Presto

December 27, 1924
PRESTO
of prosperity.—Waltham Piano Company, Milwau-
kee, Wis.
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Dear You: Every good wish for a very Merry
Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year.
May it see your fondest hopes fulfilled and may it
be rich in the successful accomplishment of your
highest aims.—AI. Buenning, Salina, Kans.
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Season's Greetings to the Good, Clean, Newsy
Trade Journal, Presto, from E. A. Francis, Francis
Piano Co., 1924.
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Appreciating our pleasant business relations during
the past, we wish you the Compliments of the Season
and trust that the coming year will bring you the
best ever known in Happiness and Prosperity.—
Golding's Music Company, Winnipeg.
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Just as the ties of friendship are strengthened at
this holiday season so may our business associations
grow in mutual accord and confidence. With best
wishes for Christmas and the New Year.—Brinker-
hoff Piano Co., Will T. Brinkerhoff, President.
With the all-pervading spirit of 'Peace on Earth,
Good Will Toward Men" about us, we join heartily
in expressing to you our cordial and sincere wishes
for your complete happiness and prosperity, not only
at Christmas but throughout the coming year.—•
Straube Piano Co., Hammond, Ind.
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Among other cards bearing the greetings and New
Year wishes were those from:
William Tonk & Bro., Inc., New York; Christman
Piano Co., Inc., New York; Polk's College of Piano
Tuning, Valparaiso, Ind.; Chas. E. Byrne, Chicago;
Gust. Ad. Anderson, Van Wert, O.; P. E. Conroy,
St. Louis; Will L. Bush, Chicago; Louis Duncan
Ray, Detroit; Arthur L. Wessell, New York; Fitz-
gerald Music Co., Los Angeles, Cal.; Bruce Tomj-
kins, of Cable Co.; E. W. Furbush, with a lot more
still in Uncle Sam's delivery sack to arrive next
mail, and the next after that, till the New Year
dawns. All add to the cheer that comes with the
biggest of all the holidays. "Same to you!"
PROPER DEMONSTRATION
FOR PLAYER CUSTOMER
Possibilities
of Method Are Not Evercised
Dealers, Is View of Manager.
by
The fact that proper demonstration is a most re-
liable factor in playerpiano selling was proved in
many instances during the Christmas buying activi-
ties. A great many dealers believe they have ex-
hausted the possibilities of the demonstration when
they play for a customer, said a sales manager in a
Chicago wareroom this week. He adds:
But something more is needed to apply the full
potency of the demonstration. No house is too small
to make player demonstrations features of the
business.
The playerpiano is just as fascinating an instrument
to sell as the reproducing piano. For one thing it
introduces at once the element of personality, the
buyer's personality. If the sale is to be successfully
made, the salesman must somehow manage to get
the personality of the prospect into contact with the
ESTABLISHED 1854
THE
BRADBURY PIANO
FOR ITS
ARTISTIC EXCELLENCE
FOR ITS
INESTIMABLE AGENCY VALUE
THE CHOICE OF
Representative Dealers the World Over
Now Produced in Several
New Model*
WRITE FOR TERRITORY
Factory
Leotninster,
Mass.
Executive Offices
138th St. and Walton Ave.
New York
DiTision W. P. HAINES & CO., Inc.
instrument; and keep the two in that contact until
the sale has been made.
This is not always quote so easy to accomplish as
one might suppose. The playerpiano must be dem-
onstrated, and that involves the construction and the
act of playing. It requires previous explanation be-
fore the prospect can comprehend the purposes of the
instrument; unless the salesman proposes to sell by
the process of playing the instrument himself until
the prospect has been brought, by the experience of
silting and listening, into a state of sufficient satisfac-
tion to cause him to close without further ado.
Once the playerpiano prospect understands the
principles and can make the music he or she has
begun to take a live interest in the instrument which
is being pressed upon the attention. The interest be-
comes positive and the idea of possession becomes
active from that moment. So long, on the other
hand, as the prospect listens, the interest is not of the
kind to lead to closed sales. It is possible the cus-
tomer may become discouraged or bored.
HEARST MUSIC PUBLISHERS
OF CANADA IN BANKRUPTCY
Sheet Music House with Headquarters in Win-
nipeg and Branch Offices on This Side,
Makes Bad Failure.
The worst failure in the sheet music business,
within a long time, appears to be that of the Hearst
Music Publishers, Ltd., of Winnipeg, Canada. Ac-
cording to the bankruptcy schedule, the Hearst con-
cern must have had about as many creditors as it
could have had customers. And the list of creditors
includes all kinds of workers in the "song game,"
from composers to paper makers and printing houses.
For several years the operations of the Hearst
Music Publishers, Ltd., have been almost startling in
their elaboration, considering that the sheet music
business doesn't usually justify so much expenditure
in the departments of distribution, as was evidenced
in the conduct of the Winnipeg concern, notwith-
standing the reports of fabulous fortunes made by
single songs.
Anyway, the Canadian music publishers have made
a new record in that particular line of business, and
some of its creditors are caught for large sums.
Among the heaviest of them are: Rayner, Dalheim
& Co., Chicago, music engravers and printers, $42,-
537; M. Witmark & Sons, publishers, New York,
$2,298; J. J. Gibbons, advertising, Toronto, $5,006;
Coal & Iron National Bank, $25,000; London Print-
ing & Lithographing Co., London, Out., $7,559; with
smaller claims running from a few hundreds to the
Idea Shop of New Orleans, for $5. It appears that
the Hearst concern transacted business all over the
United States and secured credit wherever they did
business. The schedule of creditors numbers about
one hundred.
For a year or more past, the Winnipeg publishers
were large, trade paper advertisers, and branch offices
were maintained in New York and Chicago. A few
weeks ago the Chicago office was transferred, by
purchase, to the local manager. When the company
first came into notice through the trade press a
sketch of the head of the house appeared in the
newspapers in which it was either affirmed or im-
plied that the Hearsts were wealthy gentlemen pos-
sessed of an abiding love for music. They were also
song writers and they displayed a great deal of
enterprise in the promotion of their publications.
One of the items in the bankruptcy list is a credit
to the receiver general of Ottawa amounting to $11,-
353.02. The general creditors may receive a good
share of their claims w r hen the affairs of Hearst
Music Publishers, Ltd., are wound up. And they
mav not.
ADVERTISING SALESMEN
AS WELL AS PIANOS
Grand Piano Co., Akron, O., Makes Their Faces
Familiar to Public.
The Grand Piano Co., 133 East Market street,
Akron, O., uses unique methods in increasing the
prestige of its salesmen. The company, of which
Ernest E. Smith and F. W. Van Scoyoc are owners
and managers, includes publicity for the staff with
that for the fine line of Story & Clark pianos, play-
ers and reproducing pianos handled. This week the
Akron dailies carried the portrait of Albert E. Kol-
fleich who recently joined the sales staff of the com-
pany.
This caption accompanied cut: "Akron's most
popular young salesman resigns from Smith & Mit-
ten and joins the Grand Piano Co., and Ernest E.
Smith and F. W. Van Scoyoc."
ADVERTISING FOLKS
FROLIC WAS GREAT
Distribution of Gifts and Sounds of Music at
Hotel La Salle Made Bright Ending
of Year.
Santa Claus distributed bags of Christmas gifts
at the Annual Frolic of advertising folks Thursday,
December 18, at the Hotel La Salle, and one of the
gifts in each bag was a 1925 Gulbransen calendar.
The affair, which is an annual one, was held jointly
by the Advertising Council of the Chicago Associa-
tion of Commerce and the Women's Advertising
Club. Hundreds of requests for luncheon reserva-
tions were turned down twenty-four hours after the
notices were sent out, for the Chicago Advertising
fraternity has attended these frolics for years and
knows they are worth-while.
In addition to the Gulbransen Company, forty-two
other leading business houses of Chicago donated
presents.
The program presented was of particular interest
from a music standpoint, owing to the fact that Fred
Carberry, the music dealer of Milwaukee, led the
singing, and everyone knows when Mr. Carberry is
on the job it takes only a few minutes for any group
of people to learn that there is a vast difference be-
tween "just singing" and "singing with expression."
Mr. Carberry made out of the business men and
women assembled at the Christmas Frolic an im-
promptu choir that responded to his every command
in the handling of their voices.
Other features of entertainment on the program
were Bernard Granville of the "No, No, Nanette"
Company; Harry McKvoy, magician; Frank M.
Thomas of the "Cheaper to Marry" Company; Ben-
son's Orchestra, and the Chicago Association of Com-
merce Glee Club.
Contributors to the gift bags included the Ameri-
can Sugar Refining Co.. Calumet Baking Powder Co.,
H. J. Heinz Co , Northern Trust Company, Quaker
Oats Co., Shredded Wheat Company, Swift & Co.,
William Wrigley Jr. Co., etc.
TWENTY=FIVE YEARS
IN THE PIANO TRADE
Interesting Anniversary Celebration by Chi-
cago Dealer Who Represents the Gulbransen
Registering Piano with Fine Results.
In celebration of his twenty-fifth anniversary in
business, one of the Gulbransen dealers in Chicago
conducted a "Radio Show" to which manufacturers
of Radio equipment were invited to contribute dis-
plays of their particular lines. This made a very in-
teresting exhibit and, in spite of the very worst sort
of weather in which to get people to go out, T. P.
Flannery expresses himself as satisfied with the re-
sults.
The Flannery store is at 2711-13 North Clark
street, Chicago. The entertainment provided con-
sisted of Jack Chapman of the Drake Hotel orches-
tra; Don Bestor, of the Blackstone Hotel orchestra;
Ralph Williams, of Rainbow Garden; Coon-Sanders,
the Kansas City Night Hawks; "Uncle Bob," the
famous Bed-Time Story man; Langdon Brothers,
Hawaiian guitarists, and Margaret Cade, soprano,
who sang to the accompaniment of the Gulbransen
registering piano.
Miss Cade sang, "Lo, Hear the Gentle Lark,"
"Carmena," "Bowl of Roses," "Memory Lane," "A
Kiss in the Dark," and "At Dawning." All her ac-
companiments were played on a White House Model
Gulbransen registering piano.
As an added feature, turkeys were given away
nightly December 17, 18, 19 and 20. News of the
"North Side Radio Show" was broadcast to the
neighborhood by means of blotters distributed from
house to house, window cards and a trailer run in
one of the neighborhood movie theaters. Through it,
hundreds of persons learned of the musical charac-
ter of the Gulbransen registering piano.
"MAC"
STARTS NEW PAPER.
There isn't a man on earth who knows Henry Mc-
Mullan that doesn't wish him all the good fortune
in the world. For a quarter century nearly, Mr. Mc-
Mullan was on Presto's editorial staff, and he deserves
every one of his countless friends, won by his hon-
esty of purpose and the bigness of his heart. "Mac"
has just established the "Lincoln Parker," a paper
designed, presumably, to support the interests of one
of Detroit's thriving suburban communities. The
initial number of the "Lincoln Parker" is handsomely
printed and shows the literary skill of its editor.
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