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), " P R E S T O , " 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 advs. for current
week, to insure classification, must not be later than
Wednesday noon.
Address all communications for the editorial or business
d e p a r t m e n t s to PRESTO PUBLISHING
Dearborn Street, Chicago, III.
CO., 417 South
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1925.
FLORIDAS MOSS
People who have visited the boom state,
which forms the tail-end of the continent,
know what Florida moss is. It hangs de-
jectedly from the pines of the sparse wood-
lands of the land of the citrus and illusion.
And it is typical, in its suggestions of desola-
tion, of what must to many people be the
awakening from the present fever for Florida
land.
Probably a fair representation of the men
of music have turned their eyes toward the
Promised Land of the palmetto. A few have
gone down there, and we liave read stories of
fabulous fortunes made by piano men who
invested trifling sums in sand lots, grape fruit
plants and fertilizer, and suddenly found them-
selves wealthy. But in every case of a boom
in real estate exaggeration is rife, and it is
the duty of experience to warn against such
traditions.
Go slow on Florida! Piano men with a few
dollars to invest will find better opportunities
in the factories where pianos are made. The
number of piano men who have tried the
sandy shores and palmetto beaches, the thin
soil and wet roads of Florida, know that a
bigger hazard does not exist than the pur-
chase of land there without extended investi-
gation and personally acquired experience. It
is today a speculation almost as uncertain as
betting upon blue-sky stock.
There are piano men who recall the semi-
philanthropic project of a small group of their
fellows who went to Florida a few years back
with the purpose of founding a fine, large col-
ony for the retreat of other piano men who
might need help, and to establish a home for
any who might, by the flings of fortune, be-
come destitute, or nearly so, in their old age.
Among the men who thus investigated were
Sam Woodford, W. F. Tryber, T. E. Cook, E.
C. Touslee, and others equally well known. A
prospectus of the plan was written and it ap-
peared in a musical magazine. The thing gave
good promise. It was to start with the pur-
chase of 500 acres in Pinellas County close to
the Florida Keys.
But the bubble burst, and the Florida moss
became more than ordinarily desolate when
the committee of investigation drove over the
country and, upon having the promised land
pointed out, discovered that, green and bright
as it had seemed to the one who had been
there six months before, it was now a much
better fishing ground for crocodiles than for
the planting and the picking of oranges. The
project was abandoned, in spite of the "real-
tors' " assurance than the land was all right—
under the water—but that the committee of
purchase was too thin skinned morally to
prove a success in that section of the country.
LITTLE UPRIGHTS
This is the time of small pianos. The baby
grand began it. And now the example of
the little "Miessner," started in Milwaukee at
the beginning of the great war, is being- vig-
orously followed by a majority of the other
industries. The demand for the little beau-
ties is general and it is a sign of favoritism
in which there are opportunities for the
dealers.
There will never be any such thing as satur-
ation in the field of piano selling. It has al-
ways required a high order of salesmanship
to sell musical instruments. Nothing of com-
mercial character that is designed to fill an
intellectual void while also supplying the urge
for amusement, can be expected to sell itself.
If you think it over clearly there must come
something like wonderment that the piano, in
its original state, became the popular instru-
ment it has been for more than a hundred
years. And, in the fact that it required struggle
and study to master the keyboard, remains
still the faith in the piano's future. The great
liking for the small piano again proves it.
The playerpiano is a delight. It will continue
in favor. But the satisfaction of attainment
is a deeper delight. And with the piano so
far compressed in size as to permit of its
beautifying the smallest apartment-home, the
little instrument finds a newer and greatly en-
larged field of operation.
A few years ago it was believed that only
in the larger cities could there be a sale for
the little uprights. It is now recognized that
the size of the city has little to do with it.
The little piano will sell as readily in a small
community as in a great one. The ag"e of big-
things has gone. The clock-sized watch of
our forefathers has given way to the wrist
watch of today. Everything that we buy for
comfort has its value largely based upon the
claims of convenience.
The little upright piano presents to the trade
opportunities never surpassed for quick sales
and attractive arguments. The old-time "talk-
ing points" had nothing in them to compare
with the dainty little uprights which are in
themselves the best talking points possible.
Speaking of the little uprights, peculiarly
fitted for school-room use, we have the "Dim-
inutive," the "Midget," the "Little Piano with
the Big Tone" and a half dozen more. But no
one seems to have thought to call it the "Class
Room" piano. Perhaps not classy enough !
* * *
Speaking of trade-signs and advertising, it
would be difficult to find anything better than
the octave of keyboard employed to illustrate
the publicity of the Knabe piano. The design
September 12, 1925.
is at once graceful and effective, especially so
because of the "Established 1837" beneath the
transfer on the name-board. See it in almost
any great newspaper, and especially the New
York Times.
*
*
:[c
How many in the music trade know that
one of their late members was the inventor of
the voting machines now used in several of
the large cities of New r York State? The de-
vice was a child of the fertile brain of John
McTammany, whose long fight for recognition
as inventor of the playerpiano is a matter of
almost tragic history.
*
:|:
:|c
•
What kind of a record would you say a man
had made who had made eight round trips be-
tween Los Angeles and Chicago since this year
began? That's the kind of a commuter Mr.
Geo. P. Bent is.
*
=i-
*
Twenty years ago the effort was to build as
bulky an upright piano as possible. Today
the instruments in great favor are made as
small as is consistent with good tone produc-
tion.
* * *
Does it seem to you possible that there ever
was such a thing as a "stencil" piano?
30 YEARS AGO IN THE TRADE
From the Files of Presto
(September 12, 1895.)
The piano dealers complain that the bicycle craze
has knocked the bottom out of their business. Per-
haps it's another one of those boycotts against false
notes, says the Chicago "Times."
Dr. Thomas Dunn English, who is famous as the
author of "Ben Bolt," has written a new song, called
"Old Glory," teeming- with patriotism but lacking in
the elements of popularity.
The trade loses a pioneer and noted expert in the
death of August Gcmunder, the veteran violin maker,
of New York. The house of August Gemunder &
Sons will continue without change, the two sons re-
maining to perpetuate the business founded by their
honored father.
We are assured that the World's Fair medals will
be ready for distribution October 1st, said Acting
Director of the Mint Butler last Saturday, but it has
not yet been determined whether they will be sent
direct from, the factory to the exhibitors or turned
over to the bureau of awards.
While Boston is at work on a subway, or under-
ground road for the street cars, an effort is being
made to spoil Chicago's finest avenue with a loop
road. Tremont and Boylston streets, Boston's Piano
Row, will thus be made clear and beautified and
Chicago's finest section should not be darkened by
the elevated tracks.
20 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
(From Presto, September 14, 1905.)
The first characterization of the so-called stenciled
pianos was "bogus pianos.'' The first application of
the word 'stencil" was made by the New York Trib-
une in 1875.
Dealers should never forget that the piano manu-
facturer's business is to make pianos and not to run
a banking house. Too often there are indications
that dealers fancy that all the manufacturer really
wants is "interest on his money."
It will no longer do to refer to the piano industry
as being "in its infancy" when Presto celebrates the
one thousandth consecutive issue. We can't claim
to be in the infant class after becoming "old enough
to vote."
Among the arrivals on the Kaiser Wilhelm der
Grosse last week were Ernest J. Knabe, wife, daugh-
ter and Miss Fisher. Mr. Knabe looked and felt tit
for a strenuous fall campaign and the imbibed energy
should result in more than the usual activity in
Knabe pianos.
Having spent the sumnur in Europe, j . Y. Steger,
president of the Steger & Sons Piano Manufacturing
Company, arrived in Chicago yesterday afternoon.
He was met at the depot by a party of his relatives
and friends, including Mrs. j . V. Steger. their son,
C. G. Steger; John H. Reardon, George J. Dowling
and some newspaper men.
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