Presto

Issue: 1925 2057

December 26, 1925.
POOLE PIANO CO.'S
TRADE SATISFACTORY
All Instruments in the Fine Line of the Boston
Company Equally Favored in Enthusiastic
Dealers' Orders.
Grands, uprights, players and reproducing pianos
shared equal favor in the holiday orders to the Poole
Piano Co, Boston. All parts of the country are
equally expressive of activity in Poole pianos, and
Ava W. Poole, president and general manager of the
company, said this week that the interest of dealers
in the upright models was a pleasant sign of a return
to normal in the piano field. "The constant effort in
the factory is to make Poole uprights as well as
grands, players and reproducing pianos more and
more desirable and to add to Poole character for
tunefulness and durability," added Mr. Poole.
The two broadcasting studios of Station WNAC,
the Shepard Stores, Boston, have selected Poole
grands, made by the Poole Piano Co., Boston, and
radio fans have been commenting on the pianos
pleasing tone. The pianos play a most important part
in practically all musical programs.
STARTING YEAR 1926
IN NEW SHOWROOMS
Music Firms in any Places Acquire Desirable
LocationsM for Presenting the Goods
in Year to Come.
The J. W. Jenkins Sons' Music Co., Kansas City,
Mo has purchased the Rosser Casabeer Building on
Main street, Tulsa, Okla , to be used as a new home
for the Tulsa branch of the company. Besides the
Tulsa branch the company has branches in Oklahoma
City, Muskogee and Bartlesville in Oklahoma.
The Westlaco Music Store, Westlaco, Tex., has
been moved to new quarters, where larger space for
showing the pianos is available. The owners are
Carl W. Moeller and Ray Hartness. The former
manages the piano department and the latter the
phonograph and radio sections.
Amendola Brothers, 164 Wooster street, New
Haven, Conn., is now located in its new four-story
building, directly across the street from the old quar-
ters. Amendola Brothers carry pianos, Columbia
phonographs, Columbia records and musical mer-
chandise.
Frederick Hedrick, music merchant of Wyandotte,
Mich., has moved his business into new^ quarters at
20 North Biddle avenue.
The Ansonia Furniture Co., Ansonia, Conn., opened
its new building recently. The music section is lo-
cated in the front of the store.
The Humes Music Co., which opened an attractive
store at 214 Pine street, Albany, Ga., recently, carries
a fine line of pianos, phonographs, sheet music, string
and reed instruments. J. E. Humes is president of
the company, which also has a store in Columbus,
Ga., where C. S. Waddell is manager. H. E. Gorham,
Mrs. F. W. Brannon and Miss Marie Rogers are as-
sistants in the sales department.
The Ross & Heyer Company, Fort Worth, Tex.,
piano dealers, recently secured space in the new Per-
kins-Snider building, Wichita Falls, Tex., and opened
a new and beautiful store at 607 Ninth street. The
Ross & Heyer Company handles Steinway pianos,
the Duo-Art.reproducing pianos and other high grade
lines.
W. H. Ackman & Sons, Norwood, O., has leased
one of the new stores in the Center building, across
from the city hall, where the company has opened
an up-to-date piano and music store and will handle
everything in the music line. The music department
is managed by Escue D. Ackman.
The Knights of Pythias Building at 31-37 East
Long street, Columbus, will be occupied by Heaton's
Music Store for business in the new year. Removal
into its new home on January 1 will mark the third
move made by Heaton's Music Store since the busi-
ness was established at 231 North High street, from
which it later moved to the present location at 168
North High street. Otto B. and C. Wert Heaton
have been engaged in the music business in Columbus
for twenty-five years.
The Blanchard Music Shop, Kalamazoo, Mich., is
now located in its new home in South Burdick street.
A. E. Blanchard is proprietor. The new shop is an
attractive one in every particular.
The Jason Piano Co., Spokane, Wash., is now in
a store 22 by 140 feet at 916-920 Riverside avenue.
The Hospe Co., Omaha, Neb., will occupy the
ground floor, second floor and basement of the newly
acquired Electric Building at Fifteenth and Farnum
streets next February. The new location will have
two entrances and two show windows, one on Far-
num, and another on Fifteenth. The lease of the
present store at 1513-1515 does not expire until
November 1, 1927.
The Hamilton Music Store, Greencastle, Ind., was
formally opened recently in the new Alamo Building,
Greencastle, Ind. A feature of the new store is a
completely equipped radio room, especially designed
to accommodate those interested and to offer facili-
ties for demonstration of the various radio lines han-
dled by the store. The main floor of the store is
given over to displays of Baldwin pianos and Bruns-
wick phonographs and records. A large show win-
dow encloses the front, while the back of the room is
devoted to a phonograph booth and an office.
BOWEN LOADER IS BOON
TO DEALER AND SALESMAN
Overcomes Poor Roads and Effects Four Times the
Work on Good Ones.
The new "23" Model Bowen Loader, made by the
Bowen Piano Loader Co., Winston-Salem, N. C, is
particularly worthy of the attention of the piano
dealer. It is foolproof and indestructible and the
price is an alluring feature of the commodity. The
quoted figure includes an extra good moving cover.
The company agrees to hsip on approval to the hesi-
tating dealer who may test out its claims to useful-
ness, and return it if he doesn't like it.
This is an era of good road-making, but the work
of the road maker is far from finished. In rough
roads the Bowen Loader makes the transportation
easier and safer; on the good, hard roads the dealer
and salesman can do a maximum of work with the
aid of the Bowen device. Everyday and in all varie-
ties of weather the Bowen Loader gets the salesman
down to business from the beginning to the end of
the day. The Bowen Loader provides safe, easy,
quick and economical loading and unloading and is
a marvel of simplicity, compactness, lightness and
durability.
With the Bowen Loader the work of two men is
performed by one. By aid of a simple device the
piano is loaded or unloaded in a few minutes. By
the aid of the Bowen Loader the salesman performs
his own loading and unloading without drudgery.
COUNTRY DEALER'S PLEA
TO PIANO CUSTOMERS
He Does Not Depend on Friendship and Spirit
of Neighborliness to Gain Trade But
on Value of Goods.
To the live music dealer in the country town the
competitive problem is one that engages his attention
all the time. It is a plain matter of self-preservation
for the small town dealer to keep impressing on his
prospective customers among his neighbors that his
store is as modern as the big places an easy ride
away. And this is what the successful country
storekeeper does. His publicity is of the kind that
appeals to the loyalty of his neighbors to their home
town. By inducing them in one way and another to
visit his store he overcomes the effect that impressive
stores in the big city may have upon them.
In this day of easy travel, when the automobile,
the railroad and the interurban electric roads provide
quick and ready means for the customer of the music
dealer in the country town to look at the goods in
the stores in larger places, the problem of keeping
the home trade is a perplexing one. Where a great
city is within easy distance the competitive factor is
a more acute one for the dealer in the town con-
sidered a suburb. The competitive problem means
not only constant thought on the part of the dealer,
but never-ceasing activity as well.
His constant job is to prove to his neighbors that
he has the ability as well as the desire to sell as
cheaply as the big city house. So when it comes to
the purchase of a piano, for instance, his sensible
neighbor is easily convinced that he can buy as
cheaply at home as in the big city. That is really the
vital thought to be created and perpetuated in the
minds of his prospective customers among the home
folk. Unfortunately not every small town dealer at-
tempts the creation of that thought in the people at
home. Only occasionally does the local man con-
tinuously try to make the desirable impression.
New transportation conditions have affected the
business of the local store as it has that of the great
mail order houses. It is proved that the latter have
been the worst sufferers from the quicker and more
convenient methods of travel available to the aver-
age person in the small town. Observant and pro-
gressive music merchants in many so-called small
towns have found redemption from slow business in
EFFECTIVE USE OF
BRINKERHOFF PUBLICITY
Dealers Representing the Line of the Brinker-
hoff Piano Co. Rewarded in Sales by
Co-operation with Manufacturers.
Dealers handling the line of pianos, players and
reproducing pianos of the Brinkerhoff Piano Co., Chi-
cago, have made excellent use of the advertising aids
provided by the company for the holiday campaign.
The Brinkerhoff Piano Company recently released
a series of cuts to dealers for use in local newspapers.
The free service has been of material aid to many
merchants in the fact that it gave them something to
work on in starting their fall publicity. These ads,
run at intervals in local papers, have stimulated the
trade and strengthened the business of the users.
The Brinkerhoff Piano Co. is getting excellent re-
sults from the co-operation of its dealers in utilizing
the publicity furnished, according to the report made
at the headquarters of the company, 209 South State
street, this week. It indicates the strong appeal the
wide line of Brinkerhoff instruments has made
throughout the trade. This is attested by the fact
that the volume of orders and re-orders received is
increasing daily and orders are generally accompanied
with a report of the fine trade conditions existing in
the various localities and the ever-increasing popular-
ity of the Brinkerhoff line.
The grand and reproducer styles have been con-
sistent sellers with dealers, but a god percentage of
the business has gone to player and upright models.
Although it is conceded to be a great year for grands,
the Brinkerhoff players and uprights have made an
excellent showing in the trade.
their greater accessibility, due to the handy flivver
and the more pretentious car. It was a matter of
advertising locally in a new and more effective way.
They had to combat this fact: That the average
dweller in a small town finds a day in the city more
or less of an advanture. It is a glad change from
the everyday routine. For the women especially the
bigger city stores with their greater variety have an
appeal that cannot be disregarded. So the policy of
the home town dealer is to deliberately plan to meet
the natural appeal of the stores in the larger places.
A most important thing towards achieving success
in the local store is the element of good will. That
is induced by the feeling of confidence. The wise
music merchant in the small place is a mixer in musi-
cal affairs. He makes it his business to know the
people who love music; to belong to organizations of
a social kind where music is a part of the occasional
functions, and to take an active part in the promotion
of musical events. All the better if the local music
merchant is a musician, because he can better dem-
onstrate the instruments. He can doctor a sick fiddle
or banjo or knows where it can be skillfully brought
back to its original tunefulness.
It is possible for the local dealer to create the air
of old customer familiarity in the store that the
bigger city store cannot give the customer from the
small town. It is surprising how important is that
factor of the business. The people know the dealer
and all who work in the store and the personal
equation is an influential factor.
And their friend the dealer doesn't conceal the fact
that he can cut prices lower than the big city store
without cutting his own just proportion of profit. He
reminds his small town customer that the bigger
store in the bigger town must have proportionately
larger expenses. There are obvious advantages the
store in the small town can have and they are easily
made understood by the local prospect. It can have
a piano line for instance that fulfills every require-
ment as to degrees of quality and price. It is up to
the dealer to overcome the allurements of the bigger
places. It is a hard job, bnt it is being done. Among
the biggest distributors of pianos, fine ones among
them, are dealers in places you could hardly dignify
with the classification of village.
REMICK SONG SELLS.
"Sweet Georgia Brown" is a hit of Jerome H. Rem-
ick & Co., New York, which is enjoying a big sale
in every city and town in the country, and the sales
are said to increase in equal ratio with the spread
of the Charleston craze. The tempo suits that dance
which young people want to learn even if permission
to try out the steps is not accorded in every public
dance hall.
OUTFITS SCHOOL BAND.
The Samuels-Bittel Music Co., Owensboro, Ky.,
recently supplied the outfit of band instruments for
the high school band sponsored by the Rotary Club.
The organization is compored of senior and junior
high pupils, with Prof. Donald Hinchman as director.
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/
December 26, 1925.
PRESTO
DOES TRADE-IN
PROVE A PROBLEM?
Just a word or two of
information—a prof-
itable message to
music merchants.
Progressive dealers
everywhere have long
ago discovered the
unusual possibilities
of selling and oper-
ating automatic
pianos.
SEEBURG instru-
ments, they have ob-
served, are best suited
to this strenuous ser-
vice—simplicity, re-
liability and endur-
ance mean something
Piano construction
must vary according
to the purpose—long
years of experience
has taught which is
best.
Co-operation after all,
harmonizes the or-
ganized effort of
dealer and factory—
an outstanding fea-
ture of the SEE-
BURG selling plan.
J. P. Seeburg
Piano Co.
"Leaders in the
Automatic Field"
1508-10-12-16 Dayton St.
Chicago
Address Dept. "E"
Veteran Traveler, Writing on Topic, Says It
Does Not and That Fair Price of Used
Piano Can Be Set and Upheld
by Dealer.
SELLING PIANO FIRST
When New Instrument Is Sold First, Allowance on
Trade-in Seldom Causes Any Grievous Differ-
ence Between Buyer and Seller.
The problem of trade-ins is one which interests the
local, state and national associations in the piano
trade and the individual dealer in or outside a trade
association is confronted with it every day. The
problem admittedly is an individual one. For a long
time the trade-in problem has been a towering one in
the automobile trade which has resorted to regula-
tion by rules passed and promulgated by trade asso-
ciations acting alone or through a joint body. But it
is evident that the automobile trade is finding the
trade-in problem an individual one.
The automobile dealers in several cities agreed to
a price list on used cars early in 1924. It was to
govern the dealers in making sales where a trade-in
figured. Everything seemed set for a pleasant proce-
dure with the dealers fraternally pledged to stick to
the schedule, but an order from the Federal Trade
Commission knocked down their house of hopes. The
commission ordered the agreement dropped, stating
that it bordered, if not actually encompassed, price-
fixing.
Back to Individual.
The trade-in problem again became one for the in-
dividual automobile dealer to solve. The result was
seen in the advertising of the automobile trade. Deal-
ers and agencies representing a well-known and popu-
lar car printed their unwillingness to consider "un-
reasonable allowances" on trade-ins. They intimated
that sales of new cars would be sacrificed rather than
an excessive price for an old car should be paid.
Automobile dealers are now acting on their own in-
dividual responsibility. Determining the size of the
allowance on the used car is a matter of casuistry
for the dealer.
Association Discusses It.
Recently the Cleveland Music Trades Association,
at its monthly meeting, discussed the matter of trade-
ins, and, according to the report in the trade papers,
a plan was formulated whereby the association would
set a uniform allowance on trade-ins. The members
agreed that such a scale of used piano values would
eliminate shopping by prospective purchasers who go
from store to store in the endeavor to get the highest
bid on their old pianos towards the purchase of a new
piano.
But there are successful dealers everywhere who
have solved the problem of the used piano offered on
trade. They are the kind who run their businesses in
a wise and ethical way and irrespective of what a
competitor is doing. They turn down many sales
every year because they will not consent to an exces-
sive allowance demanded by some wily shopper who
has gone the rounds. These successful dealers oper-
ate in places where local associations have adopted an
allowance scale, but each dealer considers he is a law
unto himself. Each one knows the obvious fact that
the excessive allowance made on used pianos in trade-
in deals dissipates the legitimate profit they should
get for the proper operation of their businesses.
Scale Would Help.
The adoption of a scale of allowances on used
pianos, if permitted to operate by the federal Trade
Commission, should prove a good thing for the deal-
ers who set allowances on trade-ins according to com-
petition. The nervy and cunning prospect who is
aware of the problem of the piano dealer and the
weakness of some of the dealers is not an uncommon
visitor to the piano warerooms. He makes the
rounds of the stores and has lots of fun bidding 'em
up or trying to make the anxious dealer go over the
allowance of a competitor.
Everything depends on the manner in which the
involved trade-in is handled. Perhaps a great many
dealers complain about the evil of the trade-in. But
it is certain that numbers of dealers have never found
it an evil. The proposition to trade in a used piano
constitutes no problem for them. The why of the
matter is easy to find out. When the dealer tries to
make a sale through the allowance made on a trade-
in, he is not selling the piano in the proper sense of
merchandising. Where the new instrument is sold
first the allowance on the trade-in seldom causes any
such grievous difference of opinion between the dealer
and customer that the sale is apt to be upset.
A Dealers' View.
"Success in solving the trade-in problem may be
measured by the extent to which the dealers resist
the efforts of the used piano owners to 'work them,' "
said the manager of a piano department in St. Louis
this week. He told a story that bears upon the topic.
About ten years ago, a St. Louis man, finding his
children at the music lesson age, bought a used piano
made in 1870 for which he paid $60. It was recom-
mended as durable and it proved so. The family of
two boys and two girls thumped upon it from child-
hood to boyhood and girlhood and the fine old instru-
ment stood the gafif in a way that should make the
makers proud.
. Story Continues.
When the children, or rather three of them, had
grown up to working age, the family became inspired
with the idea that a good playerpiano, while provid-
ing a vehicle for their manual art, would also give
them the playing of piano artists and the ever-chang-
ing music for dancing as well. Dad and Mother
agreed and the casual visit of a pianohouse canvasser
one day started negotiations. Father and Mother
and the girls dropped into th« store one evening by
arrangement and listened with pleasure to the player-
piano recommended by the salesman. But the men-
tion of the price made Dad catch his breath in trepi-
dation. "We'll think it over," he explained, as he
herded his flock through the front door.
Hopped to It.
But the salesman didn't give him long to think.
He was around to the house next day and delivered
his line of persuasiveness. But Dad was still wabbly
from the high figure named for the playerpiano and
failed to respond with any degree of elation.
"Why not trade this piano in as part payment?"
said the salesman cheerily as if the thought of a
trade-in was an inspiration.
"What will you allow for it?" asked the owner,
who valued it like Desdemona valued Othello, for
the dangers it had passed. The salesman scooped up
a few handfuls of barber shop chords, ears alert to
catch the tonal niceties.
"Fine. We'll allow $70 on yoar old instrument."
was the surprising answer.
It Was No Wonder.
Here was something contrary to Dad's conceptions
of commodity values. Did pianos, like wine and
whisky, improve with age? Here was his old piano
which he had bought for $60 ten years before and
upon which his kids and all the kids of the neighbor-
hood had banged day in and day out, and it was
worth $10 more than he had paid for it. He couldn't
understand it and he showed his wonderment. The
salesman mistook the signs.
"My figure disappointed you, maybe, but it wasn't
final. You value the instrument and I'll admit it is
sweet and tuneful," eagerly lied the salesman. "Here,
I'll take it on myself to name $75, I'll even," he
added, after a glance at the poker face of the pros-
pect, "allow you $85."
Back to His Shell.
"We'll think it over," was the response. It was a
perfectly new thought which presented an old piano
with amazing ability to soar in price.
The playerpiano prospect had a picnic next day in
the piano stores while he studied the peculiarities of
piano selling. The valuation of his old piano he
found variously set at from $50 to $100, but it amused
him when it jumped to $150 in one place. He had
about decided to put off indefinitely the purchase of
a playerpiano when he encountered a real piano
salesman in the last store he entered.
He liked the looks of the man at the first greeting
although he knew the salesman was sizing him up
like a doctor would a new patient. He didn't resent
it. "I've been playing piano store poker all day and
now I want to take the mask off and appear in my
own face. I'm a possible playerpiano customer with
a confession to make," he frankly stated.
A Good Confession.
It was the story beginning with the purchase of
the old piano ten years before and ending with the
incidents connected with the negotiations about the
playerpiano, involving a trade-in transaction.
"Well, I consider you a prospect of mine now,"
said the salesman when the story was told, "but I
would have preferred to have sold you the player
first and afterwards made you an allowance of $50
on the old upright. You may think it funny I should
place a price on it without seeing it. But you told
me the name and no matter how it looks or how it
sounds, I know the durable, I might say indestruct-
ible, part, is worth the price I said to any dealer."
Well, that prospect, who had an honest name and
a family of ambitious workers, left the store the
owner of the good playerpiano.
M. D. S.
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/

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