Presto

PRESTO
PRESTO
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY AT 407 SOUTH DEAR-
BORN STREET, OLD COLONY BUILDING, CHICAGO, ILL.
C. A. D A N I E L L and F R A N K D. ABBOTT
Editors
Telephones, Local and Long Distance, Harrison 234. Private Phones to all De-
partments. Cable Address (Commercial Cable Co.'s Code), " P R E S T O , " 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 extra
charge in U. S. possessions, Canada, Cuba and Mexico.
Address all communications for the editorial or business departments to PRESTO
PUBLISHING CO., 407'So. Dearborn Street, Chicago, III."
Advertising Rates:—Five dollars per inch (13 ems pica) for single insertions.
Complete schedule of rates for standing cards and special displays will be furnished
on request. The Presto does not sell its editorial space. Payment Is not accepted for
articles of descriptive character or other matter appearing in the news columns. Busi-
ness notices will be indicated by the word "advertisement" In accordance with the
Act of August 24, 1912.
Rates for advertising in Presto Year Book Issue and Export Supplements of
Presto will be made known upon application. Presto Year Book and Export issues
have the most extensive circulation of any periodicals devoted to the musical in-
strument trades and industries in all parts of the world, and reach completely and
effectually all the houses handling musical instruments of both the Eastern and West-
ern hemispheres.
Presto Buyers' Guide is the only reliable index to the American Pianos and
Player-Pianos, it analyzes all instruments, classifies them, gives accurate estimates
of their value and contains a directory of their manufacturers.
Items of news and other matter of general interest to the music trades are in-
vited and when accepted will be paid for. All communications should be addressed to
Presto Publishing Co., 407 So. Dearborn Street, Chicago, III.
SATURDAY, S E P T E M B E R 25, 1920.
TO CORRESPONDENTS.
PRESTO IS ALWAYS GLAD XD 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—F&PECIALLY ABOUT YOUR OWN
BUSINESS.
GOOD ADVICE
An advertisement of the Hallet & Davis Piano Co., in this paper
last week, urged the retail dealers to "Get a Few Ahead," adding that
"all indications point to greatly increased difficulties in shipments,
and restricted production this fall." We believe that was good advice,
and any piano dealer who lacks the good sense to take advantage of
it can not hope to make a great success of his business. Perhaps it is
natural for most retailers to fancy that advice of that kind from the
manufacturers may contain a degree of self interest on the part of
the advertiser. Certainly. Advertising that could be wholly indif-
ferent to substantial results would be either wholly altruistic or
foolish. But when common sense is behind the substantial purpose in
a piano advertisement, the degree of self-interest is at least mutual,
and the dealer is as liable to be benefited as the advertiser, or more so.
The advice of the Hallet & Davis Piano Co. was not new. It was
the same that has been urged by this paper, and by other trade papers,
as well as by other piano manufacturers, ever since the shortage of
supplies made it almost certain that the merchants were in line for
serious disappointments when the fall and winter trade sets in. For
there are not enough pianos in sight to fill the demands which will
come for the Holiday trade alone. There are not pianos enough due
to issue from the shipping rooms before Christmas to take care of the
demands of the large centers of trade alone. If every piano factory
produces its capacity, without interruption, and with no delays be-
cause of lacking supplies, the total output will not satisfy the urgent
calls of the dealers between November 1st and the opening of the
new year.
Anyone who has interviewed the New York piano action manu-
facturers within the last thirty days must know that in that abso-
lutely essential feature of the piano there is an unwillingness to make
promises, or even to accept orders, that presages disappointment to
any dilatory or negligent dealers. And dealers of that kind will de-
serve the losses to which their lack of foresight will lead them. It is
easy enough for any piano dealer to count his stock. If he has been
September 25, 1920.
selling any instruments at all during the past, nine months—and he
has unless he has been asleep—he may figure upon doubling his
deliveries from this time forward. If he has twice as many pianos
coming, because he has arranged to that effect with his source of sup-
plies, he may rest fairly easy. He may run a little short, but if he
holds his prices where they belong he will end the year with a good
profit balance. If, on the other hand, he has no assurance that his
stock will be repleted, there is disappointment and loss ahead. And
that is as certain as that he must pay store rent and feed his family
flock.
No piano merchant has yet devised a way for selling pianos at a
profit unless he can get the pianos to deliver. And no piano manu-
facturer has yet been found who can ship more pianos than he can
make. Theoretically there have been miracles of that kind. But they
have never left any real money in the bank. So that the advice of the
Hallet & Davis Piano Co., that dealers get in their orders early, is a
good one. It beats guessing, or taking chances, by every way from
the center. And it is the only advice that can insure to the dealers
who accept it against the spectacle of empty stores, disgruntled cus-
tomers and loaded trucks, from rival dealers, headed for the homes of
people with whom they had themselves expected to do business.
PROBLEMS IN PUBLICITY
A large printing house makes the unqualified statement that "our
government loses over twelve thousand dollars a year on every full
page advertisement in the Saturday Evening Post." Just what sta-
tistical information the charge is based upon we do not know, but if
true it seems serious. If Uncle Sam loses so much on every page,
how much does the advertiser lose who pays $7,000 for each inser-
tion? Or does the printing house mean that each page costs Uncle
Sam the small fortune irrespective of how much it may make for the
advertiser?
Probably there has never been a printed page that has created
as much discussion and debate as the advertising page of the Satur-
day Evening Post. It is generally understood that the rules of the
Philadelphia story paper preclude the possibility of advertising in it
at all unless the investment approaches in size a little in excess of
$90,000. In other words, the Philadelphia publication must have
thirteen pages, at $7,000 per, or none at all. It works a hardship on
ambitious advertisers who believe that to be successful it is neces-
sary to follow the crowd, and the crowd just now uses the Saturday
Evening Post without much thought of its fitness as a medium of
special publicity. It is, enough that a popular fiction—or possibly
fact—fixes the circulation of the paper at approximately two million
copies every week.
Of course, if a paper containing nearly two hundred pages is
sold for 5 cents it is being practically given away so far as the pub-
lisher's returns from that source are concerned. Thus the expense to
the publishers would be nearly four times the selling price, and that
kind of circulation would soon ruin a multi-millionaire were it not for
—and here comes the secret—the advertising. And the two million
circulation of the Philadelphia paper must be paid for by the $7,000
a page advertising. That is clear enough. And so the material value
of the paper may be considered as a big premium to its buyers. In
other words it is a "bargain."
There is probably no other publication that could create an ex-
pense for Uncle Sam—in the measure charged by the big printing
house—and "get away with it." The average publication could not
offer a "premium" representing a value beyond its advertised price
and escape the post office penalty of being thrown out of the mails.
Nor could any other publication demand $7,000 a page for the space
so nearly given away to the public by the Philadelphia paper. And
this may seem strange when it is considered that the paper that
creates a void of $12,000 a year, per page, to Uncle Sam's treasury
is not an educational, industrial or scientific publication. It is chiefly
a picture paper devoted to fiction and "fine writing." It entertains,
but it doesn't specially promote any line of trade, nor give encour-
agement to any particular industry. But it enjoys special privilege
and it is just now a sort of advertising fad.
The claim of two million circulation of the Post may be a truth-
ful one. And if true it presents a remarkable case of the efficiency of
modern printing machinery. For to put forth so vast an issue every
week must demand resources beyond the dream of Ben Franklin or
any of his successors during the past one hundred years.
It is noticeable that several musical instrument industries have
made use of the Saturday Evening Post during the past few years.
It is a good sign, for it shows that at last the musical instrument
industry has grown out of the day of small things in advertising, as
elsewhere. And probably none of the piano advertisers who employ
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