Presto

PRESTO-TIMES
The American Miuic Trade Weekly
Published Every Saturday at 417 South Dearborn
Street, Chicago, Illinois.
C. A. DAN I ELL and FRANK D. ABBOTT
- Editor*
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.
almost insignificant as compared with the
automobile. And this alone should present the
best, if not the only, salesman's argument in
the sale of pianos as compared with auto-
mobiles.
The prosperity of the motor car should be
made to greatly help the piano, and not to
hurt it.
OUR EXPORT TRADE
We recall a bit of jingle, each stanza of
which ended with "he was not smart but very
wise, and knew enough to advertise." And
that, whether fairly or not, is about the way
our London contemporary, Music, seems to
size up the American piano manufacturer. For
it says :
There is an old saying that "what you see often be-
Payment is not accepted for matter printed in the comes beautiful to the eye." This applies directly to
editorial or news columns of Presto-Times.
commercial dealings all over the world. When countries
Where half-tones are made the actual cost of pro- where, say, America has captured a trade see British
duction will be charged if of commercial character,
goods, it is difficult to make them buy because they are
or other than strictly news interest.
When electrotypes are sent for publication it is "different" from the American article. They may be just
requested that their subjects and senders be carefully as good or better, but the Americans have kept their
goods before the country's eye, and so they appear
indicated.
beautiful.
Forms close at noon every Thursday. News mat-
Undoubtedly, advertising is effective in find-
ter should be in not later than eleven o'clock on the
same day. Advertising copy should be in hand before ing and holding an export trade, as every-
Tuesday, five p. m., to insure preferred position. Full
page display copy should be in hand by Monday noon where else. But there may be doubt about
preceding publication day. Want advs. for current the "or better" part of Music's statement. The
week, to insure classification, must not be later than foreign buyers are as keen and critical as the
Wednesday noon.
Address all communications for the editorial or business
departments to PRESTO PUBLISHING CO., 417 South
Dearborn Street, Chicago. III.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1927.
The last form of Presto-Times goes to press
at 11 a. m. Thursday. Any news transpiring
after that hour cannot be expected in the cur-
rent issue. Nothing received at the office that
is not strictly news of importance can have
attention after 9 a. m. on Thursday. If they
concern the interests of manufacturers or
dealers such items will appear the week follow-
ing. Copy for advertising designed for the
current issue must reach the office not later
than Wednesday noon of each week.
AN INSTALMENT CONTRAST
Sixty-four per cent of the new automobiles
sold last year were delivered on the instalment
plan. The time paper outstanding' in the auto-
mobile business is $1,378,000,000.
How does that statement, and those figures,
compare with the piano business? And what
effect must such a condition have upon the dis-
tribution of pianos, or anything- that calls
for a larger domestic drain upon the average
individual income than the lesser expenditures
demand? Isn't it clear that the contrast puts
the talk about competition between the piano
and car outside the line of reason ? It seems
so. The motor car is not a thing- that interests
especially the wealthy classes. It looks for its
buyers among- all classes, from the rich to the
clerk and laborer. Tt is an article of efficiency
and necessity, in many cases, and it is, of
course, an item of luxury and recreation.
The piano is a very different thing-. It is a
matter of education, of refinement and enter-
tainment. Still more, but in a lesser degree, it
is the means to the expression of ideals, men-
tal flights and a sort of satisfaction and
ecstasy not otherwise possible. For music
never palls and it never wearies the body.
Therefore the common idea regarding- the
piano and the car as if in some way competi-
tors, is folly. There is no more reason in it
than that the two industries are parallel in
the sum of their investment, or the money
liability they represent. The instalment fig-
ures afford an object lesson. The sum repre-
sented by the piano instalment obligations is
best of them nearer home. And if the Ameri-
can instruments find a better market than
those of Britain there must be some reason
beyond that of the goods appearing beautiful.
For the British pianos are also beautiful, and
they appear to be well promoted.
It has been the impression that the Ameri-
can piano industries, with few exceptions,
have not been especially vigilant in finding-
markets abroad. There have been reasons, of
economic kind, in the way. The demand
nearer home has been good, and it is reviving.
But, with it all, there has come a steady, if
slowly increasing, trade abroad, and since our
manufacturers began to cater to the tastes of
the foreign buyer the export business has de-
veloped better.
There are now a number of American piano
industries that are making the special case
designs preferred abroad. And the buyers in
other countries have fallen into line in favor
of some of the standard American models.
So we are getting nearer to the foreign heart
of things and, but for Germany's mystery of
cheapness the American pianos would in all
probability exceed all others in its sale in far
away markets.
THE PRICE APPEAL
Although trade ethics in advertising are be-
ing more generally observed by music dealers
than formerly, it is considered by close ob-
servers that the lure of the bargain is still too
prevalent in the trade. They say that too
many merchants, especially in the smaller
cities, look upon an advertisement which fails
to offer "bargains" as a poor appeal for busi-
ness. Even when the price reduction is truth-
fully stated, the public sometimes refuses to
believe the statements because it is a common
belief that bargain advertising leads to ex-
aggeration.
Stores which rigidly follow an ethical stand-
ard not only find advertising profitable but, at
the same time, instill a trustful feeling in the
public. In the big cities the prominent stores
which never use the word "bargain," or print
comparative prices, set the gross sales stand-
ard. The best kind of retail advertising- is that
which makes permanent customers rather than
February 5, 1927.
that which makes sales. Bargain advertising
encourages the presentation of shoddy mer-
chandise and promotes slipshod store methods.
Musical merchandise advertising which ac-
complishes the most is that which tells about
the instruments and their merits and minim-
izes the price appeal. The price of an article
is soon forgotten, the character of it is often
long remembered. A piano house or store which
habitually features bargain sales advertising
soon establishes itself in the minds of the peo-
ple as a good place to go when they want
cheap stuff, but a place to avoid when they are
particular about the merits of an instrument to
be purchased.
* * *
It is more than usually true this year that results
will depend on the salesmen's efforts. So much talk
about what other things are doing to the piano must
make it necessary to employ salesmanship to sell
pianos, even to people who want them and know it.
* * *
Only four months in which to get ready for the
biggest convention the American music trade has ever
experienced. Make your plans well ahead.
WHAT WE WERE DOING
And Saying When the Trade
Was Young
45 YEARS AGO IN THE TIMES
(From Musical Times, February 5, 1882.)
The Art Journal asks: "Does not the number
and space devoted to advertisements in a class journal
qualify the degree in which it is regarded by the
trade it represents?" That depends upon whether
your advertisements are mainly dead wood or legit-
imate and paid for.
Celluloid is said to be obtained from potatoes. This
is the new kind of celluloid.
No previous winter for years has activity in the
music trade been so general, and there are no signs
of lessened activity in any department.
At a sale in Berlin, Mozart's Trio in G Mss.
brought $342 and a musical autograph of Rossini's
$65, while original sketches by Beethoven fetched
only $6.
35 YEARS AGO IN THE TRADE
(From Presto, February 4, 1892.)
At the meeting of the new Steger & Co. incorpor?.-
tion last night the following directors were elected:
J. V. Steger, P. Sauber, R. J. Kasimer and Otto
Lestina.
Messrs. Steinway have also just supplied three
of their concert grands for the English provincial
tour of Madame Sophie Menter^ind M. Sapellnikoff.
Madame Sophie Merrier appeared at Sir Charles
Halle's Manchester concert on the 7th inst., and will
likewise play at the Crystal Palace next month. The
Steinway piano will be used at all Madame Menter's
recitals this season.
There appears now to be a strong concerted effort
among intending piano and organ exhibitors at the
Columbian World's Fair against the proposed grant-
ing of awards. On Tuesday a representative of
Steinway & Sons called upon Director General Davis
and urged strongly against competitive awards.
Within our gates: Nahum Stetson (Steinway &
Sons); C. E. Hollenbeck (Geo. Steck & Co.), C. E.
Hyde (Behr Bros. & Co.), New York; E. W. Fur-
bush (Vose & Sons), Boston; L. W. Cook. Huron,
S. D.; W. N. Mclntyre (manager L. W. Cooke
branch), Watertown, S. D.; J. M. Mcjimsey, Vin-
cennes, Ind.; W. H. Lighty, Monticello, Tnd.; L. A.
Hoffmier, Waupaca, Wis.
25 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
(From Presto, February 6, 1902.)
If it be the mission of trade papers to pull down,
rather than build up, music trade interests and insti-
tutions, then the sooner we have fewer music trade
papers the better.
In a half-page advertisement appearing in the Buf-
falo "Express" of February 2, Denton, Cottier &
Daniels, "the largest music house in New York
State," announce a "seventy-fifth anniversary cele-
bration sale of pianos, 1827-1902.
The announcement that 150,000 pianos were sold
in this country last year would be more encouraging
if accompanied by evidence that they had relegated to
the scrap heap many of the old instruments, long out
of tune, which rattled like tin cans—the kind they
generally have next door.
Don't forget the small grand. As previously inti-
mated in Presto, the supply of these instruments
does not in any way exceed the demand. As a mat-
ter of fact, the condition is just the reverse, more
small grands of good quality being required than can
be conveniently obtained.
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