Presto

June 16, 1928
PRESTO-TIMES
The American Music Trade Weekly
Published Every Saturday at 417 South Dearborn
Street, Chicago, Illinois.
PRESTO P U B L I S H I N G CO., Publishers.
F R A N K D. A B B O T T - - - - - - - - - -
(C. A . D A N I ELL—1904-1927.)
J. FERGUS O ' R Y A N
_ _ _ _ _ Managing
Editor
Editor
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SATURDAY, JUNE 16, 1928.
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
Wednesday noon of each week.
and a fair price of labor will allow it to be
made and that from the highest-priced instru-
ment to the cheapest and research is con-
stantly employed whereby the manufacturers
can lower the cost of production without sac-
rificing quality. Impressively, Mr. Irion said:
"To assume that our merchants—and there
are a great many of them here from the entire
United States, are remiss in studying their
markets is a mere assumption, Mr. Shibley, to
which I heartily think you are entitled. We
have very large merchants here, and to pre-
sume that they are not keen and alert busi-
ness men is unfair. They study their markets.
They tell us six and eight months in advance
what their requirements for the year will be
and we guide our production very much in
accordance with it.
"I wish to go on record very strongly, Mr.
Shibley, because I do not want Wall Street
to get a wrong idea of our industry. We are
not asleep. We are not unalert of things that
are going on, and what has overcome us for
the moment is what has overcome others
through industrial changes that have taken
place among other industries for the time being
and in due course they will adjust themselves
to the new condition of things, and that, Mr.
Shibley, is true in our industry, and that
thought I hope you will take back to your peo-
ple downtown so that they will not get the
wrong idea of what is going on here."
THE NEW ERA
The principal work of the manufacturers'
convention was in promoting ideals to inspire
the dealers and salesmen everywhere to get
out and really sell pianos. This is. why the
men who attended this intensive four-hour
session were impressed with the idea that this
was absolutely the greatest piano convention
ever held in America. It has inspired the be-
CORRECTING MR. SHIBLEY
lief that something very necessary and needed
Thirty-eight piano manufacturing companies long ago, has been set in motion. The germ
had displays of their products at two hotels of a greater, bigger, finer and grander piano
during the week of the convention and number business came into existence at this conven-
of others had special displays at warerooms tion, and was launched ceremonially on what
and factory display rooms in the city. Four we all hope will be a very far-reaching career.
piano supply houses had displays at the head-
Whether we realize it or not, we are living
quarters hotel and some of the most important in a go-ahead generation. The. young people
makers of piano actions, keys and essential who have taken hold of things today are as
parts had attractive shows of their products different from the preceding generation as
and demonstrations of their merits at their day is from night; and older ones are slow if
plants.
they fail to recognize that fact.
The displays were the evidences of the opti-
It also is a new progressive era. Heads of
mistic attitude of the owners whose activities progressive industrial plants and commercial
are always governed by their ability to ob- institutions now recognize that some of their
serve conditions and estimate possibilities.
employees may once in a while have an idea
While the piano manufacturers are not in- that is worth trying out in practice.
different to the industrial setback that has
And this convention stands forth unique in
affected this country during the past few years, exploiting this idea: Play the game fair, but
they make it plain that they do not consider play it with all of your ability.
its influences in the piano business of a perma-
nent character. The splendid displays of in-
DISPROVING FOOL THEORIES
struments during the convention carried the
Certain people in the music trade are af-
message of progressiveness in production not fected by the old tradition that Presidential
only to the dealers but to the public as well.
election years are "bad for business," but the
The displays, the manufacturers who pre- number who so view the possibilities of that
sented them and the alert piano merchants time is far less than formerly. The Industrial
who delightedly observed them, all provided Conference Board reports on the basis of eco-
Mr. Hermann Irion with convincing illustra- nomic tests, that other influences have far
tions in his eloquent corrective comment on overshadowed that of the political contest in
Mr. Shibley's wrong estimate of the piano in- the past forty-eight years. The bugaboo of
dustry. The displays were the manufacturers' the "summer slumps,'' in a lesser way, still per-
responses to the expressed requirements of sists in the music trade, although a few- active
the piano merchants whose commercial safety piano houses have disproved that erroneous
depends on keen observation of the trend of belief by active and systematic pursuit of piano
taste in the piano buying public.
sales in the summer months.
Mr. Irion pointed out that the piano is made
As to the business of Presidential years,
as economically as the cost of raw materials when allowance is made, in the electoral years
from 1880 to 1924 inclusive, for "cyclical ten-
dencies" and wars, it is fairly to be inferred
that business in such years, according to the
Industrial Conference Board, "is not affected
in any definite or regular way by the fact of
Presidential elections."
The report says that 1872, 1880. 1892, 1900,
1912, 1916 were all years of rampant prosper-
ity. Only 1876, 1884' 1896 and 1908 were years
of downright depression. Of the remaining
four Presidential election years, 1888 showed
a slight recession from prosperity; 1904
started with a mild depression which turned
to revival in the autumn ; 1920 started on the
very crest of the post-war boom and ended
in depression ; 1924 repeated the story of 1904.
The live piano houses which have organized
sales forces of unusual size, evidently do not
accept the theory that the Presidential year
of 1928 is bad for business. Their aim is to
disprove the hoary view in the same manner
that they put the summer slump in the fool
phrase cannery.
How to override sentiment and make final
disposition of old pianos was one of the sub-
jects discussed more in asides to the conven-
tion than in the convention proper. Sentiment
is a power—the desire to hang on to old things,
heirlooms, flags, insignia, old letters, old vio-
lins, old pianos.
'WAY BACK IN PRESTO
(From Presto of June 19, 1890.)
The Root & Sons Music Company of this city
have, in the Everett piano for which they are factors
in sale, one of the best instruments in this country
and a piano produced in one of the best of organized
factories wherein everything is conducted with the
utmost care and precision. The Everett piano is, as
announced in their catalog, "in all essential points
pre-eminent."
The new Kimball grand (baby grand) was used
for the first time in public at the Perroti-Liebling
concert in Milwaukee last week. All modern im-
provements are used in the plant and machinery.
Mr. Adam Schneider of J. Bauer & Co. has recently
been filling the responsible position of juryman in
Justice Somebody's court.
Mr. C. C. Curtiss, who arrived in New York May
20 from his European trip, will probably arrive at
Chicago this week.
Geo. P. Bent, Chicago, has issued a pamphlet illus-
trating the new "Crown" piano manufactured by him.
At present four different cases (uprights) are manu-
factured, to be known as styles K, L and M. We
shall refer at length to the "Crown" later on.
The piano department of the firm of Lyon & HeaJy
is highly successful. One morning last week four
Knabe pianos were sold before Mr. Healy's arrival
at the office.
Mr. Harry E. Freund has been visiting Chicago
and other Western cities in the interests of his paper.
The W. W. Kimball Company will, in all proba-
bility, remove their warerooms next year to a com-
modious building on Wabash avenue, where they will
also have a large music hall.
Mr. Henry Mason, president of the Mason &
Hamlin O. and P. Company, who died in Boston
May 10th, was an experienced business man and
highly respected in the trade and widely known. He
was also an accomplished musician. The deceased
gentleman was in his 59th year. For 36 years he
devoted his energies to the welfare of his house and
was the originator of most of the improvements of
the cabinet organ. Mr. Mason was the youngest son
of Dr. Lowell Mason, the hymn writer, and a brother
of Dr. Wm. Mason, the eminent pianoforte instructor
of New York City.
There are few pianoforte manufacturing com-
panies in the trade who make a more honest piano-
forte or do business with less ostentation or more
thoroughness than Messrs. Jewett & Co., Leominster,
Mass. The visitor to the factory will always be
cordially received and treated with courteousness
more than ordinary.
Story & Clark have just shipped to Germany a
large consignment of organs. Their catalog has been
translated into German, and trade on the Continent is
being rapidly developed.
Who will be the next European pianist to make his
first concert tour in this country? Paderewski?
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