Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
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THE: MUSIC TRADE
EDWARD LYMAN BILL, - Editor and Proprietor
J. B. SPILLANE, Managing Editor
Executive and Reportorial Stall:
GEO. B. KEI.LEK.
L. K. IiowKiis.
\V. N. TYI.KU.
W M . H. W H I T E .
BOSTON O F F I C E :
E R N E S T L. W A I T T , lTIJ Treraont St.
K. II. Tiiiuii'SuN.
K M I I . I E F R A N C E S RAVKK.
L. J . CIIAMHKHI-IN.
A. J . N I C K I . I N .
~~
CHICAGO O F F I C E :
E. I". VAN HARI.INGKN, l.'Hi'i Monadnook Rlock.
T E L E P H O N E S : H a r r i s o n 1521 ; A u t o m a t i c 12904.
PHILADELPHIA OFFICE: MINNEAPOLIS and ST. PAUL: ST. LOUIS OFFICE:
It. \V. KAVFFMAN.
I',. ('. ToititKY
("HAS. N. VAN IH'REN.
SAN FRANCISCO OFFICE: AI.FKEH METZGER, 4'2. r >-427 Front St.
CINCINNATI, O . :
at tlie A'ew York
Post
Office as Second Class
Matter.
S U B S C R I P T I O N , ( i n c l u d i n g postage), United States, Mexico, a n d Canada, ?2.00 per
y e a r ; all other countries, $4.00.
ADVERTISEMENTS, £"-'.00 per inch, single column, per insertion.
On quarterly or
yearly contracts n special discount is allowed. Advertising Pages, $50.00; opposite
reading matter, ifT.I.OO.
REMITTANCES, in other t h a n currency form, should be made payable to Edward
Lvmau Hill.
D i r e c t o r y of P i a n o
~~
"
The directory of piano manufacturing firms and corporations
found on another page will be of great value, a s a reference
Manufacturers
f 01 . ( i<> a i e rs and others.
LONG DISTANCE TELEPHONE—NUMBER 1745 GRAMERCY
NEW
Y ORK,
DECEMBER 3 0 , 1 9 0 5
FT1ITORIAI
T
HE curtain is about to fall upon 1905, for to-day marks the
last business day of the old year. It is therefore fitting to
take a few retrospective glances at the year which ranks as the
banner one in music trade history.
The first of the year trade languished somewhat in various
lines, and it was not until the early fall months when business began
to go forward in leaps and bounds and the productive capacity of
factories in every line was thoroughly tested. The last half of
the year has brought up the average of business, so that, as a whole,
1905 will take rank as the best year which this country has ever
seen for the music trade industry. There has been a life and buoy-
ancy to trade which has been pleasing alike to manufacturer and
dealer. Sales have been readily made, and there is no reason to
question the continuance of the present good times.
I
N many respects the retail business has been run along cleaner
lines than ever before. Piano merchants have been so busy
that they have had little or no time to bother with the affairs of
their neighbors, and, as a result, many of the disagreeable features
of retailing have been completely eliminated, and it is not probable
that they will return in the immediate future, unless trade should
slump very materially, which is not now apparent.
Instances have been rare indeed where dealers have secured
instruments controlled by their competitors and have used them as
weapons to annihilate competing instruments.
There is less inclination on the part of piano men to follow
this demoralizing plan than formerly, and there is, too, a greater
difficulty in securing the instruments required to carry on a reputa-
tion-slashing campaign.
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their liberal expenditures in printers' ink that they recognize adver-
tising as a great factor in trade-getting.
LL of this widespread advertising has benefited every piano
concern in this country, for it has kept pianos prominently
before millions of people whose attention would not have otherwise
been called to the importance of pianos and the necessity of having
them in their homes, and if our piano men continue to pursue a
liberal policy in the publicity department they will benefit materially
by their outlay.
When people become impressed with the fact that a piano is an
actual necessity in their home, it means that the possibilities of
distribution are ever widening, and we owe much to the great
houses who have inaugurated active and varied campaigns by which
the attention of the people has been called to the merits of particular
instruments.
A
N I N A P I C;H S M I T H .
Published Every Saturday at 1 Madison Avenue, New York
Entered
REVIEW
HERE is no year, too, in which advertising has played a more
important part in the development of trade than the one now
closing. Advertising has been conducted along better and more
progressive lines and manufacturers and dealers have recognized
the impelling strength which it possesses for trade and industry.
The leading magazines have contained some interesting work, pre-
pared by representatives of some of the more important piano
houses, and millions of people have thus become acquainted with
the special claims put forth by the various manufacturers. The
local papers in the more important cities, too, have contained the
business advertisements of leading houses, who have shown through
I
T is all helpful to the entire music trade industry, and if
piano advertisers were to drop out of the papers and magazines
to-morrow, the loss would be tremendous and would be felt by every
dealer in every city and hamlet in the land. A business that is
worth keeping up is worth advertising, and the people must be
interested in particular wares in order to purchase them.
If the bicycle manufacturers in this country had continued
advertising liberally, undoubtedly the sale of wheels would have
continued to be very large, for in England they have recently
demonstrated the power of advertising in resuscitating a defunct
industry. The bicycle manufacturers in that country started in
early this year upon an advertising campaign which involved
millions. At that time the sale of wheels practically ceased, and
through the influence of liberal advertising they not only pumped
new life into a dead industry, but they made it the liveliest kind of a
corpse. As a result of their work, the bicycle factories have been
working day and night in various parts of England to supply the
demand for wheels, and the same results could be achieved in this
country, if manufacturers would only take the same view of the
situation.
I
N the piano trade the advertising force is tremendous, and in no
way has it been better illustrated than in the enormous increase
in the demand for player-pianos.
What has brought about th'is wonderful interest manifested by
the public in what we colloquially term the player-piano? The
name itself is an absurdity, but, passing that by, the inside player
has sold many a piano this year, and it was not through the sales-
man or dealer who first called the attention of the purchaser to its
possibilities, but it was through the columns of advertising mediums
that the people first became acquainted with the wonderful powers
of this new claimant for public patronage.
S
UPPOSE all of the manufacturers were to drop advertising
the player-piano. Would its sales diminish?
That hardly expresses it: they would simply fall with a dull,
heavy and sickening thud, and we might repeat a former statement:
if a business is worth anything, it is worth exploiting, and it is
simply the concentrated essence of all the advertising which has
helped to make the piano business the most profitable in the history
of this industry.
S far as money making is concerned, there are many of the
manufacturing houses whose profits wil be less this year than
some previous years.
This unsatisfactory condition is brought about through the
rising tide of cost in everything which enters into piano construc-
tion. For the year now drawing to a close will go down in the
history of this trade and of all trades as one of high raw materials.
Other periods have witnessed the prevalence of still higher figures
for some commodities, but there has never been a year in which
there has been such an increase in the prices of all raw materials.
Take the cost of boxing pianos—and every dealer does not
order in carload lots.—the cheapest kind of lumber out of which
piano boxes are made has gone up materially in price and cuts a
large item in cost to-day, and some of the finest woods have
advanced very materially. The same with all of the principal
articles which figure in piano making.
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