Classic Mode

Presto

Issue: 1925 2057

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).
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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.
be the physical and mental weakling whose
pastime it is to edit a music trade paper.
Consequently the charge was made that one
of the Presto editors had impersonated Mike
the Mover and joined the ranks of Volstead.
The only other whose literary style might sug-
gest the intellectual grace of Mike's fine Celtic
pen is Mr. Ben H. Janssen, the "Poet Lariat
of the Piano." But that versatile gentleman
promptly entered a denial. And Mr. Bent
placed his indorsement of the piano manufac-
turer in these words:
December 26, 1925.
up and extending to them the support with-
out which no industry can hope to progress
satisfactorily.
We believe, furthermore, that no other aid
and co-worker of the piano, in its industrial
and commercial aspects, has done its work so
quietly as the great financial institution to
which credit is given in this editorial. Still
more, we believe that, much as it has already
done, its future will develop still greater
things.
This is the last issue of Presto this year.
With the new year the American Music Trade
Weekly will greet its friends with some slight
changes, but even more than ever ready and
eager to do all possible to swell your busi-
ness and to help the accumulation of the profits
Items of news and other matter are solicited and if
that belong to all enterprise of musical kind.
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-
One of the New T York music trade papers
spondents, and their assistance is invited.
and a truthteller, I believe.''
Inasmuch as there have developed only two put forth a very beautiful Holiday Number.
Forms close at noon every Thursday. News mat-
ter should be in not later than eleven o'clock on the suspicious characters, there seems but one Another issued a giant publication which was
same day. Advertising copy should be in hand before conclusion. Consequently, until Mr. Janssen
also labeled to imply that the holidays had
Tuesday, five p. m., to insure preferred position. Full
page display copy should be in hand by Monday noon can see the enormity of his suspected inno- come. As we remarked, by way of contempo-
preceding publication day. Want advs. for current cence and confesses, it must be clear that
raneous greeting several years ago, "Merry
week, to insure classification, must not be later than
veracity may, in degree, be measured by. voca- Christmas Numbers!"
Wednesday noon.
Address all communications for the editorial or business
* * *
tion. A piano manufacturer, whose warranty
^ppartment5 to PRESTO PUBLISHING CO., 417 South
ftearborn Street, Chicago, III.
Next week Presto, in its customarily modest
is never questioned, and a trade editor, who
swears to his paper's circulation, do not belong manner, will present proof of undeniable kind
SATURDAY DECEMBER 26, 1925.
in the same class. Meanwhile, inasmuch as that the piano trade is "all right" if not more
Mr. Bent is sure that the Poet Lariat is not so. The testimony, in both prose and poetry,
the man behind Mike's whiskers, there seems of manufacturers and dealers will give strength
to be no way but to throw that mythical in- to the evidence.
dividual back among the mysteriously missing.
Anyway, the reward for Mike, the Mover,
still stands. And unless the call for his ar-
ticle on prohibition as Mr. Bent sees it sub-
From the Files of Presto
sides it may be necessary to run it again in
As the old year closes Presto joins in the an earlv issue of Presto.
(December 26, 1895.)
congratulations of a promising New Year for
Patti
is
not
to
be outdone in her distinguished place
the music trade in all its branches. The energy,
as the reigning Quen of Song, even by the Queen of
A FINANCIAL AID
in an almost new direction, that prominent
England herself. She is now emulating the real
It is talked in New York that a trade paper, Queen, Victoria, in inviting artists to sing in her
men in the industry are putting into the exten-
castle.
sion of music love, especially among the in the music line, has caused adverse comment
Trade reports for the week preceding Christmas
of an order which must be satisfactory to even
younger generation, is one of the certain signs by decrying the discount companies. And no are
the most confirmed grumbler. With few exceptions
of continued growth of the love and under- wonder. If there is anything that the piano the sales have been well in advance of those reported
standing of music and consequent increased de- industry needs more than others, it is the con- for the two previous years.
An exchange says: "Paderewski, idol of feminin-
mand for the instruments that make it. Presto venient, well organized and liberally conducted ity, it seems, is only human. He plays poker. He
financial
concerns
that
stand
ready
to
discount
has improved in his technique since last he was here,
extends its sense of appreciation to all manu-
and when, after four hours' hard work, he arose from
facturers whose enterprise has helped to sus- dealers' paper.
the table $4.50 ahead, he was as delighted as a boy
A fine illustration of the kind of institution with a new wagon."
tain it and to every reader by whose encour-
J. Newton, one of the original members of
agement the American Music Trade Weekly to which we allude, as an anchor and sustain- the Henry
old house of Lighte, Newton & Bradbury, fore-
has been enabled to grow in influence through ing safeguard, is the Bankers' Security Com- runners of the present piano bearing the latter's
pany of New York. And the history of that name, was run over at 6:15 p. m. Monday by a cable
the forty years of its existence.
car on Broadway, between Twenty-second and
institution affords the best possible proof of Twenty-third streets, New York. He was so badly
the dependable character of piano paper. For injured that he died in a few minutes.
Mr. Henry Ziegler, nephew of Mr. William Stein-
MYSTERIOUS MIKE
it is credibly said that since the Bankers' Se- way and superintendent of the construction of all the
The reward offered for the identity of "Mike, curity Company was first organized, as the pianos made by William Steinway & Sons, has pat-
a number of improvements for pianos, and the
the Mover," who sprang into fame following Commercial Security Company, it has rolled ented
new upright instruments are equipped just as the
the Bent-Tucker prohibition controversy, has up a surplus of more than $2,000,000.00.
famous grand pianos are. Among other improve-
ments, the Capo-d'-Astro bar is cast as an integral
not been claimed. It will be recalled that
The Commercial Security Company was part of the metal plate (both are cast in one piece)
Mike sent an article to Presto in which Mr, established in about the beginning of this still while formerly the Capo-d'-Astro bar was separately
Geo. P. Bent was humorously chided for his young century. Its first offices were in the adjusted.
banquet speech last June.
First National Bank building, Chicago. And
• The eloquence of Mike's appeal was so com- it has continued to specialize in piano paper
20 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
pelling that curiosity was aroused as to his as- on a plan so liberal to the industry and trade
sociation with the piano business—whether he that we have yet to hear the slightest com-
(From Presto, December 28, 1905.)
really was a piano mover by profession or just plaint against it or its methods. Its officers
It seems now too late to say that the career of the
an ordinary manufacturer or dealer. And in are gentlemen of the best type and its capital- playerpiano is problematical. The original argu-
the investigation that followed it became clear ization is large and as strong as a national ments averse to its general acceptance have been
very largely overthrown.
that if Mike was a piano mover he must be bank.
The first "smoker" of the Chicago Piano and Organ
.occurs tonight at the Wellington Hotel.
moving his own pianos, or delivering the out-
Just how the piano business could have de- Association
A nice menu has been prepared and the occasion
put of his own factory.
veloped to its present stage without the aid promises to be one of interest and enjoyment.
Wise piano dealers are busy making out checks to
That discovery seemed to simplify the mat- and support of the Bankers' Security Company
cover the manufacturers' statements of account and
ter until Mr. Bent himself, after going from it is difficult for anyone weli posted in this mailing
them with "Happy New Year" pinned to the
Los Angeles to. New York in his search for particular line of trade to understand. And left hand corner. That's the sort of New Year greet-
all through the year.
Mike's address, decided that piano moving is there are hundreds of large piano concerns ing that The will Old carry
Year turns and totters out
not the exclusive function of the brawny oper- that will readily accord to the New York
His stunt so soon is over,
And in his place, 'mid cheer and shout
ator of the truck and van. He might equally financial institution the credit of building them
Comes New Year—rosy rover.
"hi spite of your remarks I think I have located the
author of 'Mike, the Mover.' Ben Janssen denied author-
ship and says you did it, and Ben, as you know, is
truthful. At all events, 'Mike, the Mover,' has given
me and my friends a lot of joy, so you had better
admit it, for no blame whatever attached to you other
than that of a joy-maker, and that's no blame at all.
It is up to you to square yourself, if you can, with the
Honorable Ben H. Janssen, who is a poet, of course,
30 YEARS AGO IN THE TRADE
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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