January 28, 1928
PRESTO-TIMES
GOOD TRADE REPORTS
FROM INDIANAPOLIS
Business Exceptionally Good Is Carlin Music
Co. Report—Good Starr Sales and
Other News.
THINGS SAID O R SUGGESTED
A AIE TE O R OL 0 GIL A L KN O CK.
Piano selling competition in the rural sections is
usually a battle of wit. His arguments may be truth-
ful and- forcible and talk glib and blarneyed but with-
out the dash of native wit the piano salesman on the
agricultural lay is as powerless as the rifleman with-
out a cartridge. There is a psychological moment in
every piano deal but it is the salesman with native
wit who makes and regulates it. It takes a knowl-
edge of human nature, glib talk with a spice of
blarney and a smattering of all the arts and sciences
to close a deal quickly and profitably in the country.
Piano selling and meteorology are seemingly far re-
moved but an unofficial theory of the latter science
had much to do with removing the ''queer" from a
knocked deal in an Ohio town during last summer.
Doppel and Finucane are competitive dealers in a
good farmers' town in the state alluded to. The
names Doppel and Finucane are given because they
are altogether dissimilar to the real ones, which may
occur to many traveling salesmen who read the story.
They are keen competitors and in their business
rivalry it often happens that ethics are practiced more
in the breach than the observance. One day during
August Doppel succeeded in placing a piano on
trial with a German farmer who was able to pay
cash. A few days later he called to "sweeten" up
the family with a little impromptu recital and when
be departed he considered the piano is good as sold.
Unfortunately as Doppel drove gaily away from
the gate in his Bowen loader-equipped flivver, Finu-
cane caught sight of him as the latter in his touring
conveyance turned a bend in the road. Unseen, he
watched the unconscious Doppel disappear in the
Ohio landscape and then he approached the house.
Like the man of native wit he is, he had no gen-
eral knocknig plan. That was suggested when in
the course of piano talk following the presentation of
his card, the piano man begged to look at his com-
petitor's piano. At the first glance inside, a look of
horror overspread his features and with nervous haste
he closed the top.
"Ain't you afraid to have that piano in the house?"
he asked concernedly.
"Vat's der madder? Iss der ghost there yet?" asked
the farmer.
"Ghost nothing," replied Finucane, backing away
from the piano. ''Ain't you afraid of lightning. The
basses of that piano are copper wound and nothing
draws lightning like that. Gee, let me out of here."
That was enough. It did not take long to nego-
tiate a deal for his own piano and then he obligingly
dictated a letter to his competitor advising haste in
removing the lightning attraction.
When Doppel appeared in responce to the farmer's
letter he calmly listened to his piano's impeachment
by the wrathful German.
"Yes," he admitted, when the farmer concluded, "it
is copper wound all right, and copper attracts light-
ning pretty bad. But don't you know that lightning
never strikes twice in the same place?" The entire
family admitted the correctness of the theory.
"Then why be scared?" added Doppel, with assur-
ance. "That piano has been struck by lightning once
a'ready, a fact you can easily see for yourselves.
See," he directed, pointing towards the oxidation ac-
quired in two years of renting experience, under dis-
advantages of temperature and climate. He got his
money in bills before he left the house.
* * *
A lumber trade journal says that the chestnut
trees of America may yet be extinct. We should
worry. The daily newspaper humorists will always
lie with us.
*
* •
THE AIR CURE
An observing piano traveler believes that one of
the hard problems of the music store keeper in the
small towns is the loafer and that eternal vigilance is
the price of liberty from this pest. The railroad
station, the automobile repair shop, the public garage
and the grocery store are notoriously loafer-infested,
but the attractions of the music store have become
more alluring to the loafer in recent years. The
readiness with which he could commandeer player-
piano rolls and talking machine records and still
more recently, tune in on the radio, and so provide
cheap entertainment, tended to increase the nuisance.
But the piano traveler adds a relieving fact. The
sensible music dealer realizes the detriment to his
business of the time-killing loafer who chews and
smokes. The condition they produce in the atmos-
phere of the store suggest the safety of gas masks
for the customers. So the dealers do not stop at
protests in getting rid of the intruder. The loafer
problem is one they can solve with a good, swift
kick, if protestations fail.
* * *
DOING IT WITH BOWEN
"You say Gitup planted a piano out at the Spuds'
farmhouse yesterday?"
"He did that."
"But how did he beat Offagin to it? Offagin started
with a piano at the same time in his 80-horse power
truck."
"I know. But Gitup had a four-cylinder Ford and
a Bowen one-man piano loader and carried an outfit
no bum road could bluff."
* * *
HOW, INDEED!
"You didn't tell me you had a new reproducing
baby grand piano."
Proud Owner—"Gee! I wonder did I forget any-
body else."
* * *
Why no. All of those gushing radio ads which
flood the newspapers are not written with fountain
pens.
The Carlin Music Company, Indianapolis, reports
business good. "What there is of it," said Frank
Carlin, "is exceptionally good business, but we would
like to see more of it. We can honestly say, that
the class of business is very much better than it has
been in a long time, purchasers are paying more
down, and buying on shorter time, and last but not
least buying a better grade of piano. But sales are
not as numerous as we would like to see them. Busi-
ness, though, is looking a lot better than it has, and
there is every indication of a marked improvement in
the near future."
President Hook's Plans.
The topic for discussion at the meeting this week
of the Indianapolis Music Merchants Association was
"Music W r eek Activities." Mr. Hook, president of
the association, is planning a very extensive program,
and is rather anxious to get the committees working
out the details. Ned Clay, head of the sales division
of the Starr Piano Company, has returned after a
very severe cold which kept him at home for several
days. During the past week several of the new style
39 Starr Grand pianos in the early American were
sold. This particular style is becoming very popular
in Indianapolis, and several have been sold to some
very prominent musicians.
Play the Steinway.
At the Mannerchoir Concert on Sunday afternoon
Myra Hess appeared with the Steinway concert
grand before a very large audience.
Percy Grainger, Steinway artist, will appear in
Vincennes on Tuesday, January 24, in concert. The
sale of Steinway pianos continues to be very satisfac-
tory is the report from the Pearson Piano Company,
with other high grade instruments holding their own.
Charles Jackson of the Wurlitzer Company, spent
three days in Indianapolis last week on some special
business and cooperation work with the Walking
Music Company.
Other visitors calling on their respective represen-
tatives were: Ted Perkins of the Gulbransen Com-
pany, Floyd Masters of the American Piano Com-
pany, I. S. Purcell of the H. C. Bay Company and
I. M. Douthit of the Kohler Industries.
TEXAN EN ROUTE.
Robt. N. Watkin, secretary of the Will A. Watkin
Company, Dallas, Tex., left for New York city this
week to participate in the meeting of directors of the
Music Industries Chamber of Commerce January 27-
I feel it my duty to aid in every way the ad-
vanccmcnt of music, both instrumental and vocal.,
and to bring the entire power of the State Board
of Education to accomplish this end. I shall lend
all my assistance and all of my influence to bring
about the desired result.—E. Palmer Tucker, Sec-
retary of the Music Trade . Issociation of South-
ern California.
BOWEN PIANO LOADER HELPS SALESMEN
Outside Salesmen must be equipped so as to "show the goods." The season for country piano selling is approaching. Help your sales-
men by furnishing them with the New Bowen Piano Loader, which serves as a wareroom far from the store. It is the only safe
delivery system for dealers, either in city or country. It costs little. Write for particulars.
BOWEN PIANO LOADER CO.,
Winston-Salem, N. C.
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