Presto

March 1, 1929
THIRTY YEARS AGO
(From Presto March 21, 1899.)
Manager Smith of the Nashville house of the Jesse
French Piano & Organ Co. has contributed his chap-
ter to the mystery involved in the question: "What
becomes of all the pianos?" On another page the
story is told—how Mr. Smith, finding the coal bin
empty and the supply of the coal yards depleted,
brought to the sacrifice "handsome pianos."
As a labor-saving device we have prepared a postal-
card which we send to all inquirers concerning the
forthcoming "Buyers' Guide to the Piano, Organ and
Allied Industries." To the manufacturers we will add
that proof-slips of the matter pertaining to their in-
terests will be duly submitted to them not for
revision or mendation, but that the gentlemen most
interested may have the opportunity to correct any
errors of date or details which may possibly have
crept in.
Should the Redington bill become a law stenciling
piano manufacturers in New York would fall within
the same category as moonshiners and green-goods
men. It is terrible to think of the raids that would
be made upon the "illegitimate piano joints," and Old
Sleuth would have a new field in which to exercise
his "thrilling escapes" and startling discoveries.
As has already been reported Mr. Alfred Dolge is
preparing to leave the scene of his hard work and
earlier triumphs in Dolgeville. The following little
advertisement is accordingly appearing in the local
papers of the former "Magic City":
For Sale—Two excellent family horses. Good
roadsters and very gentle. Also a number of sleighs,
wagons, etc.
MRS. ALFRED DOLGE, Dolge Ave.
The Starr Piano Co. has issued a fine new cata-
logue. It is the work of Mr. Henry Gennett.
F. S. Cable, president of the Cottage Organ Co.
of Chicago has given an organ to the Presbyterian
Sunday School of Florence, Ala.
Mr. J. C. Henderson of the Ann Arbor Organ Co.
passed through Chicago homeward bound from a
trip in South Carolina on Saturday last.
Owing to bad weather last week Monday night, the
formal opening of Knabe Hall, in New York, was
postponed for two weeks.
Mr. A. H. Fischer, Kimball representative, is on a
western trip which will necessitate his being absent
from New York for six weeks.
Mr. Meyers, successor to William Gorgen in the
piano action factory at Nassau, N. Y., has sold his
interest to Ollie Kosegarten and returned to Albany.
Strich & Zeidler pianos continue to attract the
attention of critical buyers. The pianos of this firm
are of the kind to demand notice, and it is a pleasure
to know that Strich & Zeidler are busy.
Mr. George Grass of the "Steck" was snowbound
in New England during the recent big storm. His
account of it is as thrilling as the recital by Rhein-
hard Kochman in this year's Presto Year Book, of a
similar experience.
The Cable Piano Company will open new ware-
rooms this week at 54 East Sixth street, St. Paul,
and 57 South Seventh street, Minneapolis, and will
assume all agreements, contracts and guarantees of
the Conover Music Company in those cities.
E. M. Boothe of the Milton Piano Co. has bought
the interest of William F. Boothe in the firm. Wal-
ter B. Craighead, a stockholder, has been elected pres-
ident of the Milton Company and Edward M. Boothe
treasurer. Capital stock, $10,000, paid up.
Ten wagon loads of lumber went from Winchester,
Ind., to Richmond one day last week, and much more
at other times. It was sent to the Starr Piano works.
All roads may "lead to Rome," but the enterprising
firm of Ludwig & Co. intend that no piano dealer
visiting New York shall fail to find the most direct
road to their busy factory. They have therefore
caused the best route from the battery to Harlem
and the Mott Haven district to be sketched and
they print it for the benefit of the trade.. We repro-
duce the "diagram" herewith. It is so plain that no
dealer need be at a loss to know just how to find
Ludwig & Co.
PRESTO-TIMES
Heard Without a
Trace of Static
KNOCKS FOR JIGGER PIANO
Grim organisms lurk in the Jigger;
Flooticus, cockibus, bunkibus, all.
The Hoopla comes to you censored all thro'.
No bugs are contained there, big, little or small.
Science is a wonderful thing to consider.
Safety first for the wise it secures.
So Mrs. McGee, there's naught to be done
But wisely decide on the Hoopla for yours."
of ten cents per back; not that they were cheap or
anything of that kind, it just wasn't being done at
any of the other factories for any more.
"The chipper was the fellow that pulled up the
strings somewhere around pitch after the stringer
got through with them.
"Well, I went through the ropes and finally worked
myself into a job as 'fine tuner' for Chickering Bros,
and was swinging a wicked tuning hammer at that
time, working in different warerooms and repair shops
on Wabash avenue and doing outside tuning all over
the city. You might say that I started from the
bottom of the ladder; one must, if he becomes effi-
cient in any line.
"In 1921 I found myself in Des Moines, where I
got a position with the Jones Piano Co. selling band
and orchestral instruments. I did not tell them I was
a tuner and I did not tell them that I was about to
steal their bookkeeper (which I did) and glad of it.
but I am getting away from ray story. One day I
went upstairs to unpack some band instruments and
noticed the tuner with a large pair of shears cutting
up some ivorine in one-inch strips. He had a large
sheet of it. He was using some words that are not
found in the dictionary (tuners are human) and I
asked him what he was doing. He said that he had
to cover a set of keys and he did not like the job
one bit; that he was not a key man and had nothing
to work with along this line.
"Now this firm had a good repair shop; lots of
bench tools and could take care of most anything in
the line of repairing, but they were not equipped to
re-cover piano keys, nor is any other firm qualified
to relay complete keyboards with ivorine unless it is
equipped with eight or nine special machines to do
this work. This tuner, a good tuner, was, from the
time he started taking off the old ivories, cutting up
his sheeting, filing his tops down to the key core,
one day and a half, and he was a fast worker.
"This firm paid their tuners very well, and were
nice folks to work for, but could not afford to pay
this tuner ten dollars for putting on a keyboard and
furnishing the material on top of it all, and with all
due respect for this or any other piano tuner, not
being equipped in the average repair department, he
cannot put the work in right, I could not—knowing
the key business—do it without equipment. But it
does pay the dealer to have key work done on used
pianos.
MAC AT THE MIKE
HE QUALIFIED IN REVERSE
In tests made in one piano keyboard, Dr. Heisler iso-
lated, the series of staphloccocci, numerous streptococci,
tlie bacterium coli, the proteus, the pyo cyanic, and a
host of other organisms.—Pan-American Medical Record.
"What! Buy the Jigger piano, you say?
You certainly cannot so foolishly act!"
Said the Hoopla salesman to Mrs. McGee,
A prospect demanding most infinite tact.
"Little you reck what the action may bring,
The Jigger for you means a destiny rocky.
Perhaps you don't know that its keyboard teems
With myriads vast of staphyloccocci.
"1 hate for to knock while making a sale,
But Mrs. McGee, I must plead and abjure,
Council and warn, point out the cost.
The Jigger for you means disaster most sure.
Listen, dear lady, and let me but lift
You up to wisdom from sheer depths of folly,
In the Jigger keyboard you plainly can sniff,
The squirming host of bacterium coli.
"Mrs. McGee, you're inviting a train
Of ruinous things that follow the Jigger.
Disaster rife from invisible things,
Resultant calamities daily loom bigger.
Look at the figures—the data of science.
Keyboard inhabitants, fearful, tyrannic.
What! Your dear life to trust to a Jigger?
Piano polluted with pyo cyanic!
A thousand times no, dear Mrs. McGee!
And sooner than you should invite such a fate,
I'll make you a price most fetchingly low
On the beautiful Hoopla, a tempting rate.
There's a piano, cleanly and fine!
Free from bacteria within and without!
Clean bill of health from bugologists wise;
Its touch is a cure for the ague and gout!
Laurence E. McMackin, manager of the McMackin
Piano Service, Des Moines, Iowa, credits his emo-
tions as a youth and not incidents for his entrance to
the field of piano tuning and repairing. Back in 1904,
because he was "musically inclined," fond of the
violin, and especially curious about the mechanism of
the piano, he decided he would like to learn the art
of piano tuning.
"Little did I know then what piano tuning was, or
what the tempered fourths and fifths, etc., meant,
and thought it would be just as easy as tuning a
fiddle. I did not realize at that time that one could
not call himself a full-fledged piano tuner under at
least five years," said Mr. McMackin this week.
"I applied for a position (we called it a "job" then)
as an apprentice tuner with the Smith & Barnes Piano
Co.. chipping backs. Any real tuner who has ever
worked in a piano factory knows what chipping
backs means—breaking backs might be a better term
to use in this case—and they paid the magnificent sum
ty-five years, having bought it as an established con-
cern of many years' standing at that time. It will
thus be seen that the business carried on today at
614 Canal street, New Orleans, is really the product of
about a half-century's growth.
Under the word "Personal" the hybrid paper by
It is not generally known that the music house of which is represented the remains of the two latest
Philip Werlein of New Orleans has a record extend- failures of Mr. John C. Freund prints the following:
ing from long before the civil war. It was early in " 'Music Trades and Musical America' has refused to
the 40's that Philip Werlein started in the music busi- accept a check from Presto for a subscription. 'Mu-
ness in Vicksburg, Miss., and after carrying it on sic Trades and Musical America is not a receiver of
some years successfully sold out and moved to a that kind of money."
No person can gain a right to use a trade-mark,
larger sphere of influence in New Orleans. In 1853
he purchased Mayo's music business, which was one except by being the first to use it, or by getting per-
of the leading establishments in its line in the south. mission of the person who was the first. The original
Mr. Mayo had carried on the business for over twen- right arises wholly from priority of use.
Gordon Laughead, sales manager of the Wurlitzer
Grand Piano Co., De Kalb, 111., was once requested
by an Indiana hotelkeeper to secure an opening in a
piano store for his son, a problem 18 years old and
6 feet in his gay hose. Mr. Laughead willingly com-
plied and secured a position for the hopeful in the
store of the Wilking Music Company, Indianapolis.
A short time after the youth had entered on his
new duties Mr. Laughead met Frank Wilking. head of
the Indianapolis house, in Chicago.
"How is the boy getting on?" asked the Wurlitzer
man.
"He was fired three days after he came." was the
answer.
"Why," declared the surprised traveler, "I was
given to understand that Henry was a most versatile
young man."
"He's versatile, all right." responded the Indian-
apolis piano man. "There isn't any kind of work
he won't sidestep."
The Cable Piano Company have opened a branch
store in Augusta, Ga., at the stand formerly occupied
by T. Harry Oates & Co. A carload of beautiful new
high grade pianos is now on the way to Augusta
for the new concern.. The new store will carry a
complete stock of sheet music and musical merchan-
dise and has given the management of the piano
department to Mr. T. Harry Oates and the small
goods department to Mr. Harvey B. Morenus. These
gentlemen and their sterling worth and great ex-
perience are well known in Augusta.
Mr. Adolph Rachals has been admitted as partner
in the firm of M. F. Rachals & Co., Hamburg, Ger-
many. Mr. Rachals learned the art of making piano
hammers in the Dolgeville factories, and while there
gained many friends.
PIANO TUNERS, REPAIRMEN, MANUFACTURERS—Refer to Special Page Advertisement of Comstock, Cheney & Co. in this issue.
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