Classic Mode

Presto

Issue: 1933 2269

Jan.-Feb., 1933
PRESTO-TIMES
ACTIVITIES IN RETAIL TRADE
NEW OFFICIALS OF WERLEIN
Paul S. Felder Elected President.
Paul S. Felder, who was elected president of Philip
Werlein Ltd., to succeed the late J. Parham Werlein,
says that there will be no change in the company's
business policy. The same business principles that
were carried on by Mr. Werlein will be continued.
Prominently identified in civic circles of New Or-
leans, Mr. Felder is treasurer of the New Orleans
Chapter of the American Red Cross and vice-presi-
dent of the Retailers' Credit Bureau. A native of
South Carolina, he has been a resident of New Or-
leans since 1905. Before joining Werlein's he was
special agent of Firemen's Fund Insurance Company
for Louisiana and Mississippi.
The post left vacant by Mr. Felder will be filled
by George Jeunesse. Established in 1842, Philip
Werlein, Ltd., is considered the oldest music store in
the South. Mr. Felder is familiar with every depart-
ment of the 90-year-old organization. His home is at
1528 Nashville avenue.
P. M. HARRIS GENERAL MANAGER
The new general manager of this great music
house, Parker M. Harris, is one of the most ener-
getic of the city's younger business men, and for
ten years was sales manager of this institution. He
was also manager of the Music Shop for a number of
years. He went to New Orleans from Chicago 15
years age where he w r as general manager of a large
music house. He has taken an active part in the civic
affairs of New Orleans. He lives at 7514 Hampson
street, that city.
"We are planning no new policies," he said. "We
are going to work hard and carry on the same policies
that were identified with our late president, Parham
Werlein. His spirit will animate the store."
Mr. Harris and Paul S. Felder, elected president
of the firm recently, have grown up with the organiza-
tion and become thoroughly imbued with the tradi-
tions and establishments of this house which stretches
back over 90 years of New Orleans history.
In a reference to the new head of Philip Werlein,
Ltd., New Orleans, La., Paul S. Felder, who has
been connected with the house since 1917, the New
Orleans "States" daily paper says that in the past
fifteen years he has learned the deep-rooted policies
of this 90-year-old company, and announces that the
same policies, as carried on by the late J. Parham
Werlein, will be continued. Mr. Felder is treasurer
of the New Orleans Chapter of the Red Cross, vice
president of the Retailers' Credit Bureau and promi-
nent in civic work.
OFFER FOR FREE PIANO GETS A PECK
OF REPLIES
Recently the Hammond (Ind.) Times published a
notice on offering an upright piano free, "for hauling
it away."
Then followed a climax concerning which the Times
announced, "The great piano siege of the times is
over. More than 350 applicants applied for the piano.
It turned out to be a grocer who offered the piano
and concerning the result the same paper says: "But
it shows something. There's still a demand for
pianos—if the price is low enough. There are still
children of musical tendencies who are not having
the opportunity to develop their talents because they
can't skirmish up the price of a piano.''
And adds this to the statement: "Many of those
who telephoned after the piano had been disposed of,
said they were able to pay a small sum for the instru-
ment. You might be able to sell yours. But that's
a matter between you and the advertising depart-
ment."
A SPLENDID SHOWING
Business with the Binion-Stocker Music Company,
Monett, Missouri, for January showed an increase
of 33% over the business for the preceding month,
December, and February is doing well. "Hard work
and enthusiasm are the best weapons with which to
fight the depression, at least, all our salesmen have
found them to be," said Mr. Binion. The Binion-
Stocker Company now maintain branch stores at
Galena, Crane and Marionville, Missouri.
THE NEW WURLITZER MANAGER AT
CHICAGO
A. L. Owen, well-known figure in the western
music trade and who has been the manager of the
Wurlitzer Music House at St. Louis for several years
past, took his new position as manager of the Chi-
cago branch of Wurtlitzer the first week in February.
NEW FIRMS, CHANGES, REORGANIZATIONS
PICK=UPS
French's, Inc., capital stock listed $5,000, at Mont-
gomery, Ala., has been incorporated in a new Ala-
bama incorporation. The officers and stockholders
are Willie S. Yougene, Jr., president; S. N. French,
Vice President; T. A. Lambert, Secretary and Treas-
urer.
Oscar Overby's Music Store, at Eau Claire, Wis-
consin, was recently damaged by fire so that Mr.
Overby is now in line for a "damaged by fire" sale.
Incorporation papers have just been issued for the
Automatic Musical Instrument Company, 2553 Calu-
met avenue, Chicago. There are 400 shares no par
value common stock and the incorporators are E. E.
Rulman, S. S. Clark and N. A. Vanopstall. This
business seems to be associated with the Grand
Rapids, Michigan, concern of the same name, located
at 1500 Union avenue, S. E., Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Philip Paul Bliss, son of the late P. P. Bliss, song
writer and singer with Moody-Sanky, recently died
at Owego, New York.
Charles Frederick Stein, manufacturer of the piano
bearing his name, is not only active from morn till
night at his factory when in Chicago, but does a
good deal of work "out in the field" of dealers. Just
recently he took a motor bus for Peoria at night,
closed a fine deal in that city and at another point
the next day, motored back to Chicago that night
and was busy in piano construction by eight-thirty the
next morning. Good, live activity this, and profitable.
David Daniels, a well-known Wheeling, West Vir-
ginia musician, has opened a music store at his new
location, 1514 Market street, that city. This store
has been fitted up as an up-to-date modern establish-
ment and is known as the Daniels Music House,
christened by a grand reception and musicale.
The Jamison Music Store, which for several years
was located at 509 Broadway, Logansport, Indiana,
has taken new quarters at 315 Fifth street, opposite
the Paramount Theater in that city. Arthur Jamison,
manager, announces that the same service to musi-
cians and lovers of music will be accorded in the new
location.
Chester Rice of the Joe McDaniel Music Company,
Columbus, Ohio, is doing a good deal of song writ-
ing these days. Mr. Rice is the composer of several
real "song hits." One of them, "In Our Little Home,
Sweet Home," has been recorded by the Columbia
Phonograph Company, and another one, "I Am
Thinking of You," has become popular.
The Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Gazette in a recent issue
gives a writeup of the Waite Music Company, a
business which has been located at 225 Third street,
that city, for about two scores of years. References
to the Waite Music Company in the newspapers of
that section of the state are always of a high charac-
ter and always refer to the progressive spirit of the
business which is one of the leading houses of Iowa.
The Clark Orchestra Roll Company, DeKalb, Illi-
nois, continue to get out an up-to-date list of music
rolls and they are having a very good sale on the 65-
note rewind rolls for electric pianos. Evidently the
Clark Orchestra Roll establishment takes the lead in
rolls for electric and playerpianos.
The Arcadia Music Shop, formerly located at 17
Arcade. Nashville, Tenn., has moved to a more con-
venient location at 21 Arcade.
The M. P. Moeller Music Store of Hagerstown,
Maryland, has moved from a location which it had
occupied almost from the time the business was
started over fifty years ago to a more central location
at 66 West Antietam street.
By the way, the Moeller Music Company have been
selling some of the Gulbransen spinet reed organs,
the little five-octave instrument, with one set of reeds,
originated by Mr. A. G. Gulbransen.
R. B. Oslund, the active music dealer of Spokane,
Washington, had added to his fame the starting of
a suburban community to be known as "Oslund City,"
a locality where it is said the automobile speed limit
has been placed at seventy-five miles per hour. Mr.
Oslund himself is an enthusiastic motorist and when
he motors to Chicago seventy-five miles an hour is
not an unusual gait for him to keep up for hours at
a time. Success and our best regards to hustler
Oslund!
The Huntington Piano Company factory at Shel-
ton-Derby, Conn., which was one of the lively loca-
tions of piano manufacturing in the active days of
this industry, has been swept by fire and therefore is
"no more" in the absolute and entire meaning of the
term.
The Paramount Music Company, Charlotte, N. C,
say they are assured of a better trade for the spring
of 1933 than they had a year ago. In fact, sales have
shown improvement since Christmas.
The Jardine Music Store, Red Oak. Iowa, has
moved to its new location, 412 Coolbaugh street.
George Riddle, well-known piano-accordion expert,
is now with Heaton's Music Store, Columbus, Ohio.
The Sampson Music Company of Boise, Idaho, has
given up its branch store at Weiser, Idaho, but con-
tinues to keep a stock of pianos and other instruments
at that place with Edward Smith as agent.
Mr. Phillips of the D. Z. Phillips Music Company.
Pueblo, Okla., who was recently reelected president
of this business, says that they are planning for an
"intensive sales program for 193'3." Mr. Phillips also
says that efforts will be put forth to renew and de-
velop interest in piano study.
The National Musical String Company, New Bruns-
wick, has leased a large part of its plant to two indus-
trial concerns of that city.
Solar's Music House, Inc., 3215 West 26th street,
Chicago, has decreased its capital stock from $100,000
to $5,000.
The Brooks, Mays & Co. store at 128 South Grand
street, Monroe, La., maintains a first class piano re-
pair shop, which department is in charge of Max
Kulke, an experienced and expert piano maker who
served his apprenticeship in Berlin, Germany.
SCHMOLLER & MUELLER CELEBRATE
REMOVAL
The Schmoller & Mueller Piano Company and the
Fred J. Schamp Music Company, Sioux City, Iowa,
recently celebrated the removal of the Schmoller &
Mueller Company's headquarters from 413 Nebraska
street to 414 Pierce street, that city. An evening
of cards and dancing, concluded with serving of a
buffet lunch, was enjoyed.
FOR ATTENTION OF MUSIC PUBLISHERS
AND COMPOSERS
The house of Otto Zimmerman & Son, Inc., Cin-
cinnati, is recognized as leaders in music publication,
printing and engraving.
Composers having in mind publishing their own
compositions, as well as music publishing houses, will
do well to get in touch with this important music en-
graving house. Their rates are liberal, in fact with
their immense facilities they are able to make prices
at the lowest possible rate for first-class work.
Presto-Times is quite familiar with thfe work turned
out by the house of Zimmerman & Son and can cheer-
fully recommend them to publishers and composers.
MR. TERRILL'S GENUINE FIRE SALE
The recent "damaged-by-fire" sale at TerrilPs Mu-
sic House, Franklin, Ind., was a genuine sale of dam-
aged pianos, for the fire in the Terrill store was a
"hot" one and did a lot of real damage to about a
score of pianos. And another thing, the Terrills are
square and upright in their music business.
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).
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PRESTO-TIMES
PRESTO PUBLISHING CO.
Publishers
417 So. Dearborn St.
Chicago, 11L
ISSUED THE
FIFTEENTH OF
PUBLICATION MONTH
FRANK D. ABBOTT
Jan.-Feb., 1933
Editor
Telephones, Local and Long Distance, Harrison 0234.
Private Phones to all Departments. Cable Address (Com-
mercial Cable Co.'s Code), "PRESTO," Chicago.
Entered as second-class matter April 9, 1932, at the
Post Office at Chicago, 111., under act of March 3, 1879.
Subscription, $1.00 a year; 6 months, 60 cents; foreign,
$2.00. Payable in advance. No extra charge in United
States possessions, Cuba and Mexico. Rates for adver-
tising on application.
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.
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-
lication 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.
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, JAN.-FEB., 1933
A group of music trade men, mostly piano men, sat together at a recent music trade
gathering discussing, naturally, the trend of the times today and the bearing of the conditions
on the music business, a consensus of which remarks would be that:
There are today more families throughout the country, from coast to coast, without
In a lecture given at the annual meeting of the pianos than ever before. That:
Chicago Kiwanis Club, William M. Lewis, president
More old pianos are meeting home requirements than ever before. That there are:
of the La Fayette College, Easton, Pa., was telling
Fewer
families, newly married couples, and new homes pianoless today than ever before.
how a man out of work could improve his time by
study and research. He illustrated the point brought That:
out in his lecture by relating how the automatic musi-
More pianos have been taken back within the past three or four years, for non-payment,
cal instrument was popularized. Speaking of the in-
repossessions,
etc., than ever before in the history of the music trade.
vention of these automatic instruments he said: "It
was during a time of depression and this man got
These conditions, it was plainly shown, have produced more prospects for sales than ever
permission to use the workshop of a pipe organ fac- have existed before and the old pianos still being used are more junkable than ever before.
tory, which was idle. In six months he had perfected
All persons who go over the situation carefully these days invariably come to the conclu-
the idea of the automatic player."
The gentleman referred to was, of course, the late
sion that with the revival of better times, revival of employment, and some money coming in,
William B. Tremaine and the statement made is about there will be a golden era in the music trades and industries.
correct.
Our esteemed contemporary and the leading music
trade paper of Germany, "Zeitschrift Fur Instrumen-
tenban," published at Leipzig, in a set of illustrations
of piano trucks used for long distance delivery, is
shown the Steinway & Sons' truck from the Steinway
factory at Hamburg, Germany.
There has been a good deal of cutting out of branch
stores in the music business the past year. Generally
this change in the operation of moving of goods has
been the taking over by dealers generally of the con-
cerns which formerly represented the branch houses.
Notable among these discontinuances have been
the C. G. Conn Company's stores heretofore con-
ducted as branch stores. The W. W. Kimball Com-
pany have also given up most of their branch houses
and in some cases the former managers have become
local representatives.
Perhaps one hundred and fifty thousand pianos, old,
new and what-not, were sold during the past twelve
months, a statement that has not been satisfactorily
challenged, but what share of these sales was fac-.
tory output within the same period is also not clearly
defined. However, be these estimates as they may, it
is certain that the piano supply men have been sor-
rowing with harrowing tribulations these many days,
and the trade papers are among the mourners.
The New York Evening Journal recently gave a double column editorial to the interests of
piano music in the home. The subheading of this article was, "There should be some musical
instrument for every child." The piano was the main topic discussed, that instrument being
the foundation instrument or, as might be said, the master instrument of musical creation. The
Journal goes on to say that Henry Ford, who, himself, plays the violin, said, "Every child
should be taught to play some kind of musical instrument; merely to listen to music is not
enough; merely to enjoy it is not enough"; his idea being that one who plays an instrument
not only enjoys the music himself, but gives pleasure to listeners by really creating the music
he produces.
This Journal story goes on to say that, "A good piano"—and observe that the paper applies
the adjective "good" to the piano—"should be in the center of the family group." Around
this piano may be gathered other musical instruments to form a little band or miniature
orchestra. A photograph was reproduced with this story showing a distinguished British
family, each member playing an instrument. The picture is Lady Instone, who is at the piano,
and her five daughters with the eminent Sir Frederic Cowen as leader of this little band of
players.
The Journal editorial is, indeed, a beautiful tribute to the piano and to musical instru-
ments in the home.
tions by radio. Members of this society, however, MR. WRIGHT HERE AND MR. WRIGHT
reap their share of license fees paid for broadcasting
THERE
and, by the way, only persons who have written or
composed as many as five successful compositions are
Among the interesting visitors to Chicago recently
eligible for membership. The ban on copyrights was Mr. Leonard Wright, whose home is in Boston;
applies almost solely to musical compositions, prin- a son of A. M. Wright, at the head of the Mason &
cipally of so-called popular sheet music. The limiting Hamlin Company up to the time of its change of
There is inquiry in the trade and there seems to be, of productions of popular music has its advantages, ownership and close association with American Piano
really, some anxiety as to whether Steinway & Sons particularly as applied to semi-musical productions Company interests.
will put out a small grand piano. Nobody seems to where if the musical selections of such plays were
Mr. Wright, Jr., was the guest of members of the
be able to give a satisfactory reply to this inquiry, broadcast freely the music might become either worn Cable Piano Company at the annual Chicago Piano.
out
-V-
popularized
in
advance
of
future
stage
per-
but it can be safely stated that a smaller grand will
& Organ Association banquet in January. Speak-
not be placed on the market unless Steinway & Sons formances.
ing of his father, Mr. Wright says that he is still at
are absolutely sure that a smaller instrument than
his St. Petersburg, Fla., home, where he remains
their present 5 ft. 7 can be a perfect instrument and
each year up to about the first of May. Early in
give perfect satisfaction.
It has recently been made public that upwards of May Mr. and Mrs. Wright return to Boston and oc-
45,000 composers, authors and publishers of musical cupy their apartment there until the beginning of
works at home and abroad have made their compo- summer, when they go to the seashore, usually up
The same week that the Chicago Automobile Show sitions available to the American public through the Maine-way, for two or three months until late fall,
was held the daily papers reported that for that week American Society of Composers, Authors and Pub- then return to Boston and later to their Florida home
fifteen hundred tuild'ng permits were issued, a mere lishers. Foreign musical works cannot legally be at St. Petersburg, where they have been going each
bagatelle for ordinary times when oftentimes 50,000 used in the United States without license of copy- winter for the past ten years.
and more permits are issued.
right owner, the same as American songs cannot law-
Mr. Wright has become one of the best golf players
fully be used abroad without permission. All this in the St. Petersburg-Tampa district, and is so much
work of licensing song production by radio is done by occupied with his pastimes generally that he is quite
Through the American Society of Composers, Au- uniting with the Society's representatives. The rusty no music trade news and affairs, but when he
thors and Publishers, the members of this organiza- American Society, for instance, licenses the use in does chance to meet an old friend from the fra-
tion and, incidentally, some who are not members, this country of the music owned by members of all ternity "he has the time of his life," as Mr. Wright,
are able to regulate performances of their composi- the affiliated foreign societies.
Jr., says.
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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