Presto

PRESTO
May 15, 1920.
ufacturer, far distant from the buyer, is an asset. And the steady
improvement of the piano is an asset.
There are reasons why no foreign buyer who has sold Tonk
pianos for a long time will relinquish it. And the same condition
applies in the cases of. all other American pianos that have won trade
in distant lands.
We have made the Tonk the basis of this article because the
incident related last week came to us in an authoritative manner and
our correspondent who asked that the instrument be identified told
why he so requested in a way that seemed to make acquiescence de-
sirable. Our only concern further is lest Mr. William Tonk himself
take exception, though that we do not anticipate.
PERSONALITY IN PIANOS
In a communication to this paper, one of the brainiest men asso-
ciated with the piano industry and trade puts this somewhat startling
question: "What would W. W. Kimball say if he could know that his
picture, etc., were not turned into gold dollars?"
And the other day the manager of a great industry in another
line—the Goodrich Rubber Company, to be explicit—said that no
large manufacturer would any more "consider omitting the slogan
than he would think of eliminating the firm name that gives the adver-
tisement identity." The quotation suggests an interesting phase of the
piano business—or any business that depends largely upon the power
of a trade name.
Who that has any knowledge of the piano industry could estimate
the value of a name like that of W. W. Kimball, or of the influence of
the personality of the founder of a house that bears so familiar a
name? To the experienced piano man the question of the active
worker comes almost as a shock. It had perhaps not occurred to him
that during the years since Mr. Kimball died there has been gradually
forming a film of half-forgetfulness of the strength and power of his
personality in the trade.
In all piano history there have been very few characters of such
towering individuality as W. W. Kimball. His name was long a by-
word in piano circles, and his quaint humor supplied a fund of anec-
dote and shrewd illustration. The witticisms and pointed epigrams
attributed to him would fill a good-sized book. They did fill many
columns of the trade papers during his alert and active leadership in
the house of his building. Today the quips which once passed cur-
rency, and stimulated the salesmen who sold Kimball pianos, are fast
fading into forgetfulness.
Even the tale of the "Deacon's" famous hat is no more recited.
And the still more characteristic story of the chipped piano case, with
which to meet a competitor's cut price, "because of slight injury in
transportation," is lost to memory. So with scores of other "good
ones" which, whether true or not, served to keep the name and the
quaint figure of W. W. Kimball in the eye of the trade. It must strike
the experienced reader, therefore, that what the Presto correspondent
says has the nib of a large fact and is suggestive of a lost asset. And
if this applies to the Chicago industry, it may almost equally be said
to fit conditions which concern some other one-time intensely ambi-
tious concerns. The study, if carried far, would prove both instructive
and interesting.
There are American pianos whose histories run back almost to the
beginning of the nation as a republic—not many, to be sure, but a few.
More of them have the foundation of their fame in the first quarter of
the eighteenth century. And some of them are so well sustained, and
so wisely conducted, that the public is not conscious of any changes
in the destinies, or even the control, of the sources of their production.
The personality of the founders suggests a valuable asset, and the
present-day managements sustain the early traditions and keep alive
the distinctions which long ago made the pianos' names a power and
won the same influence by first ambitions that have been sustained
and strengthened through successive generations.
A fine example of the kind of perpetuation of personality—per-
haps the best in the American piano industry—is that of the Chicker-
ing. The "father of the American piano" is as familiar in musical
circles even in his refined and delicate features, as is the "father of his
country" to the people in general. It is common enough to see the
face of Jonas Chickering in the literature of the Boston industry which
his genius founded, and the retail houses that sell the Chickering use
the same features in their advertising. Not long ago this paper drew
attention to a piano store window, a thousand miles from Boston, the
central figure of which was a marble bust of the man who started the
famous piano away back in 1823. Other great pianos are sustained in
their publicity departments by the same loyalty to the power of per-
sonality.
No one in this age questions the influence of individuality. The
strong characters who have laid the foundations of the famous pianos
are almost as vital in the success of those instruments today as they
were when their heads and hands were active in the work of their
choice. The personalities of such men as Francis Bacon, Napoleon J.
Haines, Jacob J. Estey, William B. Bradbury, Jonas Chickering, Wil-
liam Steinway, William Knabe, and—coming down nearer to our own
day—such names as Benjamin Starr, D. H. Baldwin, H. D. Cable,
Chas. Kohler, Jas. A. Vose—the list is a fairly long one—represent a
large asset in the piano trade. And they are valued accordingly. But
were they to be permitted to become silent, their power would in a
brief time pass away. The world is forgetful. Its changes come
quickly. To continue to be of strength and value the power of per-
sonality in the piano industry must be sustained as long as the piano
that bears the name of the initial influence remains.
F1TEERS DEFINED
At last the disease that afflicts profiteers has been defined. It is
called pleonexia—a polite name, for it sounds like an abbreviated
form of "I please to annex you and all your cash." In answer to the
question "What is pleonexia?" the Indianapolis Star of Wednesday
of last week says: "The increasing desire for gain, developed to the
point of mania, is termed pleonexia." Webster's International Dic-
tionary a fixture in Presto office, does not give thd word at all, but it
says that pleon is a crustacean's abdomen, or the telson of a king
crab.
Near enough for all practical purposes is this definition. The
stomach of a crab that devours anything and everything that comes
in its way, whether it can assimilate it or not. Did you ever know a
profiteer with a sweet disposition? They are all human crabs; they
pinch everything that approaches them; they generally take off a
little of the hide of any man that permits himself to have any business
relations with them.
Like the crab, also, they prefer going backward to forward; they
have claws extending in every direction. There is a crawfish variety
that burrows into the mud, and the chief evidence of their existence
on this planet is the mud they have piled around their entrance. They
are hard-shells to go against in buying or selling, and they are not
notable for having a high order of nerves.
Happily, there are no profiteers engaged in buying, selling or
manufacturing the better grades of pianos nor in the reliable grades
of commercial pianos either. This editorial is writen to call attention
to that fact. So far from being profiteers are the piano men that
many of them are hardly breaking even, with prices of everything
that goes into the cost of a piano rising steadily. Presto has said
from time to time that the prices of pianos must go still higher, and
hs predictions seem to be coming to pass.
In years long past the custom of naming military compositions
after men who had done things in a large way, was quite common.
Every old-time music dealer can recall "Gen. Percifer Smith's
March," "General U. S. Grant's March" and the countless other pop-
ular "hits" that made riches for their publishers. It is to be hoped
that the new "Colonel Conway's March" may prove so well worthy
of its title as to equally win success, and so help to perpetuate a name
that is honored wherever pianos are sold.
There is trade interest in the fact that the recent article by Mr.
Chas. E. Byrne, on "A Trade Paper Campaign," has attracted such
widespread attention that it has been reproduced in a number of busi-
ness journals outside the piano industry. The article originally ap-
peared in "Advertising and Selling," and extracts from it were
promptly reproduced in Presto some time back.
* * *
Soft pedal the financial panic talk. President Geo. M. Reynolds,
of the Continental & Commercial National Bank, Chicago, is recog-
nized as an expert in such matters. Mr. Reynolds says emphatically
that there is scarcely a possibility of such a condition. And he is sus-
tained by other men equally posted in affairs of the financial world.
What Mr. Reynolds says is epitomized in an item on another page.
* * *
We have been asked what the caption which headed an editorial
in last week's Presto meant. No wonder. As originally written the
head-line read: "About Some Shows." It appeared thus: "Out Some
Shows," robbing the line of whatever sense it had in the first place.
Blame the intelligent proofreader again, or charge it to the inspired
printer, as usual.
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