Presto

November, 1930
P R E S T 0-T I M E S
ISSUED THE
FIFTEENTH IN EACH
MONTH
FRANK D. ABBOTT
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
The American Music Trade Journal
-
-
Editor
Telephones, Local and Long Distance, Harrison 0234.
Private Phones to all Departments. Cable Address (Com-
mercial Cable Co.'8 Code), " P R E S T O , " Chicago.
Entered as second-class matter Jan. 29, 1896, at the
Post Office, Chicago, 111., under Act of March 3, 1879.
Subscription, $1.25 a year; 6 months, 75 cents; foreign,
$3.00. Payable in advance. No extra charge in United
States possessions, Cuba and Mexico. Rates for adver-
tising on application.
PRESTO PUBLISHING CO.
Publishers
417 So. Dearborn St.
Chicago, 111.
Items of news and other matter are solicited and if of
general Interest to the music trade will be paid for at
space rates. Usually piano merchants or salesmen in the
smaller cities are the best occasional correspondents, and
their assistance is invited.
lieation day to insure preferred position. Full page dis-
play copy should be in hand three days preceding publi-
cation day. Want advertisements for current issue, to
insure classification, should be in three days in advance
of publication.
Payment is not accepted for matter printed in the edi-
torial or news columns of Presto-Times.
Where half-tones are made the actual cost of produc-
tion will be charged if of commercial character or other
than strictly news interest.
When electrotypes are sent for publication It is re-
quested that their subjects and senders be carefully indi-
cated.
Forms close at noon three days preceding- date of pub-
lication. Latest news matter and telegraphic communica-
tions should be in not later than 11 o'clock on that day.
Advertising copy should be in hand four days before pub-
Address all communications for the editorial or business
departments to PRESTO PUBLISHING CO., 417 South
Dearborn Street. Chicago, III.
The last form of Presto-Times goes to press at 11 a. m.
three days preceding publication day. Any news trans-
piring after that hour cannot be expected in the current
issue. Nothing received at the office that is not strictly
news of importance can have attention after 9 a. m. of
that date. If they concern the interests of manufactur-
ers or dealers such items will appear the issue following.
CHICAGO, ILL., NOVEMBER, 1930
The phonograph, which was never wholly eclipsed
but was partially obscured by the radio, is again
emerging into full splendor. This is due in part to
manufacturing the new records from durium. Radio
manufacturers who observe the rejuvenation of the
talking machine are adding combination phonograph
radio sets to their line, and phonograph manufacturers
are once more optimistic.
* * *
Two outstanding lines of musical instrument man-
ufacture have come together and produced the com-
paratively new combination instrument, the radio-
phonograph. In other words, the phonograph has
taken on radio and the radio has taken on the phono-
graph. For bringing radio to the phonograph the
Capehart Corporation at Fort Wayne, Ind., has done
wonders, and this development has but fairly begun.
Presto-Times has frequently referred to the success
of certain lines of automatic self-playing instruments
and remarked that all this business has come to cer-
tain leading manufacturers. It is noticeable that some
firms in this line that were earlier in the field have
not, for some reason, pushed forward to the high
position that could have been attained, while a few
later entrants in the race, such as the Capehart Cor-
poration, have been winners. This concern, located
at Fort Wayne, less than 200 miles from Chicago,
has had a vigorous growth that is little short of ex-
traordinary. Its further growth is now assured for the
reason that the automatic phonograph combination is
a leading factor in building increased profits for deal-
ers through the sale of records.
* * *
In a recent by-talk among a group of four men in
the Piano Club of Chicago, Paul B. Klugh, vice-
president and general manager of the Zenith Radio
Corporation, said that one of his greatest comforts
was in playing his beloved piano, as he put it, at home.
Mr. Klugh was listened to with attention, for this
admission was coming from a man who, now promi-
nent in radio, was also for many years closely asso-
ciated and keenly interested in the automatic and
self-playing departments of piano production. At the
same time, word came from Burley B. Ay res, former
advertising manager of the American Steel & Wire
Co., that he, at 72 years of age, is now taking a fresh
course of lessons in piano playing, probably brushing
up on some special technique in favorite compositions
of the masters. One of the quartet referred to the
piano playing of Charles M. Schwab, the steel mag-
nate, telling how much this man of affairs enjoyed
playing on his favorite instrument, the piano, and
another quoted Ralph Mojeska, the great bridge
builder, as follows: "The human engine, like any other
engine, requires a safety valve. My personal safety
valve is the piano. I play two hours every day of my
life. It is the best nerve tonic I know."
* * * *
The New York Times says: "One American is a
salesman; two Americans make a real estate develop-
ment; three Americans make a boosters' club." To
which Presto-Times begs pardon for adding: One
piano man rings a doorbell; two piano men travel
from coast to coast; three piano men conduct a big
piano factory.
* * * *
In the plurality of upwards of 720,000 which swept
James Hamilton Lewis into the United States senate
from Illinois at the election this month, he was un-
doubtedly helped by quite a few votes from mem-
bers of the Piano Club of Chicago, for he was one
of the most entertaining speakers the club has had
this year. His subject at the club luncheon about
two months ago was "Four Great Panics," and he
handled the panics of 1873, 1893, 1907 and what he
termed the "present depression" without referring to
his campa : gn, but with the rare skill of a polished
orator whose rounded periods were gems of belles-
lettres.
THE OUTLAWRY OF PESSIMISM
Pessimism, such as has been spreading over the world since the Wall Street panic of a
little more than a year ago, always looks for a sympathetic listener to whine to, and the more
sympathetic the listener is the darker will be the shadow cast on the listener's displeased
countenance. Pessimists, like professional street beggars, are a confounded nuisance, poking
their annoying whines at busy people who are making the world go around and lowering
their own outlook on some things to the gutter. The only question that can interest the pes-
simist is "How much worse can I paint the picture—where can I daub more mud upon it?" It
becomes inconceivable to such an individual that conditions are on the mend—as they certainly
are—whether he be inclined to assent to them or not, and that he is a goose barnacle clinging
to the bottom of the ship of progress persistently sticking to it, to its hindrance to moving for-
ward. There are only a few piano pessimists, and these have been poking fun at the trade in
a humorous way, so that with the improvement in trade, they are coming back into the tent,
jokingly remarking that it has stopped raining outside. Others who showed their ignorance
of true conditions were two or three so-called columnists—mere space-writers—who chose
the piano as an ideal target at which to shoot their forlorn apprehensions in coined phrases
of misinformation. When such marplot work did not create the excitement it invited, the
busybody columnists retired from the piano field, and little or nothing has been heard out of
them since in the direction of the piano industry and trade ; but. on the contrary, when they
speak at all it is rather favorably than unfavorably of music trade conditions.
* * * *
PROSPECTING THE JUNE CONVENTION
Sensible measures are being used by President Otto H. Heaton. Secretary Delbert L. Loo-
mis and several other co-workers in the piano industry and trade to make the joint conven-
tions of the piano business at Chicago next June a success—socially, entertainingly, finan-
cially and educationally. The Piano Club of Chicago has joined in the movement in a fore-
most way by assuming responsibility for the local arrangements and what not else, while
Delbert Loomis is to be in direct charge of general arrangements and the handling of a vast
amount of details. The ablest of committees will be appointed, covering the complexity of
the separate interests, and it is assumed that necessary conditions imply the aid of everybody
in the music business as co-agents to help gather a crowd. Mr. Loomis and Mr. Heaton are
capable of sending out letters very striking and exceedingly to the purpose of arousing keen
interest in the convention and these will get into general circulation in various ways, includ-
ing publication in the trade press. Sincere and perfectly definite statements as to the advan-
tages and pleasures of the convention will appear in these letters. And as for the Piano
Club—anybody who knows the history of that club, knows that it never does anything by
halves !
* * * *
NEW PIANO TRADE PAYS BEST
By neglecting to pay chief attention to dealing in new pianos and by putting their main
efforts in at handling second-hand instruments, some of the piano dealers in the last two years
have "fallen down" almost into the basement. Such dealers have forced second-hand piano
sales to the exclusion of new instrument trade which could have been had for the asking, in
the opinion of many' piano manufacturers. However, many of these dealers have practically
sold out their used instruments, and now there is a shortage of pianos on many floors. Reports
of this sort are verified by such traveling representatives as R. A. Burke, of the Story &
Clark Piano Co., Frank M. Hood, of the Schiller Piano Co.: James Wibley, of the Thayer
Action Co.; Henry Hewitt, of the M. Schul/. Co.; Hen M. Strub of the Mathushek Piano Co..
and Gordon Laughead and J. C. Henderson of the Wurlitzer Co. A story in this issue of Presto-
Times of the great success recently achieved by Charles H. Spencer of Kvanston, 111., and his son
in selling new pianos shows that trade in new goods is there for the workers who will assume an
arduous position and go after it. Too many merchants allow a general reactionary disposition to
control their minds, instead of taking the shorter but ruggeder route of going right after
the customer. Such men use a code no longer workable, and it is hard for them to rise
above their prejudices and prepossessions, that are unworthy of preservation. They ought
to realize that to a new truth there is nothing more hurtful than an old error. The
more successful dealer is quicker to realize that a merchant is getting training all his life,
and that the usual spurring motives of twenty years ago work well only when applied'in
the 1930 way.
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/