Classic Mode

Presto

Issue: 1928 2207

P R E S T 0-T I M E S
ference. The board of control of the Music Mer-
chants' Association at its last meeting adopted a res-
olution covering the situation as follows:
"Whereas, The executives of the radio associations
a short time ago made it known to the executives of
our association that it would be agreeable to them for
the convention of our association and Music Trade
Industries to occur at the time and place that the
next joint radio convention or exhibition is to be
held, and assured us of their assistance and coopera-
tion in making our convention a success, and being
impressed by this demonstration of friendliness on
the part of our friends—the radio manufacturers, job-
bers and broadcasters; be it
Resolved, That it is equally agreeable to us for our
conventions and exhibitions to occur simultaneously
in the same city, and that for this reason we have
decided upon holding our convention and meetings at
the Drake Hotel, Chicago, during the week of June 3,
up to and including Thursday night, and that with a
view to fully cooperating with them in making our
associated convention and exhibition the greatest pos-
sible success, we shall be very glad for a committee
of our association to meet with their representatives
for the purpose of arranging our respective programs
in such a manner as to avoid any possible conflict, and
to increase the interest in the programs of all con-
cerned."
Possibilities of Conventions.
It is believed by those who have closely studied
the possibilities of the associated conventions that
programs can be worked out that will avoid conflict
in the scheduling of business meetings, get-together
meetings, banquets, exhibitions, etc, and will add
tremendously to the interest and benefit of all who
attend both conventions and exhibitions.
MUSIC DEALERS'
INTEREST IN RADIO
An Increasingly Apparent Fact Today Is that
Interests of the Music Trade Now In-
cludes Radio, and Circumstance
Points to Opportunity of Radio
Manufacturer.
By C. J. ROBERTS.
During the past few weeks it has been increasingly
apparent that the interests of music merchants and
different branches of the radio trade have been identical
in many respects and this feeling or knowledge has
been crystallized in the arrangements which have been
made by the two groups to hold their conventions
simultaneously in the same city. It is now also real-
ized that music merchants who sell radios and even
those who do not (and there are now very few of the
latter, and untimately there will be practically none
at all), have interests that are in common with those
of exclusive radio merchants. It is important that
music merchants shall attend radio conventions and
exhibitions. It is equally important for members of
the radio trade to attend conventions of the Music
Industries.
Interests in Common.
Music merchants now handling radios are vitally
interested in keeping up to date in regard to the
progress of the radio trade and as music merchants
distribute such a large percentage of the output of
the radio manufacturers, it is important that the latter
keep informed of the need of music merchants and co-
operate with them in disposing of as many of their
finished units to the public as possible.
The music merchant who does not now sell radio
i> a prospect for the manufacturer.
New Line of Prospects.
Many of the exclusive radio dealers are prospects
for the manufacturers of pianos and other musical
instruments and supplies. Not a few dealers w r ho
began handling radio exclusively have later become
music merchants and now sell pianos, talking ma-
chines and other musical merchandise. Very many
more will ultimately do so. A number of formal
and informal conferences of executives and leaders in
the two industries have occurred, mainly in order
to pave the way for a definite, formal joint con-
Sees Great Convention.
I earnestly believe that the next convention of the
Music Industries will be the greatest in history. The
radio convention and exhibition is certain to be a
great event. We are beginning apparently very early
to form our plans, but this is necessary to insure the
success of the occasion. The splendid committees
that have been appointed are already at work. The
executives of the various organized bodies within the
trade are earnestly and enthusiastically attacking the
problems which confront them. The next convention
will be very much of an experiment, but this is not a
time to "stand pat." Without experiment no prog-
ress is ever made. We must go forward and will go
forward.
The executives of the organized bodies in the trade
need the cooperation of every one in the trade.
Dealers v..
Profiting
by Straube
Difference
HE SUPERIOR construction of the
T
Straube Grand, the difference which can
be seen as well as heard, is helping hundreds
of piano merchants to make more, easier
and quicker sales.
The dramatic way in which dealers can
prove Straube superiority to prospects, the
exclusive features such as laminal construc-
tion of the key bed, the rim and the braces,
afford exceptional opportunity for profit.
With the approach of the holiday season
this opportunity for profit with the Straube
is intensified. It is easier to turn"shoppers"
into purchasers when you can demonstrate
quality in construction and in tone so clearly.
Have the advantage of Straube's exclusive
points in your holiday selling. Get all the
facts now; it will not obligate you in the
least. Let us show you the Straube difference
which means profittomerchants.Write today.
STRAUBE PIANO COMPANY
1107 Manila Ave.,
O N E
Hammond, Ind
traube
O F
T H E
Pictured above is the Straube Florentine Grand, one of
the many period models available in various sizes — in-
cluding the world's smallest full scale grand. The Sonata,
four feet, four inches.
Inset in the circle is the back of a Straube Grand, show*
ing the laminal construction of key bed, rim and braces-
exclusive Straube features.
W O R L D
Rationally F I N E S T
P I A N O S
November 17, 1928
DEALERS RESENT
BUREAU'S SLAPS
Chicago Piano & Organ Association Indig-
nant Over a Signed Advertisement in the
Chicago Evening Post Which Seems
to Impugn Honesty of All Dealers.
At the annual meeting of the Chicago Piano and
Organ Association last week, held in the Great North-
ern Hotel, Chicago, public inspection was sharply
focussed upon the sort, the kind, the variety, the
intent of the propaganda that has recently appeared
in the Chicago Evening Post as advertising matter
about the piano business and signed by the Chicago
Better Business Bureau.
A recent advertisement, so signed, was read at the
meeting, every word of which was followed by tense
interest by the entire audience for evidences of some
hidden dagger pointing insidiously at the very vitals
of the entire trade under the cloak of fighting a few
carelessly worded ads in the daily papers.
A Blow Against Honesty.
The copy of the objectionable advertisement was
then turned over by unanimous vote to the executive
board of the association for further study and for
recommendations for action at the next meeting of
the trade in Chicago. It would seem that in its effort
to cure some small sore spot in the trade the Better
Business Bureau has unwittingly, or witlessly, struck
a body blow at the entire trade, the insinuation being
that no piano man is to be trusted or trustworthy.
And this, in view of the honesty and the progress that
has been made during several years of improving
their advertising and their honorable selling methods,
does not sit well on the stomach of any honest piano
man in Chicago (and from 95 to 99 per cent of them
"are on the square," perfectly reliable and eager to
give a dollar's worth of value for every dollar a cus-
tomer gives them).
Some Sore Spots, Perhaps.
The bureau may have found some sore spots. So
far, so good. But it has overreached in its accusa-
tions, which have hit the entire trade (the better
part of it the hardest) by abominable generalizations.
A rhetorician may indulge in metonymy or synec-
doche by putting a part for the whole, but an entire
piano trade of a great city strenuously objects to
being classed with one or two offending members.
It is positively blighting to permit such misleading
propaganda to go before a public which has a right
to have the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the
truth.
Why Make Goat of Piano Trade?
"Why pick on the piano business? We certainly
have our troubles getting business without having
outsiders who do not understand, butting in?" asked
a prominent piano manufacturer yesterday. "Our
business is conducted on the cleanest basis of any
that I know of. If the Better Business Bureau must
have a victim, why not pick on the opticians, a few
of whose ads are said to be under suspicion? But
of all business, that of the piano is the least deserv-
ing of criticism at the present moment; we give more
than money's worth; the piano was never so well-
made or so satisfactory as a musical instrument as
it is today.
"We eliminated knockers from our own trade years
ago. That was a long step in advance. The trade
then took a high place among absolutely reliable
merchandising men. What dry goods man, what real
estate man, what doctor of medicine would dare
today accuse a dealer in standardized pianos in Chi-
cago of doing business other than fairly and squarely?
"What druggist would dare do it? What preacher
gets up and denounces the piano man from his pul-
pit? What producer of tin cans, of paper, of bus
rides across the country, of neckties or dog collars
would go out of his way to throw a lie at the honest
dealer in fine pianos?
The Latest "Knocker."
"Yet, here bobs up this hobgoblin knocker in the
form of a Better Business Bureau and knocks and
knocks and knocks. It shoots its mud-guns directly
at the finest and cleanest piano houses in America
It seems to glory in the bespatterment it causes
along piano row.
What Is the Underlying Purpose?
"Several dealers in St. Louis told me last year
that a so-called Better Business Bureau there had
made a lot of mischief and really damaged the piano
business in that great city. Is it the purpose of the
Chicago Better Business Bureau to do likewise here?
And who is paying for this propaganda? I'd like to
know the source of this tearing-down effort."
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/
November 17, 1928
P R E S T O-T 1 M E S
Qtortetma*
•ffifls twfackard
two newest Packard Instruments,
the Louis XVI, Style XX, Art Grand
and the Louis XVI, Style B, Upright,
have brought real Christmas Profits to
all Packard Dealers.
HTHE Packard Free Piano Lesson Ser-
vice is helping to make every month
of the year as good as the Christmas
Season. It works all year.
^ I ,
,_. ftV—
3335 Packard Avenue
The Packard Piano Co.
THE PIANO FLAG
IS STILL WAVING
Scares About Other Things Supplanting It
May Come and Scares May Go, But
the Good Old Piano Goes
On Forever.
A piano man in Chicago who reads Presto-Times
regularly commented one day this week on the re-
marks of W. M Shailer printed in this paper last
week telling how the piano industry was harder hit
in the great panic of 1893' than at any other time.
The Chicago man recalled many periods of fright—
childish shudderings at bugaboos that some dealers
declared had entered the arena to utterly destroy the
piano business and wipe it off the face of the earth.
In his reminiscences he went back as far as the
velocipede, which he said did not seriously ride
against the piano business and make slashes at its
throat with a rusty tin sword. But the outgrowth of
the old high-wheel—the modern bicycle—did take
away a good deal of the cash that otherwise would
have been expended for musical instruments. Yet
the piano business did not go down or lose ground.
Original Fear of the Phonograph.
The next goblin that made faces at the piano busi-
ness was the phonograph, in its various forms. Well,
"after all is said and done," to use a phrase from the
Hill Billy idioms, the phonograph helped rather than
hindered the piano trade.
Then came the playerpiano—first as an attachment
to wheel up to the piano; later as part and parcel
of the instrument itself. Here was a Siamese twin
that had. a new set of vitals in its abdomen—a heart,
a gizzard, a medulla oblongata, an esophagus, a
larynx and a pharynx, lungs and anastomosing ves-
sels—and oh, my! this was to take the place of every
upright piano in the universe. It sold well; it contin-
ues to sell well, and it has been wonderfully improved.
But its great popularity has only served to increase
the call for upright instruments.
Radio an Educator.
And now the radio has been pronounced by some
not correctly informed persons as inimical to the
continuance of the piano as the master instrument.
But is it hurtful? The man who skimmed over the
ground of the past says it is helpful, ever so helpful.
And why? Because every listener to radio, how-
ever ignorant on the start, gets education from it.
He believes that the gain in intelligence just from
hearing orators using good language in the recent
political campaign would run something like 2y 2 to
,3 per cent. Every notch gained in intelligence by the
masses is an aid to good music and ultimately to the
sale of pianos.
Not So Many Sales, but More Dollars.
The average price at which pianos are sold today
is two or three times as high as in the 70's or 80's.
In those days the average piano sold at from $250 to
$350, while today, as the greatest trade is in grands,
Fort Wayne, Indiana
sales run all the way from $550 to $750 and even
up to $2,500. The units of sales are not so many,
but the dollars are more.
The gist of the arguments used in this article is
that the piano flag is still waving victoriously in the
breeze; that there is trade for the man who gets out
and hustles; that the man who is unwilling to get out
and hustle must step aside.
NEW WISCONSIN FIRM
IS INCORPORATED
O'Connor-Lazar, Inc., Milwaukee, to Deal in
Music Goods and Radio—Fond du
Lac Firm Expands
A new Wisconsin corporation is O'Connor-Lazar,
Inc., with headquarters in Milwaukee. The company
will deal in musical instruments and radios. Signers
of the articles of incorporation are A. B. O'Connor,
vice-president of the Music Arts corporation; W. T.
Lazar and Leon E. Kaumheimer.
The Sandee Music Shop at Fond du Lac, Wis., has
been forced to enlarge its quarters because of in-
creased business. The enlarged quarters became
necessary, acording to James Sandee, when the store
decided to offer a larger line of pianos and other
musical instruments.
Sales of the company last year totaled approxi-
mately $60,000. In addition to now occupying the
entire first floor in its present location, the store has
a service department on the second floor. The sales
force has been added to and all general facilities have
been increased.
O. C. Jones, who for many years conducted a piano
and music store at Randolph, Wis., has discontinued
the music business.
Irving Zuelke, Appleton, is financing the erection
of a 10-story store and office building to be erected
in that city and which will replace the building de-
stroyed by fire last January. Mr. Zuelke has operated
a music and piano store in Appleton for many years
and since the fire, the company has been located in
temporary quarters. The new structure will cost be-
tween $350,000 and $400,000 and will be known as the
Irving Zuelke building. It is expected to be com-
pleted and ready for occupancy in about eight or nine
months.
BANK 'ROUND THE CORNER.
"Next Door to Music's Greatest Trading Center."
is the heading of an ad of the Straus National Bank
& Trust Co., Chicago, printed in newspapers this
week. This is said: "Less than two minutes from
Grand Headquarters of the Music Trade to a friendly
bank that is eager to extend to all within the Chicago
Zone the finest banking service they have ever had.
If you are one of the thousands whose work calls you
daily to the Lyon & Healy Building, the Steger Build-
ing, the Cable Building, the Kimball Building, or
any of the other nearby buildings dedicated to the
advancement of music, plan today to pay us a little
visit—because we ARE so accessible—and thus save
time and countless unnecessary steps by making us
PIANO AND ORGAN
ASSOCIATION MEETS
Retiring President Roger O'Connor Tells of
of the Work Done in Group Instruction
in Chicago Schools, and Other Inci-
dents Add Interest to Event.
Last week's meeting of the Chicago Piano &
Organ Association, in addition to electing the officers,
reported in last week's Presto-Times, was fraught
with enterprise and good cheer. Not a moment was
wasted in pifiie-paffle not a thought projected that
would suggest Grover Cleveland's famous phrase,
"innocuous desuetude."
Roger O'Connor, retiring president, spoke of the
great amount of work that had been done in group
instruction activities in the schools of Chicago and
among children generally who wanted to learn to
play the piano, and said that much of this work did
not appear on the surface. The organization re-
gretted the loss by death during the year of two of
its members—J. O. Twichell and F. S. Spofford.
Letter of Thanks.
Mr. O'Connor read a letter from L. Schoenwald,
manager of the Chicago establishment of the Amer-
ican Piano Company, thanking the Chicago Piano &
Organ Association for sending a great bunch of beau-
tiful flowers to welcome it into the Chicago trade
at its opening week. The flowers were on display in
the front window of the new store during opening
week. Mr. Schoenewald said in the letter that he'd
be glad to join the association. A few minutes later
L. Schoenewald of the American Piano Company,
and R. A. Burke, of the Story & Clark Piano Com-
pany, were voted into membership in the association.
An obstacle to carrying on the work of teaching
piano lessons in the Chicago schools was found in the
lack of pianos for the pupils to practice upon. This
difficulty had been obviated by the promise of 150
pianos to be loaned by local piano men.
The report of the treasurer, Adam Schneider,
showed a balance of $1,703.17 in the treasury.
Promotion Committee Reports.
A report by the special piano promotional com-
mittee was given by Eugene Whalen, who told of
work done to ultimately impress the parents of pros-
pective piano players and of the increased interest they
had begun to show.
Walter Kiehn, of Gulbransen's, also complimented
the daily papers for services rendered and spoke of
the good work done by the Group Piano Instruction
Committee and B. B. Ayres, its chairman.
Henry E. Weisert, of the Bissell-Weisert Piano
Company, called attention to the smallness of space
the daily newspapers devoted to piano "news" in pro-
portion to the "news" given the automobile industry.
This, Mr. Weisert said, was a comment on the pro-
portion as compared with the amount of paid adver-
tising space of the two industries. A committee will
call upon the newspapers to ask for more write-up
matter.
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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