Presto

PfcfcSTO-TlMES
The American Music Trade Weekly
Published Every Saturday at 417 South Dearborn
Street, Chicago, Illinois.
C. A. DANIELL and FRANK D. ABBOTT -
Editor*
Telephones, Local and Long Distance, Harrlaoo 234
Private Phones to all Departments. Cable Address (Com.
merclal Cable Co.'s Code), "PRESTO," Chicago.
Entered as second-cla«s matter Jan. 29. 1896, at the
Post Office. Chicago. ffiTnols, under Act of March 3. 187».
Subscription, $2 a year; 6 months, $1; Foreign, $4.
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.
>•" *
Payment is not accepted for matter printed in the
editorial or news columns of Presto-Times.
Where half-tones are made the actual cost of pro-
duction will be charged if of commercial character,
or other than strictly news interest.
When electrotypes are sent for publication it is
requested that their subjects and senders be carefully
indicated.
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
departments to PRESTO PUBLISHING CO., 417 South
Dearborn Street. Chicago. III.
SATURDAY, JULY 30, 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.
SALES AND REPOSSESSIONS
In another part of this paper is printed a
most enlightening' analysis by Mr. H. Edgar
French, president and general manager of the
Jesse French & Sons Piano Co., New Castle,
Ind. The results bear out Mr. French's oft-
expressed belief that piano advertising is
wrong where low prices and too easy terms
are the allurements. They also show the mis-
take of printing player-piano purchase in-
ducements based on the ability of anyone to
become a Paderewski or Josef Hofmann by
inserting a roll in the player.
Mr. French holds that low prices, easy
terms and silly presentation of the player-
piano result in too many unprofitable deals.
Repossessions are possibilities under the best
of selling methods; they are probabilities
where the inducements to purchases are based
on low prices and misrepresentation. People
who buy pianos to satisfy a musical desire in-
variably pay for them, making sacrifices to do
so if necessary; those whose prompting is the
spectacularly slashed price are accountable for
too many repossessed pianos. These are facts
the truth of which becomes obvious on reading
Mr. French's keen recital of common causes
and their inevitable effects. One thing wrong
with the piano business is the neglect of many
dealers to push the instruments that stay sold,
Mr. French says, and his analysis of reposses-
sion results in a large retail store, points to an
obviously wise course.
The plea for the player-piano should not
be for an instrument that "plays itself" but
for one that has to be "played." One of the
greatest delights of owning a grand or up-
right is the opportunity to express oneself.
In this relation Mr. French's analysis is
most interesting. The Jiighest percentage of
repossessions are in phonographs where the
machine did all the work; next in the percent-
age of repossessions are player-pianos at
which the player does some of the work. The
percentage is lower in straight uprights and
practically negligible in grands, which as a
rule reach people of musical appreciation.
A THRILL OUT OF LIFE
July 30, 1927.
was in part, Mr. Furbush found, a cause of
low stocks, but a more encouraging reason for
a reduced showing of pianos was a sensible
preparation for a pleasant eventuality—the
spirited opening of the fall business with period
grands and uprights as predominating require-
ments of customers.
Somewhat similar views were also expressed
recently by Mr. Elmon Armstrong, the results
of his keen observation in a wide tour of
southern and southwestern states. He, too,
considers low stocks of pianos as shrewd prep-
aration for installing big, fresh supplies of the
new, desirable models when the proper time
arrives. That most of the dealers are assured
of the certainty of a new era of liveliness, is
shown in store enlargements, extensive alter-
ations to aid in a spirited piano presentation
and in a marked spirit of assurance of a satis-
factory fall and winter business.
The disposition to reduce stocks is not con-
fined to the piano trade according to an opin-
ion of Mr. E. H. Story, president of the Story
& Clark Piano Co., Chicago, expressed in a
recent talk with a Presto-Times representa-
tive. He cited other industries in which re-
duced stocks were easily observable facts.
And in many instances the motives were sim-
ilar to those of the piano trade—shrewd, well-
considered preparation for a fall opening
marked by new demands in models, designs
and finishes by the buyers.
It very often happens that the vigilant re-
porters for the daily newspapers and the music
trade press, eager for newsy incidents at the
conventions, miss episodes of considerable im-
portance from their unusual character as well
as the personal interest they create.
On the opening day of the convention of the
Northern Music Trades Association in San
Francisco recently, Mr. I. N. Rice, Pacific
Coast representative for the W. P. Haines &
Co. and Bradbury pianos, breezed into the St.
Francis Hotel, feeling like 25, looking like 50
and proceeded to vigorously celebrate his 81st
birthday anniversary by selling a carload of
grands.
Mr. Rice is one of the grand old men of the
trade who continues to find keen joy in his
work. He does not look back at the years he
has passed but at the days he has lived. Men
THE DETROIT WAY
like Mr. Rice understand the distinction. To
such active ones, mere existence for a pro-
The Michigan Music Trade Association has
longed period is not the matter for pride ; that again ignored the conventions associated with
emotion is in the power to keep young in heart conventions. At the forthcoming big r.nnual
by the joyful processes of congenial work.
meeting of the state association in Detroit, a
Mayor's Ball will be substituted for the usual
discreet convention dinner. Instead of meas-
NEW STEINWAY PRESIDENT
ured utterances by grave men of the music
The election of Mr. Theodore E. Steinway trade, the welkin will resound with frantic
as president of Steinway & Sons, New York, dance music and the vigorous foxtrotting of
to succeed his cousin, Mr. Frederick T. Stein- the Prince and Princess of Music and their
way, who died July 17, is considered an ideal free-footed court of 428 school piano cham-
selection. The new head of the great piano pions.
house is a man markedly fitted to uphold its
Mr. Frank J. Bayley of Detroit and his fel-
traditions and ideals.
low convention promoters believe that suc-
The name Theodore in a Steinway & Sons'
cessful piano promotion involves processes to
high official is a notable recurrence that
thoroughly interest the people in pianos. They
prompts a look backward to another Theodore
consider this is affected by a piano playing
Steinway closely associated with the produc-
contest culminating in a "Second Annual De-
tion of the first Steinway piano by Henry En-
troit Music Carnival." Instead of an as-
gelhard Steinway. That famous first piano,
semblage of a limited number of diners in
built for a namesake of the new president,
decorous "soup and fish" regalia around a
was so well perfected that it took a premium
hotel table, the grand finale will be a masked
at the Brunswick Fair, an official acknowl-
ball and an outdoor expression of piano in-
edgement that augured well for future expo-
terest by the proletariat. In short, the piano
sition triumphs.
men are going to give an opportunity to
prospective piano buyers to take part in a
piano dealers' convention, thereby increasing
DEALERS' PREPARATION
the popularity of the piano.
In recent interviews observant piano men
voiced a cheerful meaning from the admittedly
low stocks of pianos in the average store. The
The music publishers believe that too much
salesrooms, in many cases almost bare of in- advertising over the radio can be given to a
struments, they understand as evidences of song and it is easy to understand their com-
preparedness rather different from the usual plaint against the managers of certain sta-
conception of the word. In fact the dealers tions. A new song—even of the best kind—
positively prided themselves in the condi- needs introduction to the public and the most
tion, which they said represented the ability potent means toward sales of the sheet music
to make a "cleaner start" when the new sea- are radio, movie organists, vaudeville head-
son opened.
liners and the bigger bands. By means of these
Mr. E. W. Furbush, wholesale manager of agencies a song may be popularized. Too much
the Haddorff Piano Co., Rockford, 111., in an- singing and playing of the song, however, may
other part of this paper, gives his interpreta- quickly depopularize it. When the public re-
tion of what he witnessed in a series of sum- acts by whistling or humming it, good buying
mer trips throughout the country. The an- is possible; when the advertising is carried to
ticipation of the usual "Summer slowness," excess, a general damning is inevitable.
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