kimball Co., at his home,
1801 Prairie avenue, Chicago, at 5 o'clock last Friday
afternoon the piano and organ trade has lost a pow-
erful influence. The Chicago Piano & Organ Asso-
ciation was represented at the funeral by two com-
mittees—one a committee of piano manufacturers,
the other a committee of retailers. The first com-
mittee was composed of C. A. Smith, Hobart M.
Cable, E. H. Story and Harry Schaaf. The retailers'
committee were C. N. Post* Platt P. Gibbs, E. V.
Church, J. O. Twichell.
Enhanced content © 2008-2009 and presented by MBSI - The Musical Box Society International (www.mbsi.org) and the International Arcade Museum (www.arcade-museum.com).
All Rights Reserved. Digitized from the archives of the MBSI with support from NAMM - The International Music Products Association (www.namm.org).
Additional enhancement, optimization, and distribution by the International Arcade Museum. An extensive collection of Presto can be found online at http://www.arcade-museum.com/library/