Music Trade Review

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10
THE
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
TRADE OPINIONS ON GUESSING CONTESTS-Continued.
even teach the heretofore honest country dealer
how to "turn the trick"—how to swindle their
customers. Manufacturers started the game and
are at it still and are aiding and abetting it
among their agents to the very best of their
ability, though they know it is downright de-
ception and swindling. Such manufacturers and
dealers are absolutely without honor, except the
honor found among thieves. Before and after
the contest is over, these same pianos can be
bought in the open market in honest competition
with pianos of the same grade at one-half the
price made during the contest. We believe manu-
facturers and dealers practicing these contests,
these swindles upon the people, get to be known
as swindling concerns. We are told of a case
happening recently in the Twin Cities where a
customer of ours went to a so-called piano fac-
tory and was offered a certain piano at $200.
She then produced a "gold bond" and was told
that they could not accept that, that she would
have to go up to the store, so she went to their
store and was asked ?450 for the same piano
identically, and they would accept the "gold
brick" at $150, so you see she was to be deceived
and also swindled out of $100 besides. We can
tell of a large number of instances right in this
city where people have paid from $50 to $100
more for pianos after using the bogus due-bills,
checks, bonds or certificates. We have actually
known of a certain make of piano that was
valued at $375 in a contest being sold for $160
cash.
While these swindling concerns, both manu-
facturers and dealers, obtain a temporary finan-
cial gain, we believe the future loss is greater
than the gain, for it injures their reputation
greatly and of course hurts everybody in the
trade.
Newspaper men are easily convinced that they
are a party to a swindle in accepting and pub-
lishing contest ads. The writer saw personally
the heads of the advertising departments of all
the newspapers in this city, and as a result they
have ceased to accept this sort of advertising.
This can be done in every town in the United
States.
Contests in the piano business are a rank fraud
and should be put a stop to by every legitimate
means that can be thought of, and really people
who (practice these methods at disposing of
goods should be jailed.
"Productive of Great Evil."
EMERSON PIANO CO., Boston, Mass.
We thoroughly agree with you that the time
has come when all guessing contest schemes
should be completely eliminated from the piano
industry. The effect of such means is productive
of great evil, destroys the confidence of the
public at large, and is vitiating as regards price.
It seems so strange to us that piano dealers
should be continually ringing it into the ears of
their customers how cheap pianos can be bought
and never alluding to quality.
We have all along been bitterly opposed to the
guessing contest, coupon, picture-puzzle plans
and the thousand and one devious ways which
have been so illegitimate to impress the public.
And it seems still stranger to us that dealers
should believe they can influence people to be-
lieve that it is possible to secure something for
nothing.
"As Legitimate as Safe Blowing."
CRESSEY & A L L E N , Portland, Me.
I have read your very reasonable article on
prize contests and most heartily endorse its
sentiments. We are happy to say that we have
thus far been able to do a good legitimate and
satisfactory business without using any of this
sort of misleading advertising. It is just as
legitimate as safe-blowing, and the only real dif-
ference seems to be that the class of people that
get caught do not keep their money in safes, and
therefore this kind of blowing is omitted. Are
there as many pianos sold? Of course not. People
never are in a hurry to buy anything after their
confidence is shaken. They wait, and conse-
quently we wait. If dealers would only realize
how little time it takes to shake the confidence
of the public and how long a time it takes to re-
gain it, they would be more cautious about em-
ploying fake methods. Confidence Is the great-
est asset we have in our business, and to retain
it we must protect the public against such
frauds. Go on with your good work; we admire
you for it.
"Fraudulent and Misleading."
ROBT. L. LOUD, Buffalo, N. Y .
We have never conducted a contest or piano
club, neither have we believed in such schemes,
regarding them as fraudulent and misleading.
We deplore the fact that such business methods
have been associated with the selling of pianos
and player-pianos, considering on the contrary
that the individual members of the trade should
try to increase the confidence of the public rather
than shake it.
The elimination of these questionable methods
should have been undertaken when they first ap-
peared, but as "it is better late then never," 1
sincerely trust that the aggressive campaign you
are evidently going to begin will be fruitful of
good results, and I wish you every success and
feel that you should have the support of the
genteel element of the trade, which I believe
still exists.
Guessing contests have been quite rampant in
this territory in the past few years, but we be-
lieve they have lost their pull with the public
in this section. I think one of the surest ways
of eliminating this evil is to show the news-
papers throughout the country that it is their
duty to the trade at large to prohibit the use of
their columns for any such advertising.
"Schemes Tend to Demoralize."
T H E GUEST PIANO CO., Burlington, la.
Permit us to first congratulate you on the
stand you have taken in reference to prize puzzle
and coupon schemes of all kinds used in the
piano business. In our opinion, there is nothing
that will so demoralize the trade and bring it in
disrepute before the public as the continued prac-
tice of giving "prizes" for the solving of a puzzle
that the merest child can solve. Your editorial in
the Review of March 26th is right to the point,
and cannot help but have a good effect. It seems
to us it is absolutely necessary for the legiti-
mate piano dealers to take some conceited action
against certificate schemes of all kinds, if the
piano business is to be placed and kept on the
high plane where it belongs. Schemes of all
kinds tend to demoralize business, and experience
has shown as an actual fact that business is de-
moralized for months to come in communities
where these schemes are used. The houses that
do use them must continue to do so, and offer
larger and larger prizes in order to "stimulate"
business; just like a man taking morphine. He
feels good while he is under the effect of the
drug, but when it wears off, he immediately feels
the need of another stimulant of some kind to
keep him going. This house has, and will con-
tinue to oppose and discourage all kinds of il-
legitimate schemes. Music has been acknowl-
edged as one of the most potent factors in the
up-lift of mankind, and our every effort should
be in the direction of a higher standard of ethics
in the trade, and the elimination of all question-
able schemes. Count on us for anything that
will tend in this direction, and we wish you
success.
"The Men Who Are Back of Them."
BUSH & GERTS PIANO CO., Chicago.
I am decidedly of the opinion that you will
never reach or accomplish anything in regard to
the elimination of these schemes until you have
first reached the hearts and minds of the men
who are back of them and responsible for their
existence. Probably the very manufacturers and
dealers who are conducting these contests con-
sider the means to the end justifiable. There are
so many other things that have existed in the
piano trade for the past decade that are equally
reprehensible and it has become so common a
thing for piano dealers and manufacturers to
grasp at a possible means of increasing and dis-
posing of output, often regardless of the real
legitimacy of this means, that it has become more
or less chronic and permeates the entire trade to
such an extent that it is felt severely by those
who have held aloof from such methods and de-
pend upon straightforward, legitimate advertis-
ing and solicitation and other commendable
methods of selling pianos; but when you come
in contact with a man who apparently and con-
scientiously believes he is justified in running a
contest of whatsoever nature it may be, and feels
that he at least is pui suing a perfectly legitimate
cour;e from the fact that he has not advanced
his regular prices to meet the coupon or prize-
giving emergency, how are you going to reach
him or convince him that such methods lower
the general standard of the entire industry and
make it so difficult for others to eschew such
methods or hold aloof from them in the face of
the competition thus created and the number of
sales thus secured until one after another many
dealers, who, at first condemned, abused and vili-
fied the contest proposition as a whole, have
been tempted or compelled to go into it either
in one manner or another, there being many
possibilities and almost unlimited range of these
various schemes for creating demand or pros-
pects or actual sales for pianos.
I attribute the present conditions to two prin-
cipal causes:—First: The unrestricted and un-
limited stenciling of pianos that makes it vir-
tually impossible to fix or maintain a standard
price or grade among the many nondescript
pianos thus turned out. Secondly: The failure
on the part of both manufacturers and dealers to
get together on a one-price system which shall be
a fair legitimate price representing actual value
no matter what the grade, name or reputation
of the piano may be.
If these two very important points—First: The
elimination of the stencil piano or at least a piano
without the factory name plainly cast in the
plate—Secondly: The establishment of a fair,
reasonable, legitimate scale of prices both a t
wholesale and retail upon all pianos manufactured
and bearing the manufacturer's name—could be
attained, then the conditions in the piano in-
dustry might become if not ideal at least toler-
able in place of it being almost intolerable, as
they are at the present time to those who are
possessed of naturally moral and honest instinct,
to be applied to all business, financial and com-
mercial transactions, and it depends upon how
large a percentage of just such men are repre-
sented in our great industry as to how soon such
a condition may be obtained through the influ-
ence that can be brought to bear upon those who
are not so discriminating or conscientious or par-
ticular as long as the game pays in dollars and
cents.
With best wishes, and hoping you will be able,
through the effort you are making, to secure a
formidable array of names of just such men
who are willing to come out openly, fairly and
squarely in defense of our great industry, and for
the betterment of the present conditions for the
elimination of these particular features to which
your editorial refers, believe me as ever.
Never Indulged in Guessing Contest."
SCHUMANN PIANO CO., Rockford, III.
Up to this time we have never indulged in
any guessing contests or any other scheme to
force the sale of tbe Schumann piano;neither have
we offered a piano at one price to-day and an-
other price to-morrow, or advertised our piano
at special prices on account of "flre," "stock
reducing," "moving," or any other catch-penny
device. We believe that a good piano costs as
much to build one day as it does another, and