Presto
Issue: 1923 1916 - Page 21
21
PRESTO
April 14, 1923
VIOLIN INDUSTRY BIG
Its History, Too, Is Filled with Interest That
Extends from Seventeenth Century
to Today.
It would be interesting to learn the number of
violin makers in the country. No regular census of
the scattered individuals and small firms engaged in
making fiddles has ever been made to supplement the
existing one or more less important violin-making
industries. Every large city has a number of in-
dividuals or firms engaged in the repairing of violins
and nearly all of them do violin making. And scat-
tered through the country in small towns and the
smallest towns are fiddle-making and repairing indus-
tries of more or less importance and ambition.
In any part of the country you are likely to en-
counter a genius who is able to make a fiddle as well
as play it. And not a few quite important violin-
making industries today had a beginning with some
genius patiently tinkering with riddle repair jobs.
Genius plus business acumen has resulted in really
worth while industries.
Violin-making by hand is an old art brought to a
high state of perfection by the master makers of the
seventeenth century. Now only the fundamental re-
quirements of design are followed by the violin-
maker. Modern machinery ways have given place
to the old, patient methods and hand processes. Even
the properly organized repair shops use standard
parts where something more than '"tinkering" on the
broken fiddle is called for.
In designing his fiddle the professional maker and
the well-informed amateur maker follows in close de-
tail the lines and proportions of violins made by the
old Italian masters. But in manufacture the methods
of today differ considerably from those employed in
the days of Stradivarius. Today violins are largely
a factory-made product, for which the parts are first
TUNERS——
BASS STRINGS
Special attention given to the needs of the tuner and
the dealer
OTTO R. TREFZ, Jr.
2110 Fail-mount Avenue
PHILADELPHIA, PA.
thoroughly seasoned and then sawed out in the rough,
machined to net size and form, glued and clamped to-
gether, hand-cleaned and given the necessary coatings
of finish.
The violin-making procedure is the same whether
a single violin is made or the instruments turned out
in quantities. The belly is made of some soft elastic
wood such as spruce or pine and the back of close-
grained hardwood like maple or sycamore. Both are
scooped out on the inside and worked to a convex
contour on the outside. The sides or ribs are made of
very thin pieces of maple or sycamore, which include
five or six sections, each of which is bent around gas-
heated forms. The neck is made of hardwood, hand-
sawed and shaped as nearly as possible to correct
form and then finished by hand.
THE POSTAL REMINDER.
A reminder on a postal card has been mailed to
electric piano dealers and users of electric piano
music rolls by the Clark Orchestra Roll Co., DeKalb,
111. The postal was sent out last week preparatory to
revising the mailing list. The postal said: "New
Music is the life of an electric piano. Without new
music an electric piano becomes merely a piece of
furniture, without-money-making ability. New music
places your automatic instrument in the wage-earning
class and brings you dividends. If you want to con-
tinue to receive our lists of new music, please sign
your name and address on the attached card and re-
turn it to us. There's no obligation on your part at
all. If you don't get your card we will think you
want your name omitted."
One-Man Steel Cable Hoist; Two-in-One
Loaders, Trucks, Covers, etc.
Gat Our New Circulars and Price*
PIANO MOVERS SUPPLY COMPANY
BUCKINGHAM, PA.
Lyon & Healy, Inc., Believe Public Is More Inter-
ested in Smaller Music Instruments.
The interest of the buying; public is now being cen-
tered in instruments of the small goods families, due
to influence of artists of high repute, and magazine
and newspaper advertising, according to a recent
statement of Lyon & Healy, Inc., Chicago. The
artists' work for some time past, as evidenced by-
magazine covers, plays up small musical instruments.
The piano has to a certain degree been featured con-
tinually, but it is only recently that there seems to
be an epidemic of illustrations which play up such in-
struments as the saxophone, mandolin and violin.
Lyon & Healy are capitalizing on this assistance
by having in the salesrooms of their small instru-
ment department a series of concerts.
These are
given from time to time and feature one or two of
the lesser family of small instruments. The last con-
cert, given on March 17, included selections played
on the xylophone and ukulele. Mr. Kroeplin, the
manager, reports that the concert was very well
attended and sales were traceable to it.
RADIO COMPANY SOLD.
President Charles Gilbert, of the De Forest Radio
Telegraph & Telephone Co., New York, last week an-
nounced that the company had been sold to Detroit
automobile interests, including E. H. Everett, of
Paige Motor Car Company. Lee De Forest will be
renamed for ten years as consulting engineer, with
rights to his radio inventions during that period.
MATCH ANY PIANO.
"If you don't see what you want, ask for it." This
old slogan appears in a recent notice of the Tonk
Mfg. Co., Chicago, in its little trade paper, "Tonk
Topics." "Applying this old time slogan to modern
business principles," continues the ad, "we remind
piano dealers everywhere of the service of the Tonk
organization in supplying information about anything
relating to piano benches. We match any piano, in
wood, finish and appropriate design. W r rite us your
needs. We are eager to serve you."
INDIAN IS CONN CUSTOMER.
One of the satisfied Conn instrument .users in Chi-
cago orchestras is a full-blooded Indian, John Kuhn,
who plays the sousaphone in Isham Jones' dance
orchestra at the College Inn. Kuhn is a graduate of
Carlisle University, and has seen service as a troop-
er in the Northwestern Mounted Police. He de-
veloped an ability for music, and has played four
seasons with Sousa.. The sousaphone which he plays
in Isham Jones' orchestra was built specially to his
order.
The Piano Repair Shop
PRACTICAL PIANO MO ING SUPPLIES
INCREASE SELLING POWER
SMALL GOODS IN DEMAND
Pianos and Phonographs Rebuilt by
Expert Workmen
Player-actions installed. Instruments
refinished or remodeled and actions and
keys repaired. Work guaranteed. Prices
reasonable.
Our-of-town dealers' repair work solic-
ited. Write for details and terms.
THE PIANO REPAIR SHOP
425 South Wabash Ave.
Chicago
LEATHER
FOR
PLAYERS
ORGANS
PIANOS
PNEUMATIC LEATHERS A SPECIALTY
Packing, Valves, All Special Tanned
Bellows Leather
T. L. LUTKINS, Inc.
40 Spruce Street
NEW YORK
DEALERS AND TUNERS!
Big Cut in Prices Piano Key Repairing
Celluloid, Complete Tops, Set Keys
$7.00
Ivorine (grained), Complete Tops, Set Keys 8.00
Composition, Complete Tops, Set Keys... 10.00
Sole manufacturers and distributors of H. P.
& O. K. Co. famous Ivory White Glue. Needs
no Heating. Applied Cold. Sent anywhere in
U. S. P. P. $1.00 can.
HARLEM PIANO & ORGAN KEY CO.
121-123 E. 126th St.
New York Citj-, N. Y.
MAG0SY4& BUSCHER
PERFECTION
PLAYER ROLL CABINET
Furnished in 5 ply veneered 1 3 / 1 6 stock in
Mahogany, Oak and Walnut
Designed and Manufactured
By
Capacity, 150 Rolls
First Class
OVAL AND ROUND METAL
SPINNERS
Makers of high-grade hammered Cym-,
bals in Brass and German Silver, from 2
to 18 inches; Brass Mutes for Cornets,
Trombones, French Horns.
Our Hammered Cymbals are as Good as Turk-
ish Cymbals in Sound, and they don't cost as
much.
Drum Major Batons in Wood and Metal.
Perfection Piano Bench Mfg. Co.
Makers of the BESTONE Banjo Reso-
nators
We Can Manufacture Any Specialty in
Our Line to Order.
614-618 So. Canal St.
232 Canal St. and 118 Walker St., NEW YORK
CHICAGO
Enhanced content © 2008-2009 and presented by MBSI - The Musical Box Society International (www.mbsi.org) and the International Arcade Museum (www.arcade-museum.com).
All Rights Reserved. Digitized from the archives of the MBSI with support from NAMM - The International Music Products Association (www.namm.org).
Additional enhancement, optimization, and distribution by the International Arcade Museum. An extensive collection of Presto can be found online at http://www.arcade-museum.com/library/
PRESTO
April 14, 1923
VIOLIN INDUSTRY BIG
Its History, Too, Is Filled with Interest That
Extends from Seventeenth Century
to Today.
It would be interesting to learn the number of
violin makers in the country. No regular census of
the scattered individuals and small firms engaged in
making fiddles has ever been made to supplement the
existing one or more less important violin-making
industries. Every large city has a number of in-
dividuals or firms engaged in the repairing of violins
and nearly all of them do violin making. And scat-
tered through the country in small towns and the
smallest towns are fiddle-making and repairing indus-
tries of more or less importance and ambition.
In any part of the country you are likely to en-
counter a genius who is able to make a fiddle as well
as play it. And not a few quite important violin-
making industries today had a beginning with some
genius patiently tinkering with riddle repair jobs.
Genius plus business acumen has resulted in really
worth while industries.
Violin-making by hand is an old art brought to a
high state of perfection by the master makers of the
seventeenth century. Now only the fundamental re-
quirements of design are followed by the violin-
maker. Modern machinery ways have given place
to the old, patient methods and hand processes. Even
the properly organized repair shops use standard
parts where something more than '"tinkering" on the
broken fiddle is called for.
In designing his fiddle the professional maker and
the well-informed amateur maker follows in close de-
tail the lines and proportions of violins made by the
old Italian masters. But in manufacture the methods
of today differ considerably from those employed in
the days of Stradivarius. Today violins are largely
a factory-made product, for which the parts are first
TUNERS——
BASS STRINGS
Special attention given to the needs of the tuner and
the dealer
OTTO R. TREFZ, Jr.
2110 Fail-mount Avenue
PHILADELPHIA, PA.
thoroughly seasoned and then sawed out in the rough,
machined to net size and form, glued and clamped to-
gether, hand-cleaned and given the necessary coatings
of finish.
The violin-making procedure is the same whether
a single violin is made or the instruments turned out
in quantities. The belly is made of some soft elastic
wood such as spruce or pine and the back of close-
grained hardwood like maple or sycamore. Both are
scooped out on the inside and worked to a convex
contour on the outside. The sides or ribs are made of
very thin pieces of maple or sycamore, which include
five or six sections, each of which is bent around gas-
heated forms. The neck is made of hardwood, hand-
sawed and shaped as nearly as possible to correct
form and then finished by hand.
THE POSTAL REMINDER.
A reminder on a postal card has been mailed to
electric piano dealers and users of electric piano
music rolls by the Clark Orchestra Roll Co., DeKalb,
111. The postal was sent out last week preparatory to
revising the mailing list. The postal said: "New
Music is the life of an electric piano. Without new
music an electric piano becomes merely a piece of
furniture, without-money-making ability. New music
places your automatic instrument in the wage-earning
class and brings you dividends. If you want to con-
tinue to receive our lists of new music, please sign
your name and address on the attached card and re-
turn it to us. There's no obligation on your part at
all. If you don't get your card we will think you
want your name omitted."
One-Man Steel Cable Hoist; Two-in-One
Loaders, Trucks, Covers, etc.
Gat Our New Circulars and Price*
PIANO MOVERS SUPPLY COMPANY
BUCKINGHAM, PA.
Lyon & Healy, Inc., Believe Public Is More Inter-
ested in Smaller Music Instruments.
The interest of the buying; public is now being cen-
tered in instruments of the small goods families, due
to influence of artists of high repute, and magazine
and newspaper advertising, according to a recent
statement of Lyon & Healy, Inc., Chicago. The
artists' work for some time past, as evidenced by-
magazine covers, plays up small musical instruments.
The piano has to a certain degree been featured con-
tinually, but it is only recently that there seems to
be an epidemic of illustrations which play up such in-
struments as the saxophone, mandolin and violin.
Lyon & Healy are capitalizing on this assistance
by having in the salesrooms of their small instru-
ment department a series of concerts.
These are
given from time to time and feature one or two of
the lesser family of small instruments. The last con-
cert, given on March 17, included selections played
on the xylophone and ukulele. Mr. Kroeplin, the
manager, reports that the concert was very well
attended and sales were traceable to it.
RADIO COMPANY SOLD.
President Charles Gilbert, of the De Forest Radio
Telegraph & Telephone Co., New York, last week an-
nounced that the company had been sold to Detroit
automobile interests, including E. H. Everett, of
Paige Motor Car Company. Lee De Forest will be
renamed for ten years as consulting engineer, with
rights to his radio inventions during that period.
MATCH ANY PIANO.
"If you don't see what you want, ask for it." This
old slogan appears in a recent notice of the Tonk
Mfg. Co., Chicago, in its little trade paper, "Tonk
Topics." "Applying this old time slogan to modern
business principles," continues the ad, "we remind
piano dealers everywhere of the service of the Tonk
organization in supplying information about anything
relating to piano benches. We match any piano, in
wood, finish and appropriate design. W r rite us your
needs. We are eager to serve you."
INDIAN IS CONN CUSTOMER.
One of the satisfied Conn instrument .users in Chi-
cago orchestras is a full-blooded Indian, John Kuhn,
who plays the sousaphone in Isham Jones' dance
orchestra at the College Inn. Kuhn is a graduate of
Carlisle University, and has seen service as a troop-
er in the Northwestern Mounted Police. He de-
veloped an ability for music, and has played four
seasons with Sousa.. The sousaphone which he plays
in Isham Jones' orchestra was built specially to his
order.
The Piano Repair Shop
PRACTICAL PIANO MO ING SUPPLIES
INCREASE SELLING POWER
SMALL GOODS IN DEMAND
Pianos and Phonographs Rebuilt by
Expert Workmen
Player-actions installed. Instruments
refinished or remodeled and actions and
keys repaired. Work guaranteed. Prices
reasonable.
Our-of-town dealers' repair work solic-
ited. Write for details and terms.
THE PIANO REPAIR SHOP
425 South Wabash Ave.
Chicago
LEATHER
FOR
PLAYERS
ORGANS
PIANOS
PNEUMATIC LEATHERS A SPECIALTY
Packing, Valves, All Special Tanned
Bellows Leather
T. L. LUTKINS, Inc.
40 Spruce Street
NEW YORK
DEALERS AND TUNERS!
Big Cut in Prices Piano Key Repairing
Celluloid, Complete Tops, Set Keys
$7.00
Ivorine (grained), Complete Tops, Set Keys 8.00
Composition, Complete Tops, Set Keys... 10.00
Sole manufacturers and distributors of H. P.
& O. K. Co. famous Ivory White Glue. Needs
no Heating. Applied Cold. Sent anywhere in
U. S. P. P. $1.00 can.
HARLEM PIANO & ORGAN KEY CO.
121-123 E. 126th St.
New York Citj-, N. Y.
MAG0SY4& BUSCHER
PERFECTION
PLAYER ROLL CABINET
Furnished in 5 ply veneered 1 3 / 1 6 stock in
Mahogany, Oak and Walnut
Designed and Manufactured
By
Capacity, 150 Rolls
First Class
OVAL AND ROUND METAL
SPINNERS
Makers of high-grade hammered Cym-,
bals in Brass and German Silver, from 2
to 18 inches; Brass Mutes for Cornets,
Trombones, French Horns.
Our Hammered Cymbals are as Good as Turk-
ish Cymbals in Sound, and they don't cost as
much.
Drum Major Batons in Wood and Metal.
Perfection Piano Bench Mfg. Co.
Makers of the BESTONE Banjo Reso-
nators
We Can Manufacture Any Specialty in
Our Line to Order.
614-618 So. Canal St.
232 Canal St. and 118 Walker St., NEW YORK
CHICAGO
Enhanced content © 2008-2009 and presented by MBSI - The Musical Box Society International (www.mbsi.org) and the International Arcade Museum (www.arcade-museum.com).
All Rights Reserved. Digitized from the archives of the MBSI with support from NAMM - The International Music Products Association (www.namm.org).
Additional enhancement, optimization, and distribution by the International Arcade Museum. An extensive collection of Presto can be found online at http://www.arcade-museum.com/library/
Future scanning projects are planned by the International Arcade Museum Library (IAML).