PRESTO
presto
THE AMERICAN MUSIC TRADE WEEKLY
Published Every Saturday at 417 South Dearborn
Street, Chicago, Illinois.
C. A. D A N I E L L and F R A N K 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.
cool months belong to their trade. The long
evenings of winter need the pianos, while the
short dark days do not permit of so much
automobile riding.
So the example of the motor car factories
should inspire the makers and sellers of the
piano to special exertions. It is a new day
for the piano and full advantage must be
taken of it.
CREATING TRADE
It is to be expected that age and experience
may set the wise example. And the sixty-
Entered as second-class matter Jan. 29, 1896, at the year-old music house of Lyon & Healy has
Post Office, Chicago, Illinois, under Act of March 3. 1879. set a fine example for the encouragement of
Subscription, $2 a year; 6 months, $1; Foreign, |4. piano buying which must result in increased
Payable in advance. No extra charge in United States
possessions, Cuba and Mexico. Rates for advertising on
demand for the instrument without which no
application.
home is complete.
Items of news and other matter are solicited and if
The Lyon & Healy innovation is in the offer
of general interest to the music trade will be paid for
at space rates. Usually piano merchants or salesmen of free piano lessons to boys and girls. The
in the smaller cities are the best occasional corre- lessons are given to classes under the direc-
spondents, and their assistance is invited.
tion of the Chicago Musical College, and then
Forms close at noon every Thursday. News mat- is "no obligation to buy or rent pianos."
ter should be in not later than eleven o'clock on the
The result of that kind of encouragement
same day. Advertising copy should be in hand before
Tuesday, five p. m., to insure preferred position. Full is clear. It is in line with the efforts of other
page display copy should be in hand by Monday noon
preceding publication day. Want advs. for current prominent leaders in both the profession and
week, to insure classification, must not be later than industry to stimulate the love and understand-
Wednesday noon.
Address all communications for the editorial or business ing without which there could be no special
departments to PRESTO PUBLISHING CO., 417 South
need of the instruments of music.
D e a r b o r n S t r e e t , C h i c a g o , III.
Lyon & Healy have been noted for similar
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1925.
broadness of vision in the promotion of the
refinements by which the public learns to de-
mand the things that make life worth while.
SPEEDING UP
For sixty years the house founded by P. J.
The automobile industry reports that, in
Healy
has been consistently sustaining the
spite of the traditions of this season of the
ideals
of
trade, and its progress has been pro-
year, the "motor factories sweep into fall
portionate
to the swelling musical life of the
trade full speed ahead." That reads well for
great
West
which has been its customer.
the king of the out-of-doors. What about the
If all the large music houses would make
king' of the indoors
'.
There can be no question that the piano in- some similar alliance with local schools of
dustry and trade shows a decided improve- music, the influence would be quickly felt, and
ment as the year's end approaches. Factories the effect very soon become apparent in the
that have been next to idle have started up increase of their trade. The only assurance
with energy, and others which have not done of steadily growing piano sales is in sustain-
much '"slacking- up" have taken on all the ing and developing the practice of piano music.
skilled workers they can get and are speed-
ing production. But there is still room for
If the state music trade associations cover
greater activity, and it rests with the dealers the country—as they probably will—it will
and their salesmen to create it.
simplify the annual gatherings from every-
One of the prominent Chicago piano houses where. All that is necessary will be for each
has adopted a new kind of advertising. It state organization to send delegates to smooth
announces that no solicitors are employed and out national matters, in accordance with ideas
that prospective buyers who call at the store which may easily be formulated.
* * *
need have no fear that salesmen will invade
their homes should no sal2 result. The plan
Mr. Ben H. Janssen, the recognized "poet
is high-toned and seems to fit the idea of an lariat of the piano trade," persists in disclaim-
ultra-dignified, self-respecting business. But
ing authorship of the clever "Mike the Mov-
it, nevertheless, remains true that in this mod- er" verses which, dedicated to Mr. Geo. P.
ern age the .custom of getting out after the Bent, recently appeared in Presto. Can it be
game is one of the assurances of the success- that there's an intellectual impersonator of
ful hunter. And all business nowadays par- Mr. Janssen anywhere in the ranks?
takes of the sportsman's character.
* * *
If the house of Bissell-\\ eisert, in Chicago,
It will be encouraging to men of music who
can make their rule work, they will deserve a 'mire "good sports" to know that a promi-
more than mere praise. They will help to lift nent piano man this week traveled nearly
the piano business, by their example, back to three thousand miles to get to Chicago in time
the highest plane of merchandising to which
to insure for himself seats for the closing
the instrument of music must seem to belong. series of the national baseball games. Can any
But, in the meantime, other and less digni- other business beat that?
* * *
fied piano houses will get out into the high-
ways and byways and bring the prospects into
1 he call for extra copies of last week's
•heir stores. For not all of them can posesss
Presto, containing the complete address by
the pulling- pow r er cf such leaders as draw
Mr. \V. O. Miessner at Rockford, is one of the
trade to the warerooms of the Bissell-Weisert
signs that the piano dealers understand the
Company. And if the piano factories, like
influence of intellectual discussion upon the
the motor car industries, are to be speeding business of selling the things of music.
up this fall and winter, the dealers must exert
* * *
themselves. The piano dealers, unlike the
The New York Time-s. last Sunday printed
automobile agents, have always felt that the
several columns of reports from the centers
October 10, 1925
of industry telling of the promise of greatly
increased business. The forecast was enough
to cheer up the most pessimistic business man.
* * *
The Steinway and Duo Art sepia ink full-
page advertising in the Sunday New York
Times presents the most artistic piano pub-
licity that the industry has ever known. And
as literature, too, the pages are fine.
* * *
It may be possible for the big city piano
stores to do enough business with the "drop
ins" and results of local advertising, but in the
smaller places it is by getting out after the
prospects that progress is made.
* * *
One of the best signs of the future for the
piano is the fact that several new industries
are just now getting under headway. And
there is room for them.
Indiana and Michigan w r ill now organize
music trade associations. It won't be long be-
fore there w r ill be a continuous chain of them
from coast to coast.
* * *
Little more than two months to Christmas.
Are you doing anything to make the season a
profitable as well as a merry one?
* * *
If the demand for salesmen is any sign of
awakened activities in the piano stores, trade
is coming faster than Christmas.
* * *
Stir up the soul of music in the people and
you'll hear the increasing whir of the wheels
in the piano factories.
30 YEARS AGO IN THE TRADE
From the Files of Presto
(October 10, 1895.)
The deatli of Henry Kroeger, of the house of
Gildemeester & Kroeger, which occurred on Friday
afternoon last, at his home, No. 411 East Fifty-eighth
street, New York, causes a gap in the ranks of piano
manufacturers which it will not be easy to fill.
W. W. Kimball is expected to reach Chicago at
any hour and the same may be said of E. P. Mason,
while a telegram from M. Melville Clark says that he
expects to reach Chicago tomorrow, Friday. . A. G.
Cone, treasurer of the W. W. Kimball Co., returned
from his three weeks' pleasure trip to Colorado
Springs on Monday last. C. N. Post, vice-president
of Lyon & Healy, starts on a four-week Southern
trip on Monday morning next. J. P. Byrne, of Lyon
& Healy, is beginning to get interested in the study
of occultism, mysticism and spiritualism.
20 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
(From Presto, October 12, 1905.)
At the state fairs it is now-a-days difficult to see
pumpkins and politicians for the pianos.
The first premium for the finest trades display at
the great York Fair, October 2-7, 1905, was awarded
to the Weaver Organ & Piano Co.
Don't call a tin pan a piano. A tin pan and a piano
are two different things, according to our way of
thinking. Don't come to us for a tin pan, we sell
pianos—instruments that represent perfection in tone
and real musical qualities. See the beautiful Bush &
Lane upright "built like a watch."—Sanderson Adv.,
Paducah, Ky.
The annual meeting of the Chicago Piano & Organ
Association was held in parlor K of Hotel Welling-
ton, Chicago, Tuesday afternoon. President F. S.
Shaw presided. The following officers were recom-
mended for the ensuing year: President, W. L. Bush;
vice-president, E. B. Bartlett; second vice-president,
E H. Story; treasurer, Adam Schneider; secretary,
A. M. Wright.
Wiley B. Allen died at eleven o'clock last night at
his home in San Francisco. The sudden passing of
the popular piano man was the culmination of the
paralytic stroke which overtook him several months
ago. It will be remembered that Mr. Allen, who was
an enthusiastic automobilist, was stricken while
working upon some trifling imperfection of his auto
by which his trip had been delayed.
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