Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
MUSIC
TRADE
REVIEW
11
Actual Increase in Piano Supply Prices During Year
An Authentic Tabulation ot the Percentage of Increase in the Cost of Materials Used
in Piano Making, Compiled From Figures Furnished by Manufacturers and Supply Men
The story of the piano manufacturing trade
since shortly after the commencement of the
war has been a story of constantly advancing
prices on everything that goes into the making
of those instruments, a condition that has ex-
isted in practically every indvistry.
The increased costs have given the piano
manufacturers many problems to face, not only
in meeting the prices, but in getting the goods
at all in sufficient quantities to take care of
their requirements. The manufacturer has also
been in the position of either standing the in-
creases, and thereby cutting his profits down
to a minimum, or wiping them out altogether,
or passing some of the increase along to the
dealer. Quite a number of concerns for their
own protection have taken the latter course.
Just what the general increase in the costs
of supplies has meant to the manufacturer since
January 1 alone may be gleaned from a perusal
of the following comprehensive table, pre-
pared by The Review from figures supplied by
both supply men and piano manufacturers.
The increase is indicated in percentages, and
is based on prices quoted on December 1, cover-
ing the eleven months from January 1.
In
some cases the percentages represent an aver-
age struck on the figures from several com-
peting houses in the trade:
Piano Hardware
Regulating brackets
60%
Damper bushings and screws
44%
Hammer rail hook—Flat
33^3%
Hammer rail hooks—Round
42%
Flanges
40%
Damper rod nuts No. 2
22%
Damper rod nuts No. 2 l / 2
25%
Damper rod nuts No. 5
17%
Damper rod nuts No. 6
17%
Bridge Pins
50%
Center pins—Brass
28%
Butt plates and screws
27%
Regulating screws
22%
Spoons—Brass
33j<3%
Spoons-Iron N. P. or B. P
27%
Damper springs
25%
Jack springs
23%
Rail springs
21%
Bridle wires
55%
Check wires
100%
Damper wires—Brass
34%
Damper wires—N. P
22%
Hammer wires
90%
Dowel wires (average)
57%
Damper rods
25%
Tuning pins
100%< to 125%
Bearing bars
50%
Brass pedals
33^%
Iron pedals
50%
Muffler rails
25%
Lag screws
,
65%
Coach screws
177%
Nose bolts
140%
Ball bolts
72%
Bracket bolts with shell knobs
50%
Bracket bolts with solid brass knobs... 100%
Bridge pins
100%
Casters
60%
Continuous hinges
45^4%
Grand top hinges
50%
Small butt hinges
58%
Tracker bars
40%
Take-up spools
40%
Iron player pedals and trap work
25%
Woods
Lumber (average)
33j/?%
Mahogany veneers
40% to 65'%
Sounding boards
8% to 15%
Cases
25%
Backs and bridges
10%
Shooks
-
10% to 15%
Action Parts
Brass goods
50% to 150%
Iron
40% to 60%
Felts and cloths
40% to 50%
Lumber
33V$%
Dyes for felts
from 8% to 1,500%
Leathers
45%
Piano Plates
Plates . ,
'.
40%- to 60%
Pig iron
35% to 50%
Finishing Materials
Varnishes
25%
Stains
100% to 125%
Alcohol
20% to 25%
Shellac
100%
Chamois
25% to 50%
Pumice
Brushes
Glue
100% to 200%
100%
25% to 50%
Strings
Bass strings
40%
Steel wire
30%
Bright wire
29%
Tin-plated wire
29%
Copper wire
55%
Up to the time of the war Liverpool was rec-
ognized as the leading mahogany market of
the world, and the bulk of the fine woods used
in the United States came from that market.
The latest reports are to the effect that a short-
age of competent labor combined with the
absence of any fresh supplies of mahogany and
other hardwoods have resulted in practically
tying up the entire market except to fill Govern-
ment needs.
So serious is the shortage of
logs that the stock which was on the West
Indian docks during the recent fire, but es-
caped the flames, is being eagerly bought up
after re-measurement.
The last auction sale
disclosed a still further advance in Honduras
woods. The import and export restrictions are
also growing tighter all the time, although early
in November there were few small shipments
of mahogany received, the largest being about
forty logs.
The scarcity of ships and the growing de-
mand here are also two factors that have af-
fected the trade. There is an occasional cargo
across the ocean coming direct from the Gold
or Ivory Coast, but there is rarely a well fig-
ured lot found in them, the shippers preferring
to hold the fancy woods for the Liverpool auc-
tions.
Every user of brass goods has felt, severely,
the rising prices in the brass market, due large-
ly to the demand for brass for the making of
shells and cartridges for the belligerent nations,
and even at the higher prices it has frequently
been impossible to get anywhere near enough
brass supplies to keep in sight of factory de-
mands.
In the matter of bass strings, although the
price to the piano manufacturer has advanced
about 40 per cent., the cost of materials to the
string maker has increased approximately 100
per cent, and labor 15 per cent. Under such
conditions the string maker is not passing all
the increase to the piano man.
Nor has the piano manufacturer yet been
called upon to take up the full burden of the
action maker, who faces an average price in-
crease on materials of something over 75 per
cent., ranging from 150 per cent, on brass goods,
which even at that rate are hard to get, to
3 3 ^ per cent, on lumber.
The piano plate maker is one of the victims
of a most changeable market, for the price
of the pig iron that he uses fluctuates almost
every day, although the real movement is
steadily upward.
Pig iron has jumped from
$12.25 to $25 or over 100 per cent., and coke
has advanced in like proportion.
In certain
plates where the use of brass is required there
has been even a greater jump, for the increase
on brass averages 150 per cent, or more. Late
in November pig iron sold in Pittsburgh for
$30 a ton, the prominent pig iron producers de-
claring that the price will reach $50 before
receding.
This price is for Bessemer ore,
with lower grades keeping up in proportion.
THE PROBLEM OF THE "TRADE-IN" PIANO
By ROBERT J. WINFIELD, Detroit, Mich.
There has been more than casual comment in
various sections of the country regarding the
inability of some of the bigger dealers to dis-
pose of their trade-in stock with sufficient
rapidity and on a satisfactory basis.
It is a
condition which adds considerably to the ordi-
nary problems of the business, and particularly
to the problems that revolve around the traded-
in feature as a whole.
To move their traded-in pianos in quantities,
dealers are forced to spend a lot of good money
for advertising their second-hand bargains, and
even then the results are not particularly grati-
fying. Traded-in pianos represent cash—often
more cash than they ought, because of a too
liberal valuation when taken in exchange.
Every dollar spent in the advertising of trade-
ins adds just so much to the merchant's ex-
pense without producing a proper return.
The difficulty experienced by the prominent
piano merchants in getting rid of second-hand
stock, has been laid a good deal to the reputa-
tion of such houses—a reputation that does not
lean towards cheapness in their products. As
one merchant aptly puts it, "A fine mahogany
grand- amid luxurious furnishings in the win-
dow of a piano store does not associate that
place with a $50 piano, and the people who are
looking for cheap instruments pass the store
by in favor of some concern which has made it-
self famous, or notorious, by advertising pianos
at from $30 to $100.
"The big firms will not feature their adver-
tising with their second-hand stuff.
They al-
ways boost their leaders, mentioning their
trade-in bargains, if at all, in the lower part
of the advertisement, in smaller type. So the
people who would be interested in the an-
nouncements do not see them. They see that
the advertisement is in regard to high-priced
pianos and players, and only glance at it.
Formerly all piano stores were visited by
the folks who desired second-hand instruments
and the best bargain got the sale. The methods
of certain dealers have in the last two or
three years conveyed the idea to the pub-
lic that new pianos can be had for $50,
or even less, and the men of small in-
come, instead of looking for a good second-hand
instrument, make up their minds they will have
a new one. They don't know much about qual-
ity anyway, or what sort of quality can be ex-
pected for $50 or for $500. So the dealer with
the misleading advertising gets the sale.
He
doesn't sell a new piano for $50, for he has none
at that price. But he steers the prospect to a
second-hand one at that price and gets rid of it.
The new condition is a big argument to al-
low less for trade-in pianos. More and more
the merchants are looking into the matter of
whether they are making a profit in all depart-
ments of their business. If they are losing in
one department, they are eating up the profit
of another department, and so are standing still.
It costs just as much to sell a second-hand piano
as a new one—the salesman's time, the de-
livery, the carrying of the account, etc. And
if there is no profit in the sale in the first place,
all these other things are done at a loss. Most
of the dealers have come to the conclusion that
they don't want such business, and if they can-
not get a second-hand piano at a fair valua-
tion, they do not want it at all, any more than
they would want a new piano unless they could
get it at a price which would permit them to
make a profit.
NEWSPAPER MAN BUYS PLAYER
A recent purchaser of an electric player at
the retail warerooms of Chas. H. Ditson Co.,
12 West Thirty-fourth street, was Mr. Colby,
well known in this city through his work on
the New York American.