Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
REVIEW
EDWARD LYMAN DILL.
Editor and Proprietor.
J. B. SPILLANE. Managing Editor.
EXECUTIVE STAFF:
THOS. CAMPBELL-COPELAND,
A. EDMUND HANSON,
BOSTON OFFICE :
W. MURDOCH LIND, 694 Tremont St.
GKO. B. KELLER,
A. J. NICKLIN,
EMILIE FRANCKS BAUER
GBO. W. QUERIPKL.
CHICAGO OFFICE:
E. P. VAN HARLINGEN, 36 La Salle St,
PHILADELPHIA OFFICE:
ST. LOUIS OFFICE:
R. W. KAUFPMA::.
CHAS. N. VAN BUBBN.
Published Every Saturday at 1 Madison Avenue, New York.
Entered at the New York Post Office as Second Class Matter.
SUBSCRIPTION including postage), United States, Mexico and Canada, $2.00 per
year; all other countries, $4.00.
ADVERTISEMENTS, $2.00 per inch, single column, per insertion. On quarterly or
yearly contracts a special discount is allowed. Advertising Pages $50.00; opposite reading
matter, $75.00.
REMITTANCES, in other than currency form, should be made payable to Edward
I.yrnan Bill.
THE ARTISTS'
DEPARTMENT
On the first Saturday of each month The Review contains in its
"Artists' Department" all the current musical news. This is effected
without in any way trespassing on the size or service of the trade
section of the paper. It has a special circulation, and therefore aug-
ments materially the value of The Review to advertisers.
niB FT TOR Y n f PIANO
u
iwiiFArTim r i c
MANUFACTURERS
The directory of piano manufacturing firms and corporations
o n
P a other*.
* c 81 w i U b e o f g r c a t v a l u e a s a reference for
dealers and
found
LONG DISTANCE TELEPHONE-NUMBER 1745 GRAMERCY.
NEW YOMl, JANUARY SO. 19O4.
EDITORIAL
H P HE reports which have been made to this office from various
*
sections of the country concerning trade are not only encour-
aging, but they are of a decidedly optimistic turn.
Of course there are localities where special conditions ha\e
created a temporary setback, mill operators for instance being unem-
ployed, coal miners and railroad men being dropped to reduce the
pay roll. These cases, however, are only sporadic in the East,
where conservatism is always more in evidence than in the younger
and more buoyant sections.
It is but natural to expect this condition in the old populated
districts and then that section of the country east of the Alleghenies
has suffered chiefly from the decline in securities of various kinds.
UT piano men in this section are not in the slightly depressed;
on the contrary, their expressions to us are full of reasonable
hope. After all, few enterprises have been delayed or abandoned,
and those that have been halted are to be started up in the near
future. Bank deposits have lessened to a depreciable extent in some
quarters, but in others they show no falling off.
have sent in goodly orders. The general outlook there is bright,
and the future is regarded as more than encouraging. The opening
up of Oriental trade is doing much to benefit that section of the
country and the piano dealers have shared in the general prosperity
with others on the Pacific Slope.
H P HE Southern trade has taken on a new color, for in the South
* a new day has dawned. The unusual amount of money put
into circulation by the unprecedented rise in the price of cotton will
benefit not only those sections in which the fibre is produced, but
localities that are dependent for their wealth on the demand for food
products, for fertilizers and other supplies.
The distributing centers will share in this prosperity, the more
so as a greater percentage of business than at any previous period
will be transacted on a cash basis.
EO. P. BENT, that virile and energetic piano manufacturer,
cracked a good nugget of wisdom at the Chicago banquet
when he said: "The worst and the hardest competitors any of us
have either in the wholesale or retail trade are the firms who do not
pay their bills. The honest man who pays his debts fully cannot
compete with the man who fails to do so."
There is reason and logic in that statement, and the man who
pays one hundred cents on the dollar for his wares suffers from the
unjust competition of the man who pays only a few cents on the
dollar, and sometimes none.
*"T"*HERE is another kind of competition to be met by the piano
*
dealers who meet their obligations fairly. They suffer from
the unfair competition of those who sell goods without a profit and
then ask the manufacturers to accept such prices for their wares
which only should be quoted to the man with gilt edged credit. The
mistake is not all on the side of the man who fails to pay the hun-
dred cents, but some of the blame is in permitting a man who is
utterly unworthy of credit to become a debtor for a large amount.
It is one of the astonishing features of the piano trade in some
sections that men, however unworthy of credit, can open a store
and gather in an extraordinary array of pianos without any founda-
tion for credit.
XT OW, the manufacturers who sell this class of men are largely
•*• ^ to blame for this condition. On many occasions we have
known of liberal credits granted to men at the head of some piano
institutions who were surprisingly lacking in all business assets.
This leads us to ask: Why will a firm ship thousands of dollars
worth of goods to men to whom they wouldn't loan a hundred
dollars cash?
A MANUFACTURER not only imperils his own business by
Now in the West there is really an optimistic sentiment ex-
* * keeping a disreputable class of men supplied with goods, but
pressed by many piano merchants. The general welfare of the
he seriously injures the dealer, who is doing business in a creditable
people is increased, and the farmers are richer than ever. The
manner, getting a fair price for his instruments and building up
manufacturing and commercial interests are in splendid condition,
trade in a way that entitles him to a fair consideration and a splendid
and when we figure that nearly fifty thousand pianos were produced
line of credit. It is no kindness to a man to give him credit when
in Chicago last year, it shows the trade to be in a particularly
his business methods are such that make success impossible.
healthy condition in that locality.
When a man asks for credit he should have a foundation for it.
He should have that best asset of all—character. Lax credit rules
N the far Northwest and on the Pacific slope correspondents in-
are an injury to every honest man in the business. Sometimes piano
form us conditions are even better; in fact some of the piano
men make mountains out of molehills and chase a fancied evil, that
men who have visited those States shortly after the first of January,
I