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PRESTO
PRESTO
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_____^__
May 29, 1920.
prepared to make them. The result is the Haddorff piano of today
and its place in the trade, which place is the precise measure of public
appreciation and a surety of steadily growing demand.
It is an almost exceptional illustration of what can be done in
the piano industry if the start is right, and the ambitions of a capable
expert and acoustician are consistently carried out.
YOUR NEIGHBOR'S OPINION
When a good and reputable householder desires you for a neigh-
bor he pays you a graceful compliment. It is an assurance that he
considers you equally reputable and considers you promising of the
congenial spirit that is the sum total of sociability. The same feelings
may be exhibited in business life. In fact they often are but not usu-
ally expressed.
But when one of the older occupants of a business block in a big
city not only voices pleasure at the arrival of a new neighbor, but
actually puts it in print, the compliment becomes doubly valuable.
That exactly is what Daniels, Indianapolis, the state's largest store
for men, did recently when the Carlin Music Co. moved to its new
location in that city. This is the way Daniels, in its advertising space
in the newspapers, extended greetings "To Our New Neighbor, the
Carlin Music Co.":
SATURDAY, MAY 29, 1920.
Welcome to the big, busy merchandising community that lies between
Delaware and Pennsylvania streets.
Our business experience, covering many years at our location, prompts
us to commend your judgment in selecting your new location.
The beautiful store front you have installed—the business integrity of
your company will add tone and prestige to our excellent neighborhood.
Crr congratulations, therefore, and we wish for your concern unlimited
;. c 7 i ty, and for your patrons a full circle of service and satisfaction.
TO CORRESPONDENTS.
SOME VERSATILE MEMBERS
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.
For a good many years the piano industry and trade trotted along
on a single track. There were very few men in it who seemed to see
anything through their factory or office windows. They worked hard,
they invented new things pertaining to piano construction, they
bought their supplies and they sometimes made a little money. It
was a solecism that there were no rich piano makers, and their in-
struments were as much alike in the manner of their promotion as
in their case designs and prices. And then some men of another kind
came into the business.
Today there are some very versatile men who are deeply con-
cerned in piano making and selling. Some of them have done things
by which their names are as familiar in other departments of life's
activities as they are known in the piano world. Some of them have
applied the principles of altruism to the piano industry in such a way
as to attract the thinking world and the watchers in the literary out-
posts. Some of them have proved their skill in finance and have piled
up riches aside from their industrial accumulations. And it is even
possible to name representatives of the piano who have worked
equally well in the fields of literature itself.
Does what has been said suggest the kind of versatility that
moves the world along? Does it prove that piano men are more than
manufacturers of fine things and distributors of them? And does it
disprove the ancient notion that people who base their activities upon
the things of music must be in some sense impractical in their rela-
tionships with affairs that are serious and substantial?
It would be easy, and a pleasure, to go through the list and refer
directly to the piano men who, by their versatility and daring, have
done the things upon which this article has touched. And we know
that all retailers in the trade would be glad to have us do it. But to
point at the piano men who by their financial skill have grown rich
might give offense. To catalogue the men whose literary creations
have entertained might equally be distasteful. To call the roll of the
others whose love of the outdoors has divided their leisure and toil,
might not be timely. And that leaves only the men by whose phil-
anthropic thought the lives of the workers have been made brighter
and better. Fortunately there are a number of them, also.
Of late the magazines have been printing the story of the piano
factory that has published to the world the truism that "if there is
no harmony in the factory, there can be none in the piano." That
particular piano industry presents as fine an illustration of the uncer-
tainty of experiment, and the certainty cf persistency, as any in the
list. And its presiding genius, Mr. A. S. Bond, says that the turning
point in the Packard piano's career came when he put into operation
the principles of his now familiar motto. Nor is Mr. Bond the only
piano manufacturer whose broadness of vision and love of initiative
have brought about decisive results. It is the versatility of the lead-
ers in the piano industry of today that is lifting the instrument of
A WESTERN TRIUMPH
It is somewhat remarkable that when seasoned piano men go over
the really successful instruments, from the standpoint of both mate-
rial progress and artistic quality, one of the comparatively younger
products of the West is sure to come to mind. There are many East-
ern pianos which suggest themselves, as a matter of course. And
there are some Western instruments scarcely less conspicuous by
reason of their artistic attainments. But it would not be easy to name
one that has come so far among the leaders, in so short a time, as the
Haddorff.
What has just been said is prompted by the statement of a critical
piano man from the Pacific Coast, who said that he had found the
instruments from Rockford in a large proportion of the foremost
stores in his part of the country. He had come East—Chicago is
"East" to the Californians—for the purpose of acquiring Haddorff
representation for his city, and expressed regret that he could not
get it because the territory was already covered. And similar indorse-
ments have become almost the rule wherever the Rockford piano is
represented.
But the point is that a piano could, within twenty years, attain
to so fine a place in the trade and with a critical class of the public.
In years gone by it was customary to proclaim that only by very long
life, and great exploitation, could a piano win a place of power. It
was on this hypothesis that an old piano name of standing was ap-
praised as almost priceless. The name of Haddorff can not be said
to date back of 1900 in the piano world. But it has made up in vitality
and the vigor of its promotion and, back of that force and ambition,
has been the genius of a real piano maker who possessed an ideal and
worked to attain its realization.
Mr. Chas. A. Haddorff knew at the start just what he must do to
gain recognition for his piano. He was sustained in his ideals by
business men who understood the need of large investments and were
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