Music Trade Review

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THE
MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
REVIEW
EDWARD LYMAN BILL - Editor and Proprietor
J. B. SPILLANE, Managing Editor
Executive and Reportorlal Stall:
B. BKITTAIN WILSOK,
A. J. NiCKXiN,
CARLETON CHACE,
AUGUST J. TIMPE,
BOSTON OFFICE:
„, ,
,
'
GLAD HENDERSON,
L. E. BOWERS.
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JOHN H. WILSON, 821 Washington St.
J
L. M. ROBINSON,
WM. B. WHITE,
£. P. VAN HARLINGEN, 37 South Wabash Ave
, . .„._
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Lyman Bill.
Departments conducted by an expert wherein all ques-
anil
aUU
t j o n s o f a technical nature relating to the tuning, regu-
IW»nai*fmonfa lating and repairing of pianos and player-pianos are
V t j l d l I l l i e i l l S . d e a ] t w ; t h j w in b e found in another section of this
paper. We also publish a number of reliable technical works, information concerning which
will be cheerfully given upon request.
v
Exposition Honors Won by The Review
Grand Prix
Paris Exposition, 1900 Silver Medal. . .Charleston Exposition, 1902
Diploma
Pan-American Exposition, 1901 Gold Medal
St. Louis Exposition, 1904
Gold Medal..Lewis-Clark Exposition, 1905
LONG- DISTANCE TELEPHONES—NUMBERS 5982—5983 MADISON SQ
Connecting- all Departments
Cable address: "Elbill, New York."
NEW
Y O R K , N O V E M B E R 8, 1 9 1 3
EDITORIAL
I
N business circles there is much uneasiness over the workings
of the tariff bill. Those optimistic people, who expected it
would work wonders in reducing the cost of living, are now express-
ing some disappointment at developments.
A business man who recently returned from a trip abroad dis-
cussed the tariff situation most interestingly this week when he
said: "I found English manufacturers very gleeful and happy over
the change in tariff rates in this country. They said that it is a
great good thing for their business, and some of them went so far
as to tell me that it enabled them to increase their prices on exports
to this country to almost a like amount as the saving effected by
the reduction in tariff. This being the case, it strikes me that what
is so beneficial for foreign manufacturers is correspondingly bad
for us. Much is said about the reduction of tariff here. As a
matter of fact about 40 per cent, of the cost of living is represented
by labor which by the tariff will be driven to other countries. Where
is the advantage, then, if the reduction in the tariff would effect a
saving of, say, 10 per cent, in the cost of living? Then we have out
of every $100 expended for living a reduction of $10 by reason
of the tariff change. Then there is left only $50 instead of $90,
and the other $40 goes to other countries for manufacture and
labor."
These views are in keeping with those of a number of importers
in the music trade field who claim that since the tariff law went into
force foreign manufacturers have increased their prices about equal
to, if not a little more than, the reduction in the tariff. In this
way the goods cost the user or consumer just as much as before the
tariff became a law. The question is, who is getting the benefit?
T ^ H E editorial in last week's Review, anent the exhibition of
-L wholesale prices by some piano merchants to prospective buy-
ers, has created considerable comment.
Piano manufacturers are deeply interested in suppressing this
unbusinesslike and unprofessional practice, and whenever cases are
known where dealers who represent them have descended to such
methods to gain trade they certainly can help the good work along
by expressing their opinion in no uncertain manner to such vio-
lators of trade ethics.
One manufacturer writes: "I am very much interested in your
article. My attention was called a short time ago by one of my
representatives in the West to an incident similar to the one you
have named. This particular man was competing with a certain
piano, and this dealer had obtained from him wholesale prices, and
he at once showed them to the customer, with the result that it
killed the sale. I wrote the manufacturer and laid these facts be-
fore him, with the result that he absolutely cut off this dealer, and
as a result he received from the dealer a statement that he was
ignorant of the facts, and the salesman who resorted to the practice
was dismissed."
Another communication reaches us from a house which advised
a firm of Western manufacturers that their representatives had
shown to a certain customer wholesale prices.
This man said: "We are not finding fault because our dealer
lost the sale, only we object to dealers telling the wholesale prices
of their competitor's goods, not of their own."
The subject is one which interests the trade everywhere be-
cause the exhibition of invoices to possible customers showing
wholesale rates of competing pianos is not only a reprehensible
practice, but it is one which is absolutely destructive to sound busi-
ness methods, and cannot be too heartily condemned.
I
N asking for bids for pianos to supply the public schools of Pitts-
burgh, Pa., the Board of Education has specified that all pianos
offered in the bids must be of standard make and four feet eight
inches in height, stencils not being considered under any considera-
tion. It is also stated that the amount to be paid for the instru-
ments will be limited to $300 for each instrument. To all appear-
ances the proposition should be an attractive one for the piano men
to consider, but there comes to the front the question of price cut-
ting, and it is freely stated that the various dealers, owing to the
keen competition, will shave their bids to a point where the only
profit represented will be the advertising that will come to the suc-
cessful dealer through landing the contract.
Thirty pianos are desired and $300 is given as the maximum
figure to be paid, but it would seem as though, after making due
allowance for the fact that the instruments are for the city, are to
be purchased in a lot and by means of bids, that the dealers should
hold together sufficiently to secure a price approximating that which
they would obtain through the regular channels of trade. There
are a large number of pianos, sold under the names of their manu-
facturers and not to be classed as stencils, that are sold in the ordi-
nary way and singly and a price much lower than $300 and at the
same time show a fair profit for the dealer.
Advertising of any kind is well worth considering, but several
dealers who have already placed bids are questioning the advertis-
ing value of selling thirty pianos to the city at the approximate
wholesale price of the instruments. It is held by those who entered
into competition for school business in the past that such sales never
bring back enough business to make up the profit sacrificed on the
school instruments and the fact that in placing the contracts the
price at which the instruments are offered is necessarily made pub-
lic, prospective customers secure a false idea of the real value of
the instruments and of the fairness of the regular price.
A
N active movement is under way among those concerned in
patent matters throughout the country to interest Congress
in amending the Kahn law recently passed which is intended to
protect foreign exhibitors at the Panama-Pacific International Ex-
position from patent infringement while they are exhibiting.
The law forbids any person to "copy, imitate, reproduce or
republish any pattern, model, design, trade-mark, copyright or
manufactured article protected by the laws of any foreign country,"
imported for the exposition. The protection is extended for ihree
years after the exposition. It is contended that this practically
amounts to the granting of American patents and that the law will
work an injustice to American inventors. Manufacturers assert
that under the lax patent laws of many foreign countries it would
be possible for unscrupulous persons to obtain foreign patents on
articles already patented and in common use in the United States.