Presto

January, 1930
P R E S T O-T I M E S
YEARS AGO IN THE PRESTO
Ten Years Ago
large number of additional workers are to be em-
ployed in all departments.
Twenty-Five Years Ago
(From The Presto, January 15, 1920.)
PRESTO is always glad to receive news of the
trade—all kinds of news except personal slander and
stories of petty misdeeds by individuals. P R E S T O
will print the names of correspondents who send in
"Good Stuff" or are on the regular staff. Don't send
any pretty sketches, literary articles or "Pen-Pictures."
Just plain news about the trade; not about concerts
or amateur musical entertainments, but about the men
who make musical instruments and those who sell
them. Reports of new stores and the men who make
records as salesmen are good. Often piano salesmen
are the best correspondents because they know what
they like to read and have the opportunities for find-
ing out what is "doing" in the trade in their vicinity.
Send in the news—all you can get of it—especially
about your own business.
Said of W. C. Hcaton, nozv Sales Manager of
Zenith Radio Corporation:
(From The Presto, January 12, 1905.)
Said of One of America s Fine Pianos:
William C. Heaton, vice-president of the Auto-
Pneumatic Action Co., New York, is at present on a
trip visiting the playerpiano manufacturers of the
Middle West. Mr. Heaton has been confined very
closely to the factory since taking over his new
duties as vice-president, this being the first visit to
the manufacturers he has been able to make since
July.
The most notable feature of Strich & Zeidler prog-
ress during the year has been the production of the
Strich & Zeidler Diminutive Grand. Messrs. Strich
& Zeidler, who have made nothing but artistic pianos
since the inception of their business, have evolved
and developed a grand scale that has received enough
sincere prar'se to gratify the most exalted ambitions of
men producing objects of art.
Said of The R. C. Boilinger Music Co.:
Said of a Present-Day Reliable Piano:
The R. C. Bollinger Music Co., Fort Smith, Ark.,
in a newspaper display this week appeals to parents
to provide a musical education and the means to
music for their children. It says in part, "Children
love music. Parents are quick to realize the value
of music in their children's lives.
The dawn of the present year finds the Laffargue
piano stronger than ever before. The business was
incorporated under the name of The Laffargue Co.
during the year past and has shown substantial
growth over the business of any previous year in the
history of the piano.
Said of Mark P. Campbell:
Said of Familiar Men in the Chicago Trade:
"It was the wise manufacturer who followed the
popular demand. There is nothing in bucking the
tide, as figures show," writer Mark P. Campbell,
president of the Brambach Piano Co., New York.
Mr. Campbell cleverly discusses the history and for-
tunes of the upright piano and sees significance in
the exclusive factories for grands and players.
The Chicago Piano & Organ Association appointed
William M. Bauer chairman of the reception commit-
tee for the annual reception and banquet of the organ-
ization which is to be held at the Auditorium hotel,
Chicago, next Thursday evening, January 19. Mr.
Bauer was instructed to choose the other members
of his committee and he selected Platt P. Gibbs,
E. B. Bartlett, Joseph T. Leimert, Adam Schneider
and Joel Miller.
Said of R. S. Howard:
If there is any man who is posted on events in the
piano industry, Mr. R. S. Howard of the New York
industry that bears his name, is all of that.
Said of ihe (/rent house of Brcckwoldt & Son:
The Julius Breckwoldt Co., Dolgeville, N. Y., has
adopted the group insurance plan. It is an instance
of the satisfactory labor conditions in that city and
the pleasant relations between the company and its
employees.
Said of a Live Wisconsin Music Firm:
The Daly Music Co., Grand Rapids, Wis., has plans
for the erection of a new store for its business. The
new building will have a frontage of 66 feet, a depth
of 132 feet, and will be two stories high.
Said of a IVell-Known Today Piano Man:
Guy L. Mclntyre, Kohler & Campbell representa-
tive, is back in New York after a holiday trip to
Richmond, Va.
Said of a Well-Known Today Piano Maker:
Ernest Leins is one of the younger members of
the old guard of New York piano makers. He has
been actively engaged in the industry for so long a
time that he attended the first banquet of the Na-
tional Association of Piano Manufacturers of America,
and he has known all the famous men of the metropo-
lis, as well as numbering among his personal fr'ends
some of the most distinguished citizens of Man-
hattan, in both financial and scientific circles.
Said of The American Piano Co.:
American Piano Co., New York, declared an initial
cash dividend of iy 2 per cent on common stock, also
stock dividend of 5 per cent, payable Jan. 1 to stock
of record Dec. 24. Usual quarterly dividend of $1.75
on preferred will be paid Jan. 2 to stock of record
Dec. 24.
Said of The Chicago Piano & Organ Association:
The Chicago Piano & Organ Association will give
its annual banquet this evening at The La Salle hotel.
The affair will be informal. The principal speaker
of the evening will be Charles H. Wacker, whose
talk on "The Chicago Plan" will be illustrated by
stereopticon views.
Said of The Bowen Piano Loader Co.:
The Bowen Piano Co., Winston-Salem, N. C , was
established in 1894 by R. J. Bowen. The house is
strictly one-price and persistent advertising has made
it known to people beyond the confines of North
Carolina.
"The best stock of playerpianos and
player rolls in the South" is claimed by the active
store on Courthouse square.
Said of the Vicc-Pres. of the 0 R S Dc Vry Co.:
Albert N. Page, assistant treasurer and secretary
of the Q R S Co., Chicago, returned on Wednesday
morning from a trip to New York. He says the new
eastern factory of the company in the Bronx, New
York, is approaching completion. It will be under
roof by the end of the week. Nothing but good busi-
ness is looming up ahead of the Q R S Co.
Said of Gulbransen:
The Gulbransen-Dickinson Co., Chicago, gave each
of its employees a Christmas check, accompanied by
a Christmas and New Year card. The check and
card are shown in the accompanying engravings.
Said of a Present Day Live Piano and Radio
Manufacturing Concern:
The Jesse French & Sons Piano Co., New Castle,
Ind., is pushing preparations to vastly increase the
output of its factory in 1920. In the last six months
the output of the plant has doubled and it is planned
to continue this speeding up until a steady output,
double the size of the present, is established. Much
new machinery is being installed at the factory and a
Twenty Years Ago
Said of One of America's Good Pianos:
(From The Presto, January 13, 1910.)
Said of a House Greater Today Than in 1910:
Good fellowship and loyalty were expressed at the
banquet tendered last Thursday by the Cable-Nelson
Piano Co., to employees in the factory at South
Haven, Mich. South Haven is getting its money's
worth from the Cable-Nelson Piano Co., according to
the statement of Mayor Johnson at the banquet.
Said of the Present-Day Great House of Cable:
All the travelers of The Cable Co. were in Chicago
last week for a January round-up. They feel that a
good year's work is ahead of them in all territories.
Seme of them left Tuesday for their selling fields;
others left Wednesday.
Said of J. B. Thicry, Who Died at
Conn., Dc ember, 1929:
Hartford,
A change of much importance has just been effected
in Milwaukee. J. B. Thiery, who represented the
Kimball up to about four years ago when his mail
order business demanded his entire attention, has
again taken up this line and Andrews-Schubert &
Co., which succeeded him, will go out of business.
It is an item of general trade interest to notice
with what regularity of opinion dealers all over the
country advertise the Hobart M. Cable piano as
"Our Leader." That means something. It is sugges-
tive of the fact that real merit will win, and win
fast. Whether in large cit ; es or small, the result is
always the same. The dealers know that their trade
is helped by pushing a good line.
Said of a Well-Known Piano Man Who Passed
Away Last Month:
I. N. Rice is probably known as widely as any
piano man in this country. He has been a dealer, a
manufacturer, a general representative—the first of
the so-called "middle-men," we believe, and also a
traveler. He knows nearly all dealers of any im-
portance from Maine to California. He is fertile in
plans for promoting the piano trade and he has a
record for hustling and doing things that is better
than an ordinary fortune.
Said of Kohlcr-Cam-pbell Enterprises:
The John A. Jones Music Co., Huntington, W.
Va., advertise: "We want one hundred second hand
pianos."
As announced in a recent issue of The Presto,
Kohler & Campbell will soon commence the erection
of another big addit : on to their already immense plant
at the corner of Fiftieth street and Eleventh avenue,
New York. The new building will go up between
the present building and the river, facing on Fiftieth
street. It will cost $60,000 and will contain 75,000
square feet of floor space.
Said of Tzvo Present-Day
Chicago City Council:
Said of the Will of IV. W. Kimball, Deceased:
Said of a Live Piano House of That Time:
Celebrities in the
"The stout and stubby fingers of Aid. John J.
Coughlin are to be taught to pick their way over the
fretted neck of a 'swell' gu'tar presented to him by
his loving friend, Michael Kenna."
Said of a Dealer Still in Business:
The winner of the North Pole puzzle of J. D.
Pope's piano store at Little Rock, Ark., was N. C.
Withrow, 209 West Tenth street, Little Rock. Mrs.
S. J. Farmer, 1110 Thayer avenue, Little Rock, was
second best; and Miss Helen Perkins, 3122 West
Fourteenth street, third.
Said of One Who Is Still Working at the Same
Place:
Edwin G. Tonk of William Tonk & Bro., is making
a trip among the New England trade of that firm, and
advices received from him show that the trade in
that section is in the market for instruments, par-
ticularly player pianos, for which he has booked a
large number of orders.
Oscar J. Wigell has purchased the sheet music
business and also the fixtures of the store of Harry
Rawson on North Wyman street, Rockford, 111. The
Rawson stock will be added to that in the Wigell
store on West State street within a few days.
The New York Mail doesn't give its authority for
the following figures: "New York manufactured
sixty-one per cent of all the p ! anos turned out this
year in the United States, its greatest business being
in the high-grade instruments; which brings the value
of the city's piano output up to 70 per cent of the
country's production."
The testator left to his brother, David W. Kimball,
Wentworth, Iowa, $20,000; to another brother, Virgil
D. Kimball, $20,000; to a sister, Lucy Ann Lufkin,
Rumford, Me., $20,000; and to another sister, Eliza-
beth Gleason, Mexico, Me., $20,000. Provision to the
extent of $10,000 is also made for the benefit of the
widow and children of Mrs. Gleason's son, Harry
Gleason. Twenty thousand dollars is left to Columbia
Kimball, Rumford, Me., a sister of the testator, and
to Virgil W. Kimball, now of Chicago, and son of
the testator's nephew, are bequeathed 200 shares of
the capital stock of the Kimball Company, to be de-
livered to him when he reaches the age of 21. To
each of the nephews and nieces not otherwise pro-
vided for, the testator leaves $10,000. All the rest of
the estate is to go in equal shares to the widow, Eva
Salisbury, Curtis Kimball and Wallace Lufkin. The
will is dated Jan. 30, 1902, and names the nephew,
Curtis N. Kimball, as executor.
Said of One of America's Leading Pianos:
The latest Mathushek envelope slip to arrive at
The Presto office from The Mathushek Piano Manu-
facturing Co., New Haven, Conn., reads as follows:
"The Mathushek piano from a standpoint of durabil-
ity, coupled with the highest excellence in every de-
tail of material, construction and finish, has no equal
in the world. The richness and beauty of tone and
sympathetic responsive action have won the admira-
t ; on and approval of the highest musical authorities.
It is one of the very few pianos in the country made
wholly in its own factory."
A. Arnold, the world-renowned tone regulator of
the Steinway piano, came with Paderewski to care
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