Presto

PRESTO
PRESTO
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY AT 407 SOUTH DEAR-
BORN STREET, OLD COLONY BUILDING, CHICAGO, ILL.
Q. A. DANIELL and FRANK D. ABBOTT
Editors
Telephones: Chicago Tel. Co., Harrison 234; Auto. Tel. Co., Automatic 61-703.
Private Phones to all Departments. Cable Address (Commercial Cable Co.'s Code),
"PRESTO," Chicago.
Entered as second-class matter Jan. 29, 1896, at the Post Office, Chicago. Illinois,
%
under Act of March 3, 1879.
Subscription, $2 a year; 6 months, $1; Foreign, $4. Payable In advance. No « t r »
•iiarge in y: S. Dossessions, Canada, Cuba and Mexico.
-
Address all communications for the editorial or business departments to PRESTO
PUBLISHING CO., Chicago, III.
Advertising Ratesi^Ttaree dollars per Inch (13 ems pica) for single insertions^
Six dollars per inch per month, less twenty-five per cent on yearly contracts. The
Presto does not sell its editorial space. Payment is not accepted for articles of de-
scriptive character or other matter appearing in the news columns. Business notices
will be indicated by the word "advertisement" in accordance with the Act of August
84, 1912.
Rates for advertising in the Tear Book issue and Export Supplements of The
Presto will be made known upon application. The Presto Year Book and Export
issues have the most extensive circulation of any periodicals devoted to the musical
instrument trades anrl industries in all parts of the world, and reach completely and
•ffectually all the houses handling musical instruments of both the Eastern and West-
ern hemispheres.
The Presto Buyeis' Guide Is the only reliable index to the American Musical
Instruments; it analyzes all Pianos and Player-Pianos, gives accurate estimates m
tbeir values and contains a directory of their manufacturers.
8 items of news, photographs and other matter of g-eneral Interest to the musS«
trades are invited and when accepted will be paid for. Address all communications to
presto Publishing Co.. Chicago. III.
SATURDAY, MAY 1, 1920.
TO CORRESPONDENTS.
PRESTO IS ALWAYS GLAD TO RECEIVE NEWS OF THE
TRADE—ALL KINDS OF NEWS EXCEPT PERSONAL SLANDER
AND STORIES OF PETTY MISDEEDS BY INDIVIDUALS. PRESTO
WILL PRINT THE NAMES OF CORRESPONDENTS WHO SEND IN
"GOOD STUFF" OR ARE ON THE REGULAR STAFF. DON'T SEND
ANY PRETTY SKETCHES, LITERARY ARTICLES OR "PEN-PIC-
TURES." JUST PLAIN NEWS ABOUT THE TRADE—NOT ABOUT
CONCERTS OR AMATEUR MUSICAL ENTERTAINMENTS, BUT
ABOUT THE MEN WHO MAKE MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS AND
THOSE WHO SELL THEM. REPORTS OF NEW STORES AND
THE MEN WHO MAKE RECORDS AS SALESMEN ARE GOOD. OF-
TEN THE PIANO SALESMEN ARE THE BEST CORRESPONDENTS
BECAUSE THEY KNOW WHAT THEY LIKE TO READ AND HAVE
THE OPPORTUNITIES FOR FINDING OUT WHAT IS "DOING" IN
THE TRADE IN THEIR VICINITY. SEND IN THE N E W S -
ALL YOU CAN GET OF IT—ESPECIALLY ABOUT YOUR OWN
BUSINESS.
THE TRADING POST
There is one feature of Presto which, we have reason to believe,
is regarded by the trade with as much interest as the most startling
column of news, and certainly with more profit to many who read.
We mean the page of adlets, or classified cards, wherein members of
the piano trade set forth their wants and tell of opportunities not
elsewhere set forth. And we know positively that Presto's Want
Advs. every week produce results in which the trade shares most
satisfactorily. We could present hundreds of irrefutable proofs of
this statement.
Whether it is a dealer in search of a man to fill some special
position, or a worker in some department of the business looking for
a location, the little want advs. are certain to produce the results
desired. Or whether it is a dealer with some special equipment to
sell, or a manufacturer desirous of disposing of his entire industry,
the little want adv. is almost certain to bring together the buyer and
the seller. It is almost a rule that, as says the Holley Music House,
of Carroll, Iowa, this week, "the Presto Adv. service is O. K.; we sold
the Loader."
Possibly that may not have been a fair test, because the article
sold by a single want adv. insertion was one that the trade wants and
watches for. The Atwood Loader never lacks a buyer, and probably
it would have been as easy to sell fifty of them as it was to dispose of
one, by a Presto want adv. But the same report comes in other cases.
Every week hundreds of replies to the little Presto advs. come to the
office of this paper and are forwarded to the advertisers. The result is
new connections, better positions, cash for surplus articles, and every
other attainment possible in the lesser, but still very important,
affairs of the trade.
Because an article is advertised for sale is not evidence that the
thing is not indorsed by the advertiser, or that it lacks any of its
original value. Not long ago a piano business, invoicing many thou-
May 1, 1920.
sands of dollars, was advertised on page 30 of Presto. It was sold
within two weeks, and the buyer found a good thing because the orig-
inal owner was obliged to retire to look after a large estate. The
Piano Loader adv. was inserted by the Holley Music House because
that concern had installed large auto trucks for delivery purposes.
The Atwood Loader was snapped up, as Mr. Holley intimates, as
scon as the adlet appeared. All piano dealers know what the Loader
is, and they would not permit an opportunity to get one for a dollar
less than factory price, to pass unprofitted.
It may be too much to say that no other influence has placed
capable piano men in positions of responsibility to such an extent as
Presto's Want Advs. We could name—but we wouldn't—two man-
agers of large industries, several factory superintendents, many
traveling representatives and salesmen, who have found their way to
what they most wanted by means of the adlets. And we do not recall
any of the little trade inspirers that has utterly failed of their pur-
pose, though at times there have been some whose purport suggested
the near-impossible.
Advertising in the piano trade is as old as the business itself. But
the uses of the classified column has only recently become recognized
as the logical and almost invincible source of interchange of wants
and the ironer-out of the rough places in the trade. The page of little
want advs. is the trading post of the trade.
ASKING WHY
At this moment most business men are asking why? To one
associated with pianos it seems that piano men especially are just
now asking why? But it's the same in nearly all lines, and the only
difference is in the conditions by which the various lines of trade are
made to differ.
To the average piano merchant it isn't easy to understand why
instruments are so hard to buy. Dealers from nearly everywhere
crowd into the piano-making centers searching for stock. They leave
home to visit the factories, feeling sure that, by coming in person,
the results that letters failed to produce may quickly be attained. But
they find that their orders are not filled promptly because the manu-
facturers cannot produce the goods. They find that the manufacturers
are even more concerned about their inability to make prompt ship-
ments than the dealers are themselves. And then, very naturally,
the dealer who has left home on a bootless mission, perhaps, again
asks why?
He is told that it is impossible for the piano manufacturers to
get the necessary supplies. If the dealer wants more specific informa-
tion, he is told that it is impossible to secure the needed wood with
which to make the cases; or he is told that it isn't possible to get
hardware; or that it is impossible to buy actions. In other words,
everything that goes with the instrument is short in deliveries and
no arguments can make it possible for the producers to increase
production in the degree so absolutely necessary. The source of fun-
damentals reply to the impatient demands very much as the piano
manufacturers answer the demands of the dealers. And again the
piano merchants ask Why?
If they press their interrogation it is explained that skilled work-
ers are hard to get. The lumbermen are not cutting the timber and
hauling it in sufficient quantities. And lumber of the kind required is
getting scarce. The factory superintendents find it almost impossible
to engage the kind of piano workers essential to the needs of the
industry. Why?
It is true that there are just as many workers possessing the
requisite knowledge of piano making. The laborers are as numerous
as ever. But they are not working in the piano factories. Why?
It has been estimated that more trained piano workers have
deserted the musical instrument field in favor of the automobile
industry alone than the total number of makers of the uprights and
grands a half century ago. And that, in the aggregate, means a great
many skilled piano workers who have shifted their allegiance. And
why have they left piano manufacture in favor of the car industry?
Plain enough. It pays better. The automobile industry is compara-
tively a new one. It is on the high tide of prosperity. The makers
of the favorite cars do not hesitate to offer big wages, and the workers
cross the road to take advantage of the fact. The piano workers have
never been over-well paid—in many of the factories. They are paid
better now than ever before. Why have they not been well paid in
years past?
The piano business, from factory to retail store, was for years
conducted on lines of seeming disregard of good business principles.
The manufacturers, until comparatively recently, seemed to try to
see how near to actual cost of production they could deliver the
goods. The dealers, until recently, tried to undersell their neigh-
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