PRESTO
April 18, 1925.
CHRISTMAN
"The First Touch Tells
SEEING HUMAN
SIDE OF THINGS
9 9
Veteran Traveler Tells How Social and
Sociable Elements in Relation of Roadman
and Dealer Tend Towards Perpetuat-
ing the Joys of His Job.
PROVIDES USUAL STORY
Certain Marks of Heredity in Dealer's Son, While
Distressing to Mother, Leave Father
Unaffected.
The Famous
Studio Grand
(only 5 ft. long)
Continues to be in greater demand
than any other with discriminating
dealers.
In Tone, Quality and Beauty, these in-
struments excel, and Christman Up-
right Pianos are standards wherever
fine instruments are sold—and that is
practically everywhere.
pony, a litter of pups and other boy belongings and
started west.
Destiny Works Out.
Mere accident landed him in the town in which he
is such a prominent citizen today. It was a raw
town but growing, and necessity in the finding of a
job, not admiration of the civic beauties of the place,
was accountable for his tarrying there. But when
his first offer of a job was presented he discovered
that fate was a grim humorist. It was a boy's job in
a piano store, close to the things he had learned to
hate.
From a boy at six dollars a week, he in time ar-
rived at a young man's job at a salary and commis-
sions. Then he found that the ability to play the
piano which had been pounded into him was an aid
to his advancement. And the thing that surprised
him most was that he soon found joy in playing the
piano.
The Plot Thickens.
As he grew in success as a salesman he conceived
the happy idea of resuming the piano lessons. Soon
he looked forward to the day and hour of his lessons
with joyful eagerness. But the happenings may be a
consideration for the heart specialist rather than the
psychologist. The teacher had a marvelously pretty
daughter. Now I'll give you one guess as to the
identity of my friend's wife.
When he married he opened a music store in the
town, in a necessarily modest way. The manufac-
turers are aware of his success, but why go into that
phase of the history? The predominant interest in
this story is of the human rather than the business
kind.
Back Home and Rich. .
In a year or so he took his wife back east for a
visit to the old home town to the great joy of his
mother. The cup of her pleasure was filled to over-
flowing, when, at the conclusion of the welcoming
feast, after the scraps of the fatted calf had been clear
away and the family group was gathered in the par-
lor, the returned prodigal seated himself at the piano
and played and played to the delight of everybody
and the amazement of his mother.
There was a look of understanding between mother
and son, and in the mother's eyes was the light of
love and victory. Her boy had become not only a
successful business man, but a perfectly wonderful
pianist as well.
M. D. S.
In printing my articles it is usual for the editor to
allude to me in the headings as a "veteran traveler,"
possibly to suggest a degree of experience to make
the incidents narrated more interesting. But, while
the title veteran today may be applied to a chap who
is little more than a boy, he may have lived a life-
time in six months in the tranches in Flanders. The
title veteran the Presto editor gives me is a distinc-
tion one may claim after thirty-five years at the front
in the piano field.
So what I now think is the accumulation of the
mental processes of that long stretch of piano selling.
Piano styles, methods of making them, processes of
selling them, have interested me, but, after all, my
greatest pleasures have been in knowing and study-
ing the men to whom I have sold pianos. Every day
I encounter piano dealers and manufacturers, too,
who may be counted among the rich, and for whom
I prophesied success when they were poor. On the
other hand, here and there in a store I come across
an old-timer futilely striving to make good at sales,
for whom I prophesied such a career when he was
rolling in riches, as the saying is. The best study of
mankind is man and certainly the most interesting.
The Sociable Side.
The most pleasurable thing in my life as a piano
traveler has been and still is my closeness to the
dealers and their families. There has always been a
sociable element in it that has endeared the life to
me. Perhaps something in my own personality
evoked a sympathetic feeling in my customers and
their families. Anyway they are frank to unload
their family problems which often really have a close
relation to the purely business crises. Sometimes the
situations have nothing problematical in them and are
merely the incidents of life in the passing.
New York Swindler Accused of Trying to Get
While making my usual informal call at the home
$800 by Posing as C. F. Netzow, Mil-
of one of my dealer friends last week, his wife in-
waukee Piano Manufacturer.
terrupted our chat with a recital of one of her griev-
ances. What she had to tell is rather a common
John Olsen, 23 years old, no permanent home, was
thing with fond mothers of lively boys. It was that held
$10,000 bail in New York on Tuesday of this
the male hope of the family, aged ten, had balked at week in by
Magistrate Richard F. McKiniry in the
the daily piano lesson and had escaped with defiant Jefferson Market
Court on a charge of attempted
yells to a nearby park, where a skating contest was grand larceny. Olsen
arrested on Monday when
in progress. It was a repetition of a similar re- he called at a telegraph was
for $800, which, it was
bellious act earlier in the week. Then he escaped alleged, he had expected office
to receive from Charles F.
the lesson in order to join a gang of his playmates Netzow, founder of the Waltham
Piano Co., in Mil-
who had constructed a radio receiving set in the hay- waukee.
loft over the barn. To scorn the piano for radio was
It was charged that Olsen sent a a telegram for the
rank apostasy in a piano man's son, the irate mother
money several days ago to Mr. Netzow, using the
thought.
name of the manufacturer's son, Carl, 34 years old,
"But it is a good serviceable radio set, even is it is who is the vice-president and general manager of the
constructed from scraps, found in the alley, bought Milwaukee Piano Manufacturing Co. The younger
from the junk dealer, and some, I fear, stolen from Netzow left his home in Milwaukee two weeks ago
their unsuspecting parents," the boy's father mildly for New York City to sail for Europe on the Conte
protested. But friend wife only saw the act of a Verde of the Italian Line. The elder Netzow be-
renegade in the radio exploit.
came suspicious on receipt of the telegram because
The good lady did not see the interchange of an his son had taken $3,000 with him when he left
amused look between my dealer friend and myself. Milwaukee.
It was suggested by the mutual memory of a bit of
Netzow was reported to have expressed fears
his history with which his wife was not acquainted. to Mr.
the
in Milwaukee for the safety of his son.
And here is where I drop into my old habit of telling It was police
understood
that friends of the father had sent
a story within a story.
wireless messages to the Conte Verde to learn
Looking Backwards.
whether the younger member of the piano house in
When my sedate dealer friend was a boy in an Milwaukee was on board.
eastern city his mother's dearest hope was to make
him proficient at the piano. But, like his own son
INGENIOUS WINDOW DISPLAY.
today, he showed a distaste for the practise grind
The Hub Piano Co., Baltimore, Md., recently cre-
laid out for him. See the workings of heredity!
When he arrived at the age of fifteen he had not ated an ingenuous method of attracting public atten-
developed the taste for the piano desired by his tion to the display windows. Stars on the windows
mother. On the contrary the very sight of a piano indicated the different stations that had recently been
aroused a desire to make ivory hash of the keyboard reached on a Brunswick Radiola No. 160. An arch
over the instrument was finished in color scheme that
with the woodshed axe.
But disappointment only increased the mother's possessed great attention-getting qualities. The direct
desire to make a piano artist of her son. It became results produced by this singular display proves con-
an obsession with her. The end of the boy's gram- clusively that a development of unusual ideas in win-
mar school course brought no let-up to the lessons. dow trimming fully justifies the effort spent hi
With the high school course, she told him, would arrangement.
begin a more rigorous drilling in the keyboard funda-
mentals. The prospect was a dreaded one and proved
Miss Josephine Gunther, Dansville, N. Y., has pur-
the end of his patience. He hastily disposed of a chased the local business of the Koskie Music Co.,
shot gun, a hutch full of pet rabbits, a pet sheep, a with which she was formerly connected as manager.
ATTEMPT TO ROB BY
USING FAKE TELEGRAM
CHRISTMAN
Reproducing Grand
Equipped with
Action
Has advantages for any Dealer or
Salesman. It is a marvel of expressive
interpretation of all classes of compo-
sition, reproducing perfectly the per-
formances of the world's greatest
pianists.
"The First Touch Tells"
Rag. U. I. Pat. Off.
Christman Piano Co.
597 East 137th St.
New York
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