Classic Mode

Presto

Issue: 1925 2033

July 11, 1925.
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, $4.
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 ad vs. 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, JULY 11, 1925.
MUSIC AND THE MILKMAN
Last week's Presto contained an item about
a creamery at Bluffton, Ind., that made com-
plaint against the H. C. Bay Company's big
piano factory, on the ground that sawdust had
dropped into the milk and, presumably, soured
it. The incident, while perhaps not in itself
funny, seems to suggest the germ of an idea
or two. In the first place, it may seem that,
in this age of sanitation and health conserva-
tion, milk depots might as well be located at
some distance from busy industrial centers.
Next door to a piano factory may not seem
just the best place for a creamery.
Not that music can sour the milk, but that
it isn't possible to make the instruments of
music without a good deal of sawing of wood.
And usually sawing wood of any kind creates
sawdust in such quantities that, however great
the precautions taken, it is not possible to con-
fine all of it to the proper receptacle. Fine
sawdust is almost as evanescent as the air it-
self. It permeates the smallest crevice and,
like any other dust, it will creep into the
corners well concealed.
There has been evidence enough that music
is a help to the milk business. It is on record
that a piano may even induce the source of
lacteal fluid to produce more copiously. A
piano in the barnyard has been commended
by scientists who believe in the nourishing
properties of milk. We all know that the
meek-eyed bovine will prick up her ears and
stand in ruminative pose when the music floats
from farmhouse across the pasture.
So that it is not wise for the milkman to
attempt to suppress music. It would be bet-
ter to establish the creamery outside the town
limits, or even far into the peaceful precincts
of the surrounding country. This has been
done by many milkmen, in both private and
corporate activities. Certainly it would be un-
fair to ask a great and well-established piano
factory to move in order that the cows might
not be disturbed, or the sawdust drip from the
busy saw mills into the pure white product
of the dairy.
It's easier to drive the cows than to trans-
port the heavy machinery and the giant
accumulations of lumber, metal and men, of a
great musical industry of any kind, and espe-
cially so fine a product as pianos or player-
pianos in the quantities they are produced in
Bluffton, Indiana.
There is a serious side to this question.
There is some regulation by which the makers
of things for human consumption must pro-
ceed under all possible precaution. Is there
nothing that fixes the proximity of milk dis-
tribution posts remote from the machine
working industries, or is it better that they
be established next door to spreading indus-
tries by which the average community is up-
built. It naturally must seem that the milk-
man would be better off in the woods, or at
least away from the wood working industries.
AN APOLOGY
ing for the names of his customer's friends
who may also have a few dollars to invest.
* * *
If there has been any concern as to what
radio may do to the piano, current discussions
of the subject must be reassuring. The piano
is fixed and cannot be swerved save, possibly,
in its case designs or even its shape. Radio
is, as yet, uncertain and unstable as an article
of commerce
* * *
Encourage the piano teachers. The player-
pianos are in themselves instructors in how
the composition should sound. The piano
teacher is the source of information in how
to make it sound that way, or even better,"by
the exercise of the performer's own indi-
viduality.
* * *
Better than "music weeks," and more effec-
tive than all the money spent in promotive
prizes, of whatever kind, would be a fund
from which to pay good piano teachers for giv-
ing lessons without charge to all piano buyers.
* * *
The Cincinnati Star says that it has been
told that some piano manufacturer has said
that he would make no more uprights. Per-
haps. But it will be a long time before the
piano dealers will cease to cry for them.
* * *
The piano buyer who wants to buy on a
"nothing down" basis, with several years in
which to pay it, is never as worthy of en-
couragement as the one with a $10 bill and
assurance of as much every month.
* * *
The average employer would rather hear his
salesman tell of a single sale just closed than
of six sales he expects to make next week.
Burns says that "to step aside is human,"
and one of the commonest pleas of the side-
steppers is that "mistakes will happen." But,
even so, there is no excuse for the mistake
which, having happened, is permitted to pass
without correction, justification or apology.
And this explains the reappearance in this
issue of Presto of two articles which appeared
—but incorrectly—last week. We want to
make the correction, and the apology, as
promptly as possible, particularly as we con-
sider the two articles of more than ordinary
importance. In their original publication the
"make-up" man had managed to so badly mix
the context of the two articles that neither
was intelligible and in consequence both were
spoiled.
One of the articles told of the forthcoming
of a new book by Mr. William Tonk, the New
York piano manufacturer. To him we apolo-
gize for, in the mix-up, he was made respons-
ible for several statements of which he knew
nothing, but which had been "lifted" from the
From the Files of Presto
other article and inserted in the book review.
The second article which is also reproduced
(July 11, 1895.)
this week, is one of much more than common
It will probably be known within a week or ten
days whether Wabash avenue, Chicago, shall be
significance to the piano trade. It deals with decorated
with the "L" road, or not.
radio conditions as they now exist, and it
Quite an extensive addition has been made to
presents sane argument against any such the already great factory of the Estey Piano Com-
pany in New York. The new part is on Lincoln
thought as that the new wonder, as a com- avenue
in the rear of the main building.
mercial article, can greatly interfere with the
Mr. E. S. Conway, secretary of the W. W. Kim-
progress or permanency of the piano. The ball Co., went up to Madison, Wis., on Monday, to
visit his old friend, W. W. Warner of that city. No-
article will repay a careful reading.
body knows whether Mr. Conway took a day fishing
Of course, the piano has no rival, nor is it or not.
Several of the piano manufacturers have been
likely to have. It is the only instrument, and experimenting
with four and five strings in the
the only household god, in which are all the treble. The result is a very brilliant upper register,
but the liability to get constantly out of tune is so
elements of education, refinement and enter- great
as to over-top all the advantages gained. The
tainment. It is one of the things fundamental last octave of the average piano is sufficiently
with three strings, and there is little need
to civilization and progressive living. It is resonant
of any added strength in that direction.
still comparatively young, and it has the whole
future in which to exercise its sublimating
influences.
20 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
Read the two reprinted articles—correctly
printed this time, we hope—and you will agree
(July 15, 1905.)
that their reappearance justified the space
It is finally settled that the Bush & Lane Piano
they occupy in this week's Presto.
Co.'s factory will be removed to Holland, Mich.
30 YEARS AGO IN THE TRADE
There are still opportunities for the piano
salesman to learn by observing the ways of
workers in other lines of selling. The life
insurance solicitor is never satisfied with the
policy he has delivered unless he secures also
the names of friends of the newly insured who
may be possible prospects. And the bond sales-
man never delivers the security without ask-
Particulars appear elsewhere this week.
Alfred Dolge, who has been a Chicago visitor
for the last week, was joined here a few days ago
by his able lieutenant, Count Cavalli. On Tuesday
Messrs. Dolge and Cavalli were guests of James F.
Broderick at the Straube factory at Hammond.
"Louder than words," says F. Leithold, La Crosse,
Wis., "are the actions of our patrons who have
bought the Sohmer piano. They are telling their
friends about it, which results in more business for
us. It's a just tribute to the construction, beauty and
tone quality of the Sohmer piano, an indorsement
which means much to you."
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/
PRESTO
July 11. 1925.
MEMOIRS OF A
MANUFACTURER
illiam Tonk, Frominent in American Music
Industry, and Founder of the New York
Piano That Bears His Name, Adds
to Literature of Progress.
A VALUABLE BOOK
Narrative of the Business and Private Life of One
Who Has Devoted Himself to Music's
Practical Development.
Another member of the American piano industry,
an;l one whose experience has qualified him for a
lasting f lace in the world of music, has put his
memoirs into permanent form and will soon put forth
a book of unusual interest. William Tonk, head of
the New York industry which bears his name, has
had a varied and progressive career, and his new book
promises to meet with widespread favor.
Mr. Tonk is still as active as ever in the industry,
and he has had a practical part in many of the plans
for trade betterment and commercial advancement
within his special lines of observation. He has de-
voted considerable time to the preparation of his
memoirs, and the book will prove a substantial con-
tribution to the fast-multiplying record of men who
have accomplished things in the political, industrial
and social life of the nation.
Good Literature.
Fortunately, Mr. Tonk possesses the rare gift of
expression to a degree that has enabled him to turn
his recital of happenings, within and without the
ranks of his life work, into a series of vivid, interest-
ing chapters. And he includes in his life story a
world of anecdote and historical data of the kind
that instructs as well as entertains.
As one who has had the privilege of reading por-
tions of the Mss. of the forthcoming book the v/riter
of this column has been made'conscious of the scope
of Mr. Tonk's book, and recognizes in it a fund of
information and reference to be found in no other
existing published work. It is this feature of the
vvork that will give it permanence, although, as is
cuslomary. the anecdotal and reminiscent chapters
will probably attract most readers and create more
general comment.
Mr. Tonk begins with some very interesting re-
searches of geneologic nature. He traces the family
name far back and, in so doing has discovered some
unique facts and suggestive data. He covers his life
experience from the days when Chicago was com-
paratively young, and describes, as it has seldom
been described, the tragedy of the great fire which
destroyed the mid-west metropolis in 1871.
That event in the nation's upheavals took place
when the author was a very young man, but he had
his share of it, and in the conflict which preceded the
fire. The disaster of 1871 followed the close of the
Civil War but six years and, touching upon the Rebel-
lion Mr. Tonk gives a view of one of the most vivid
characters in the bitter days of the conflict. For Mr.
Tonk was a member of the Ellsworth Zouaves of
deathless fame.
To members of the music trade, the author's start
with Julius Bauer, in Chicago, will prove fascinating.
His later career covers a large part of the develop-
ment of the piano business, as well as the small in-
strument trade in which he was engaged before
establishing the present piano industry of William
Touk & Bro. in New York.
His Varied Knowledge.
There is, too, a section of Mr. Tonk's book which
may be said to form an encyclopedia of business or-
ganization and ethical procedure. For the author has
been associated with the piano manufacturers' organ-
izations, and it has fallen to him to formulate rules
and to postulate regulations of procedure, as well as
olher directions for the New York, or national, asso-
ciations. The extracts from his writings in that con-
nection must be of value as models, or as sugges-
tions, for years to come because they often set forth
the aims and purposes of trade organizations and pre-
sent concise rules of practice, as the result of
research and observation.
A very fascinating chapter of the book treats of
foreign travel in which points of interest are touched
on in diary form, and thus shorn of the conventional
descriptive matter which so often proves tedious, in
this day of comparatively easy access to foreign
landmarks. In this it is certain that Mr. Tonk sets
a new example, and a good one. For it affords the
reader a quick tour of the old world and an up-to-
date sight-seeing trip to places everyone wants to
know about.
Unconventional Travel Tales.
There is almost no technical piano matter in the
book. Whatever may be said about pianos has no
flavor of commercialism, nor is there any dissertation
on case designs, tone quality or "how to take care of
the niano." It is, in short, a book in which a useful
life is told, with some detail, and a great deal of
ground is gone over which must be of as much inter-
est to people who have no concern in the piano busi-
ness further than that they love music and know how
to produce some of it—as all intelligent people, in
this day, must be able to do.
CHEERING REPORT OF
M. SCHULZ COMPANY
F. P. Bassett Optimistic About Future Condi-
tions in Trade and Foresees a Fine
Year for Extended Line.
The volume of business done by the M. Schulz
Co., 711 Milwaukee avenue, Chicago, for the first
half of the year is considered by officials of that
firm as an indication that the present year will be
one of the best in the history of the business.
"The gain over last year is most convincing,"' was
the comment of F. P. Bassett, secretary, this week,
"and the outlook for a great piano year is most
encouraging. While I'm not over optimistic I believe
there will be a shortage of pianos this fall as con-
ditions are now better than at the same period last
year and are steadily improving.
"Every month of this year has been a better month
than the corresponding month of last year, and our
largest increase in a single month was March. As
we did a good amount of business last fall, there is
every reason to believe that this fall will be far
better. The best barometer of business is the bank
clearing, and as they are on the upward trend it is
evident that business will remain staple."
That the M. Schulz line had made a wide appeal
to discriminating buyers is proven by the fact that
the many enterprising merchants have attained a suc-
cess in exploiting the instruments of the active Chi-
cago industry.
PIANO MAN'S WIFE IS
EXPERT AUTOMOBILE DRIVER
Mrs.
F. W. Stephenson, San Francisco, Completes
Transcontinental Trip in Record Time.
Ready in the Fall.
Mrs. F. W. Stephenson, wife of the treasurer of
It is Presto's understanding that Mr. Tonk's book
Sherman-Clay & Co. of San Francisco, has recently
will be sold by subscription at $3.50 a copy, though motored across the continent with her daughter in
it will also be on sale in the leading book stores. It
her Pierce-Arrow car to meet her other daughter
will be ready for distribution late in the fall. At least
who has been at school in New London, Conn.
so this paper understands. Lovers of music, and
Mrs. Stephenson, while in New York, has been
especially ail in the trade who know the author, are making Aeolian Hall her headquarters, and has spent
advised to order in advance of publication. For the considerable time sight-seeing and taking in the
edition will be limited.
events of interest that have occurred during her stay,
Already a great many members of the trade have among them the Yale-Harvard races and the New
added their names to the list of subscribers to Mr. London-Poughkeepsie regatta.
Tonk's Memoirs, some of them taking from six to
F. W. Stephenson, who returns from Europe in
fifty copies. Manufacturers who have seen brief
about a week, with another daughter, will motor part
extracts from the work believe that it will prove of
of the way back with his family.
value in an instructive sense, especially the younger
men often being in need of just such data as Mr.
BUILDS IN OGDEN, UTAH.
Tonk presents, to say nothing of the rules of proced-
The Lyric Music Co., Ogden, Utah, recently built
ure in business organizations, and references to what
has been done to bring the music industry and trade a piano warehouse and salesroom at 3163 Porter ave-
nue. As soon as present plans materialize, the con-
to its present place in the world of affairs.
cern will move from its present quarters and will con-
duct its piano business from the new warehouse. The
GETS GULBRANSEN AGENCY
Lyric Music Co. has been controlled by C. L. Madsen
Announcement was made this week by J. H. Mal- about five years, handling pianos exclusively.
bin & Sons, Mt. Clemens, Mich., that they have
secured the agency for the Gulbransen registering
EVERYBODY WELCOME.
piano. It is the plan of J. H. Malbin & Sons to
devote a good-sized section of their store for the
A number of employees of the H. C. Bay Co.'s
exhibition of these instruments.
The Olympia factory in Bluffton, Ind., recently attended the mar-
Hotel was the first purchaser of a Gulbransen, a riage in Berne, Ind., of Menno Hanni and Miss
grand piano being secured for the use of the concert
Sylvia Bixler, two Berne young people. Mr. Hanni
orchestra which entertains the guests.
is employed at the H. C. Bay factory.
SPRING and SUMMER
offer opportunities for the live piano salesman unequalled by any other season. With the Bowen Loader it is easy to get out into the
country, taking the piano along. Sales are sure, and with the Ford runabout and one-man Carrier you can demonstrate and do busi-
ness anywhere. Our latest fool-proof, indestructible Loader for only $95 affords an unusual opportunity. Satisfaction guaranteed.
BOWEN PIANO LOADER CO.,
Winston-Salem, N. C.
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/

Download Page 8: PDF File | Image

Download Page 9 PDF File | Image

Future scanning projects are planned by the International Arcade Museum Library (IAML).

Pro Tip: You can flip pages on the issue easily by using the left and right arrow keys on your keyboard.