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-
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 year; 6 months, $1; Foreign, f4.
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, MAY 2, 1925.
MUSICAL INSTRUMENT BUYERS
Mars is again the symbolic god of Germany.
But Orpheus still remains the sign of the na-
tion's greatest peace industry. In a late issue
of the foremost German music trade journal
there are nearly four hundred advertisements
of as many industries manufacturing and job-
bing musical instruments. Of that large num-
ber of trade announcements a very large pro-
portion are those of piano industries, among
which one is rather remarkable because three
"grades" of instruments are marked respec-
tively, "first," "second" and "third" class, in-
dicating that the manufacturer draws the dis-
tinction which is usually supposed to be under
cover.
It may seem strange that the alleged abid-
ing place of Mars is equally typified by the god
of peace and music. The land of Bach and
Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Schumann, has
been suspected of carrying concealed weapons
for so long a time that much of her song has
been drowned by the clash of sabres. But it
is equally true that music is a mighty weapon
in war also, and that Apollo with a gun seems
better equipped than with his toe in a sea-
shell.
Legend and mythology do not mean so much
in reality as in the story book. Our own
peace-loving country has produced some of
the principal inventors in the field of art in-
dustry, and the modern piano owes its most
enduring- and refining principles and improve-
ments to American genius in music and me-
chanics combined.
The greatest music instrument market is
here, also. We may-not yet have approached
the foremost place in productiveness in this
department of art industry, but we have the
capacity and the recent plaint of Germany on
the subject of radio may mean more than now
appears. For if, as the Germans declare, radio
is greatly hurting the business of the music
trade in that country, it is equally certain that
such has not been the case over here.
It is said that sixty per cent of the Ameri-
can music stores are selling radio. The esti-
mate is exaggerated, but it is certain that a
large proportion of the dealers are putting in
the receiving sets. And usually the dealers
say that, instead of hurting their business in
the things musical, radio serves to stir in-
creased interest and to draw trade for the
real musical instruments. And as radio loses
the element of novelty, the fact of its harm-
lessness in the music stores will be more and
more realized. For radio is not a "permanent
investment"—not as now delivered to the
music dealers, in any event.
DELIVERIES BY AIR
That poets, artists and cartoonists—note
the distinction—are prophetic is generally ad-
mitted. The poets a century ago sang of
events now taking place, and artists whose pic-
tures still survive, depicted scenes of every-
day occurrence today. So it happened that
Presto's cartoonist fully fifteen years ago
made a picture in which pianos were shown
in an airplane sailing above the clouds. The
cartoon displayed a "carload lot" of uprights,
with salesmen aboard ready to start the spiel
as soon as the fliers found a good landing-
place.
To reproduce Mr. O'Ryan's cartoon in this
week's issue was the purpose, but it is good
enough to keep until some later issue when
the date of its original appearance can be
looked up, just to prove that music trade car-
toonist may be as prophetic as any of them.
The item about the delivery of grand pianos
at Washington by airplane appears an another
page. It marks a new history for the trade,
and the only cause for disappointment is that
the dispatches neglected to give the name or
names of the pianos which gain a new dis-
tinction by showing the way quick deliveries
will be commonly made in the years to come.
It is to be hoped that they were from some
of the industries worthy of the new fame, and
not any "lighter than air" specimens of the
stencil variety.
THE NEWCOMER
Radio still has a long way to go before it
can be much of a rival to the piano in the
music stores. While it is said that about sixty
per cent of the music dealers handle receivers,
it can more accurately be said that a majority
of them are not wholly satisfied that the ad-
dition is a good one for their business.
If it ever becomes possible to overcome the
static interferences, and other disappointing
blemishes to clear broadcasting of musical
sounds, and the delicate effects of piano and
voice, the results of radio investment will be
sufficient. Under existing circumstances it is
almost the rule with private owners of all but
the best of the receiving sets to quickly tire
of imperfect entertainment and get into the
habit of neglecting to "listen in."
As an item of profit to the music dealers
the sale of radio is just now well worth while,
unless it interferes with the more direct in-
terests of other and more settled instruments
in which there are profits to follow, as with
the piano and playerpiano with which the
essentials of sheet music and music roll equip-
ment are in steady demand. And if it is true
that there are several hundred thousand radio
industries already at it, no argument seems
necessary to suggest that it will require time
for the weeding out process to eliminate many
receivers which are experimental, or their
May 2, 1925.
makers so lacking in the sinews of competition
that they can not last.
Three years from today radio will bear a
different relation to the music trade. And
that time will, we believe, help to clear up any
doubts which may now exist as to where the
piano stands in its supreme place as a home
entertainer and source of the broader edu-
cation.
There is marked activity in the pipe organ
demand and indeed in the demand for organs
of all kinds such as for public places. The
organ department is no longer a sideline with
a large number of houses.
* * *
Take advantage of the demand for small
grands which is now at its height. If you
don't know what particular grands may meet
your trade with profit to yourself, let us advise
you.
* * *
The piano action manufacturers report a
marked increase in orders and output. Noth-
ing could more positively tell of a general ad-
vance in the piano itself.
* * *
Even the man in the music trade who
frankly states that radio is an interfering ele-
ment in his business, realizes that he must
consider it a competitor. But as a commercial
proposition the whole thing is chaotic and
competition promises to be sharper than in
any other specialty in any way associated with
the music trade. For radio has become part
of the music trade, since its acceptance as an
article of home entertainment.
30 YEARS AGO IN THE TRADE
From the Files of Presto
(May 2, 1895.)
It is a notable fact that notwithstanding the uni-
versally depressed condition of business in all lines
during the past two or three years, the tendency of
the music trade has been to expand and enlarge.
If you wish to hear the music of a $1,000 music box
at your home, it is not necessary to buy one, for you
can rent one for an afternoon or an evening for $25,
and it will be delivered at your house and taken
away.
The Story & Clark Co. is advertising in the Lon-
don trade papers that "We shall exhibit at the In-
ternational Music Trades Exhibition, Royal Agricul-
tural Hall, June 13th to 24th next, and hope dealers
will not fail to inspect our display."
As will be seen by an item elsewhere the World's
Fair medals are now promised in about two months.
Having now waited eighteen months it will not be
very hard for exhibitors to possess themselves in
comparative patience for sixty days longer.
Ten years ago Chicago made only about 200 pianos
yearly, while now there are twelve different manufac-
turing establishments, and they turn out more than
20,000 instruments each year. The largest piano fac-
tory in the world is located on the south side of
Chicago. It covers seven acres of ground, produces
about 5,000 pianos a year.
20 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
(From Presto, May 4, 1905.)
The many friends of George P. Bent are gratified
to see him back at his accustomed haunts, one of
which is the Roaster Club table, again.
The San Francisco trade was startled this week
by the announcement that Wiley B. Allen, head of
the Wiley B. Allen Company, had suffered from a
stroke of apoplexy.
Lucien Wulsin, president of the Baldwin Piano
Company, Cincinnati, is at Atlantic City to remain
until after the piano manufacturers' convention.
In the list of topics to be discussed at Atlantic
City we are startled not to find any reference to the
Guides. It has been the understanding in some
quarters that there might be some guying of the
Guides by the sad sea waves. But good sense usually
prevails with the piano men.
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