Music Trade Review

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THE
14
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
NOVEMBER 9,
191«
HANDICAPS IN ST. LOUIS TRADE
Month of October Presented Many Problems,
But Music Dealers Did Good Business Despite
Difficulties—New Window at Wunderlich's
The Best of everything which con-
stitutes a high grade piano will be J.
found in Bjur Bros. Pianos 'and
Player-Pianos
D IITD D D A C
DKUO.
DJUK
Cf\
LU.
Legget and Whitlock Avenues
NEW YORK
NEW RECORDS BEING MADE BY TRADE IN PORTLAND, ORE.
Local Music Dealers Are Doing Excellent Business, and Indications Point to a Continuation of
This Pleasing Condition for Some Time—Hy Eilers to Have New Headquarters
PORTLAND, ORE., November 2.—The piano trade
in Portland never was better than at present,
and all indications point to an extension of this
long into the future, due to the large assured
shipyard payrolls and the revival of the lumber
industries of which Portland is the center in
the Northwest.
There are eleven shipyards
operating in Portland, employing over 30,000
men, in addition to those adjacent to the city
at Vancouver, St. Helens and Astoria.
A fine assortment of Mehlin, Packard and
Lindeman pianos is shown in the handsome
piano rooms of the G. F. Johnson Piano Co.
Business let up somewhat during the last Lib-
erty Loan drive, Mr. Johnson having taken a
very active part in the drive, but no permanent
lack of trade is feared, as the public is well sup-
plied with money and the assortment of pianos
offered by the firm appeals to all classes.
Chas. E. Hicks, who was manager of the C.
E. Hicks Music Co., of Lewiston, Idaho, has
accepted a position as salesman with the firm
of Wiley B. Allen Co.
The old Eilers Building will hereafter be
known as the Bush & Lane Building. Arrange-
3 Great Pianos
With 3 sounding boards
in each (Patented) have the
greatest talking points in
the trade.
4t
We fix o n e p r i c e d -
wholesale and retail.
The Heppe Piano Co.
PHILADELPHIA, PA.
merits have been completed and the Bush &
Lane Co. has taken over the building. The
lease runs for a term of years.
Two Sohmer uprights were sold by the Harold
S. Gilbert Piano Co. during the week. Mr. Gil-
bert is calling in all rented pianos and dispos-
ing of the stock he has on hand. He will buy
no more pianos until after the war, as he ex-
pects to be drafted before long.
A carload of Fischer pianos has just been re-
ceived by the piano department of Lipman,
Wolfe & Co. A carload of Sterling and Hunt-
ington pianos also arrived, which helped supply
the stock on hand, which had become very low.
A number of Fischer pianos have been sold
during the week.
D. P. Argo, one of the best-known and most
successful salesmen of the local branch of Sher-
man, Clay & Co., has severed his connection
with the Portland company and joined the force
of the Tacoma store. Mr. Argo was in charge
of the player-piano department while in Port-
land, and was specially identified with the Duo-
Art piano, of which he was a very successful
demonstrator and salesman.
C. Guy Wakefield, of the Wakefield Music Co.,
lias only one player-piano left in his store.
The music houses have suffered along with
the other trades and professions from the epi-
demic of Spanish influenza, but so far there
have been no fatalities among the people in the
music trade, although a number have suffered
from the disease. H. E. L'Anglaise, of the
Remick Song Shop; J. F. Matthews, of G. F.
Johnson Piano Co., and James L. Loder, of
Bush & Lane, are recovering from slight at-
tacks of the malady.
Two Welte-Mignons and a Bush & Lane up-
right grand were sold by J. I. Chisholm and
J. P. Darnell, of the Bush & Lane Co., during
the week. Business is good at this store in all
departments.
Eilers Music House will be no longer on
Broadway, as that location has been taken by
the Bush & Lane Piano Co. But there will be a
fine new Eilers Building at Fourth and Wash-
ington streets. This was known as the Roths-
childs Building, and is being remodeled. A long
term lease has been taken by Hy Eilers and his
associates, who will make the new music house
one of the best in Portland. A feature of the
building provided for in the reconstruction is
soundproof walls and floors.
These upper
floors will contain studios and recital halls.
IN NEW POST
W. D. Stotler, formerly connected with the
sales staff of the Aeolian Co. in Cincinnati, O.,
has resigned his position with that firm and is
now connected with the Herrlinger-Paer Co.
KANSAS CITY, MO., November 4.—The month
of October had about as many obstacles to pros-
perous retail business as could have been
cooked by hand. There was the influenza epi-
demic, and unseasonably warm weather, and a
Liberty Loan campaign, intensive, taking the
time and energies of thousands of the active
men and women of the city, and the draft regis-
tration and questionnaires, to say nothing of a
few incidental items.
Retail stores in most lines, including depart-
ment stores, found their business cut fully 50
per cent, in a large part of that period. Yet—
several of the leading music stores, exclusively
music, report unusually good business for the
month. It was apparent that the people who
had money to spend for pianos, and wanted a
little time in the stores to examine their possible
purchases, took advantage of the probability
that stores would not be crowded, and came
down to buy. The mere shoppers did not come.
The Wunderlich Piano Co. had an unusually
good October business in players and pianos.
The volume was attained despite several turn-
downs of customers, whose offered payments
were unsatisfactory, or who were not consid-
ered the best credit risks. "I am playing the
game with unusual care right now," said Mr.
Wunderlich. "Many men are earning extraor-
dinary wages, for them, and are spending the
money. When the war is over they will doubt-
less drop back to their former modest wages—
and some of the pianos they are wanting to buy
would surely come back."
Howard Guild, manager of the Kansas City
establishment of the Guild brothers, manages
to keep his window looking "alive." For one
thing, the placards, with announcements and
mottoes, are artistically lettered. But there is
an added feature of "life." This is the attrac-
tive small pictures, selected by Mr. Guild from
one source or another, with which some of the
placards are decorated. For instance, a card
addressed to boys, suggesting joining the boy
scouts and organizing bugle and drum corps,
bears in the upper left-hand corner a small pic-
ture of boy scouts playing the bugle and drum.
Sometimes the advertising pictures supplied by
piano and player manufacturers are used, but
ordinarily the pictures are those picked up by
Mr. Guild from time to time—perhaps some-
times laid aside for awhile until the idea for
their specific use occurs, or the occasion arises.
Harry Wunderlich observed for some time the
stream of people entering the. door a few feet
from his store that led to an elevator and a pop-
ular lunch rpom. A thousand, two thousand
people some days, half of whom did not pass
his store—but came within a few feet of the
window. Recently he grasped the solution he
had been subconsciously seeking. He had a
large window cut in his store wall and glass
inserted—so that these thousands, as they went
up in the elevator to the lunch room, could see
into his store. Just a glance—that was all
they would have time to get, but it would be
enough to pay amply for the expense of the
window. Incidentally, the window adds to the
attractiveness of the store, gives breadth and
a wider outlook.
MADISON
Piano Co.
Incorporated
Manufacturers
The Madison Tone—
Supreme—Its Own
2 1 9 Cypress Ave.
NEW YORK