July 18, 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. 2U, 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, JULY 18, 1925.
CHAIN MUSIC STORES
During the past few years a good deal has
been said about the steadily extending busi-
ness of the Landay Bros., Inc., in the eastern
cities. A year ago the concern named opened
one of the greatest general music houses in
New York City, where it had already been
long established. And it has other large
stores to which this week one is added at
Newark, New Jersey. And the latest Landay
Bros, store is of such proportions that the
building alone involves an investment of
$500,000.
A chain of piano stores would suggest noth-
ing new, for there are already many of them.
Such piano enterprises as those of Grinnell
Bros., of Detroit, C. S. Fredericks, of Pitts-
burgh, Smith, of Akron, Pearson of Indianap-
olis, and others, present proof enough of prof-
itable chain stores in the music line. So, too,
do the great piano industries, such as Stein-
way & Sons, The Cable Company, The Story
& Clark Piano Co., M. Steinert Sons, P. A.
Starck Piano Co., Jesse French & Sons Piano
Co., and several more of the manufacturers
whose branch stores are scattered to distances
far from the factories.
But the piano is not the only thing in the
music stores. Nor is the music store depend-
ent solely upon the piano. And this suggests
that the item in the music trade that seems
best fitted to the chain store idea is as yet
without the possibilities, or advantages, of
that wide-spreading system. The sheet music
trade needs it. With the exception of the de-
partment store music counters, there is no
established outlet for sheet music that is so
controlled as to suggest anything like a gen-
eral distribution of the offerings of the music
publishers, most of whom are isolated in the
main purposes of their effort.
To illustrate, suppose, instead of the de-
sultory and wholly ineffectual spurts of the
so-called "independent" publishers, s o m e
wide-awake leader in the trade were to adopt
the plan of placing counters, of uniform size
and design, in a thousand piano stores. Today
the average exclusive piano store is as silent
as a morgue. It needs the life of music itself.
A sheet music counter would awaken the life
of trade—the "small" trade—which means
business, and still more business, after the
piano sales are made.
The idea is practical. It is good. The only
problem is how to do it to advantage. It will
be the purpose of Presto to tell how in a way
by which the entire business of music selling
—piano selling, too—may certainly be en-
livened. The articles will interest, even
profit, a good many who have long been read-
ers of "the American Music Trade Weekly."
EGGS IN ONE BASKET
Not many subjects have created more di-
versified discussion in the piano industry than
that of the best way for placing agencies, or
for the distribution of instruments among the
dealers. At some of the early conventions the
subject was discussed, also, and the question
as to whether it was better to sell many in-
struments to a few dealers, or fewer instru-
ments to many dealers, was a matter of dif-
fering opinions. Consequently, and inasmuch
as the question has never been settled, any
discussion of the subject from the angle of
some other line of business, must prove in-
structive to piano men.
Of course, the piano business, as few will
question, is not just like all other lines of in-
dustry and trade. There are considerations
here which do not exist in lines where each
individual item is of comparatively small im-
portance, or where the goods afford a safer
basis of credit or security. It takes but a few
pianos to make a considerable charge account,
while in some lines it is safe enough to ship
samples, even if the credit rating is not so
good.
A recent issue of the New York Times had
an article on this subject which we deem
worth repeating on another page. The article
covers the subject of the single customer pol-
icy very thoroughly. And, while it is never
customary in the piano industry to place any-
thing like controlling, or entire selling, priv-
ileges with one concern, or house, there are
dealers who buy so largely of single indus-
tries as to make the distribution almost ex-
clusive in a very large territory.
Possibly the. rapid growth, of late years, of
the stencil habit may be due to the desire of
the large retailer to control some piano name.
In that sense, of course, the criticism of the
Times does not apply further than pertains
to the question of credit or safety. And there
are very few of the large piano distributors
whose financial stability is challenged.
However, the discussion by the New York
Times of the custom of exclusive customers
is one that touches the piano business perhaps
more closely than many others. Therefore,
the article will be read with interest by a
large share of trade paper readers.
About the on»ly man-from-monkey proof
that has not been mentioned is that the
simian tribes were once wont to play the
piano with their feet. In fact, we have not
yet been told that monkeys ever played the
piano at all. So that there still remains a dis-
crepancy in the stories of our biological
history.
The Hardman piano has a very firm hold
upon a good share of the local New York
trade. The Metropolitan Sunday papers
carry remarkably strong advs. of Hardman,
Peck & Co. This, added to the substantial
merits of the instruments themselves, does the
business.
Among a full page illustrated displav of
New York's great structures of the near fu-
ture, which appeared in last Sunday's "Amer-
ican," was an artistic drawing of the new
Aeolian Hall as it will soon rise on Fifth
Avenue. It made an impressive forecast.
* * *
New York business is forming the habit of
closing at noon on Saturday and staying
closed most of Monday. It's not easy to find
the head of the house in his office during the
thirteen business hours of the "day before"
and after.
30 YEARS AGO IN THE TRADE
From the Files of Presto
(June 18, 1895.)
We have particulars of several promising oppor-
tunities for the investment of moderate capital in
different manufacturing branches of the trade. Any
seriously inclined investigators will be welcome to
information on application.
Is the piano an article of furniture? The enter-
prising members of the trade in Cincinnati seem to
have decided that it is not. The furniture trade
exposition now at its height in the city named, is
sustained by "all the leading manufacturers and deal-
ers" of Cincinnati.
Why not, then, entire piano cases of papier mache?
Spruce sawdust, cotton or jute waste and alcohol
are put into a machine and come out shining, deli-
cately colored, and as firm as mahogany or rosewood.
The most fastidious could not detect the imitation
from the genuine "hardwood."
"My lorde, awake, come ope yr eyes,
Swepe off yr perch and advertyse!
Ye ancient style no longer goes,
'Tis printer's ink must heal our woes.
He is toe slowe who slepes away
Thro' alle ye lazie summer daye
To wait for autumn skies to loom
Before he shall his business boome.
My lorde awake, come ope yer eyes,
Thro' all ye summer advertyse.
20 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
(From Presto, June 22, 1905.)
The personal property lists of Chicago show that
there are 12.800 pianos in the city—which is possibly
one-quarter of the actual number, says a Tribune
writer.
The Starr Piano Co.'s remodeled store at Rich-
mond, Ind., has been opened to the public. It has
taken weeks of work but the company feels well
repaid, for it is now one of the finest piano stores in
the country.
The eleventh annual meeting of the Music Publish-
ers' Association of the United States took place at
the Broadway Central Hotel, in New York City,
Tuesday and Wednesday, June 13 and 14, 1905, the
president, J. F. Bowers, in the chair; Chas. B. Bayly,
secretary.
After a month's labor the piano concern backed
by Charles F. Netzow of Milwaukee is landed. The
local advancement association raised $35,000, $20,000
from the sale of lots and $15,000 cash. Messrs.
Netzow, Brockmeier and Kutz are the promoters.
The plant will be 110x360 feet, three stories, brick,
and will employ 400 hands.
As demonstrating the possibility of an honest
Piano Buyers' Guide, quite an edition of the Blue
Book of the piano trade was distributed at Put-In-
Bay with the compliments of the publishers. We be-
lieve that every dealer who received a copy of the
book will want several copies of the revised edition
which will appear early next year.
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