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
Telephcnes, Local and Long Distance, Harrison 234
Private Phones to all Departments. Cable Address (Com*
merclal Cable Co.'s Code), "PRESTO," Chicago.
Knterpd 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, 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 nocn.
Address all communications for the editorial or business
departments to PRESTO PUBLISHING CO., 417 South
Dearborn Street, Chicago, III.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1925.
DEALERS LEARN TUNING
As this paper has repeated many times, an
essential part of the education of a well-
equipped piano dealer is the ability to tune the
instrument. In many places—even some of
the cities of considerable size—it is almost
impossible for the store to secure prompt and
capable tuning service. The instruments on
the floor should always be in good condition
or they can not be fit to offer for sale.
Some ambitious piano dealers are good
tuners, whether they practice it much or not.
Others exact that some, if not all, of their
salesmen have enough understanding of tun-
ing to smooth up the instrument after deliv-
ery—or before sale. Following is a commu-
nication from a dealer of that kind, followed
by a newspaper clipping, in which we believe
there is an example and a lesson:
Galesburg, 111., Feb. 2, 1925.
Editor Presto: You see we patronize your advertis-
ers.
The tuning proposition got so acute that it was up to
one of us to learn how. Personally, I think every sales-
man should know at least how to regulate an action
and repair a player.
We tried seven different tuners. None of them knew
players; some of them were bums, others crooked, so
we were obliged to take this course. Mrs. Francis is
doing finely and will graduate March 16, and we are
going to celebrate the event by holding a big sale. I
spent a week at Valparaiso, and think the head instruc-
tor, Mr. Shope, knows his "stuff."
Very sincerely yours,
E. A. FRANCIS.
The clipping referred to is from a Galesburg
paper and reads as follows :
Mrs. E. A. Francis, while in Indiana, is perfecting
herself in the art of tuning pianos, and is attending a
school that makes instruction in this its principal busi-
ness. When she returns, it is understood that she will
be prepared to do this, and in that case will be the only
woman piano tuner in this section.
It would not be possible for the Francis
piano house to present a better argument for
the consideration of prospective Galesburg
piano buyers. The fact that the house appre-
ciates the responsibility of knowing how to
put the instruments in tune, and keep them so,
is an assurance that the management is ca-
pable of keeping the piano in order after it is
sold and in the buyer's home.
A CRAWFORD EDITORIAL
There are few, except among the very
youngest recruits in the piano trade and in-
dustry, who do not know Mr. Henry W. Craw-
ford, long prominent as head of the old Smith
& Nixon Piano Co., of Cincinnati. Mr. Craw-
ford has not been active during the past four
years because of severe illness. But his mind
is as vigorous as ever, and Presto takes the
liberty to make use here of a private letter,
by the former very energetic piano manufac-
turer and salesman. The letter, from which
the following is taken, was written three years
ago and is the more interesting and valuable
because it was addressed by Mr. Crawford to
his son at Harvard college:
Fame and fortune are the ambitions of life, but not
its object. So prepare that you may be dependable and
do well that which you undertake to do.
Lack of thoroughness is the great defect of the human
race. Superficiality is the father of ignorance. Ignor-
ance is the father of fear. Fear makes slaves of men
and makes despotism possible. Aim to render such
service as to make the community happier and better
because you have lived in it. In the language of Lin-
coln's mother, "Be honest and be kind." "Know thyself"
and then you will know God."
Worry not, nor concern yourself about going to
heaven, or about the heaven after death. Concern
yourself with helping to make this place, here on earth,
a heaven and a decent place in which to live, both for
yourself and for others.
We are inclined to think that the letter,
from a piano man who has put a lifetime of
energy into the business, and who for years
was a dominating character in the industry,
is good enough to cause other piano men a
sense of pride. It is an admonitory address
of a kind to be of great value to any young
man about to start out in the world, whether
in the piano business or any other. And in
its eloquence we believe that it has so few
equals that we are glad to adopt it as an
editorial.
February 7, 1925.
is a lesson in that for many piano merchants
whose roll department is left to "run itself,"
whereas with competent management it might
be made one of the most profitable.
* * *
There is a demand for good retail salesmen
and managers. Presto has published adver-
tisements proving this demand, and several
competent men have found locations in this
way within two weeks past. It is a sign of
the revival which never permits the piano
business to become really "dull."
* * *
At last the American Piano Co. has clinched
its sole right, without challenge or question, to
the great and, at one time vigorously dis-
puted, names of Chickering and Knabe. And
the American Piano Co. has achieved its great
assets honorably and conclusively.
* * *
Since the merger of two prominent piano
industries of Boston and Chicago, the name of
"Continental" seems to have become a favor-
ite in the music and allied industries. The
latest is a radio and music enterprise in Chi-
cago capitalized at $100,000.
* * *
It is a satisfaction to know that Mr. Albert
T. Strauch did not mean to desert the piano
business when he sold his interest in the old
action industry founded by his father. The
Strauch Piano Co. of New York City proves it.
30 YEARS AGO IN THE TRADE
From the Files of Presto
(January 7, 1895.)
Several very important items of "news" which ap-
peared in our esteemed trade contemporaries last
week arc this week only important because untrue.
That's trade journalism as some see it.
This mysterious item appeared in the women's
edition of the Burlington "Hawkeye": "The Baptist
Baking Powder has exploded and killed 15,000 Chi-
nese, and Lang & Minton's Pianoforte is taken by
the japs." .
At the next trade dinner let someone propose that
a picnic be substituted for the sweltering indoor en-
tertainment when the summer comes. This seems a
suitable suggestion with the mercury below zero.
The steel frame is nearly up for the six-story fac-
tory of Geo. P. Bent, corner Washington boulevard
and Sangamon streets. It will be of pressed brick
and have a frontage on the boulevard of J26 feet, and
on Sangamon street of 182 feet.
It has always bee nthe aim of The Presto to create
a demand for the paper itself and to make the sub-
scription list an important source of revenue. The
axiom that what we get for nothing we value ac-
cordingly applies directly to the trade paper.
Two Boston inventors have secured a patent for a
process of making glass veneers which have many
peculiar properties. Glass piano cases would not be
quite an innovation, but as yet they have never been
found practicable.
We have had several requests and at least
two orders for Mr. Geo. P. Bent's "Tales of
Travel, Life and Love." One correspondent
asks : "Can the book be bought, and at what
price?" We don't know and in this way refer
it to Mr. Bent. Is the book to be had, and if
so on what terms—installment, easy payments
or otherwise? (P. S.—After the foregoing
had gone into type, Mr. Bent arrived from
Los Angeles and told us that any friends may
receive copy of his book by addressing him at
the Illinois Athletic Club, Chicago. The book
is not for sale.)
* * *
20 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
With the start of a new year, the matter
of a change in the time for annual summing
(From Presto February 9, 1905.)
up from the old calendar year to the fiscal
At the county clerk's office in Herkimer, N. Y.,
year plan, as proposed by Mr. Arthur Frie- last week was filed the certificate of incorporation of
stedt, is again arousing interest. Many news- Julius Breckwoldt & Co., of Dolgeville.
Hobart M. Cable, president of the Hobart M. Cable
papers and magazines are again discussing the Co., returned on Monday morning from a pleasant
plan, and it is understood that a number of trip to his old home in Walton, N. Y.
A new piano will be known as the "Carr & Payson
important industries, and other commercial Barless
Vertiparallel." That seems like a pretty
houses have adopted the more logical summer 'large name for the new piano, but it will in time be
period in which to make yearly readjustments. abbreviated to the "Vertiparallel."
A story in this issue tells of the enthusiasm
of a young lady in charge of the player roll
department of a retail store, who thinks little
of selling "$25 or $30 worth of rolls to a cus-
tomer," but is a little proud of selling $80
worth to one customer at one time." There
There is no end to advertising novelties and there
are piano industries sufficiently, enterprising to prove
it. The latest are the hand-painted water-color en-
velopes sent out by the Price & Teeple Piano Co.
Thomas F. Delaney, one of the stockholders in
Lyon & Healy's and head of their retail sheet music
department; Andrew J. Keefe,
another stockholder,
and Lyon & Healy traveling 1 salesman; A. G. Cram-
blitt and Jack Coffin, of the Aeolian Co., New York,
are among the northerners on trip with the Mexican
Tourists' Association.
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