Presto

PRESTO
Presto
THE AMERICAN MUSIC TRADE WEEKLY.
Published Every Saturday at 417 South Dearborn
Street, Chicago, Illinois.
C. A. DANIELL and FRANK D. ABBOTT •
• Editors
Telephones, Local and Long Distance, Harrison 234
Private Phones to all Departments. Cable Address (Com-
merclal 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 extra charge In United States
possessions, Cuba and Mexico, Rates for advertising on
application.
Items of news and other matter are solicited and if
of general interest to the music trade will be paid for
at space rates. Usually piano merchants or salesmen
in the smaller cities are the best occasional corre-
spondents, and their assistance is invited.
Forme close at noon every Thursday. News mat-
ter should be in not later than eleven o'clock on the
same day. Advertising copy should be in hand before
Tuesday, five p. m., to insure preferred position. Full
page display copy should be in hand by Monday noon
preceding publication day. Want advs. for current
week, to insure classification, must not be later than
Wednesday noon.
Address all communications for the editorial or business
departments to PRESTO PUBLISHING CO., 417 South
Dearborn Street, Chicago, III.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1924.
ORGAN POSSIBILITIES
If the governmental statistics are accurate,
the reed organ industry might still be much
"deader" than it really is. For figures com-
piled by the Federal Trade Commission indi-
cate that there were 5,641 reed organs pro-
duced in this country during 1923. The num-
ber of pipe organs is placed at 1,465.
The facts, as stated, indicate the very few
reed organ industries still operating. Today
it is understood that there is but one such
factory left, of any considerable capacity, and
that one is producing the highest type of reed
instruments. Which goes to show that the
class of people who buy reed organs at this
stage of the game, are of the kind who might
as well buy grand pianos if they preferred
them. And this proves, as we all know, that
there is something in the nature of a small
minority of the race that cries out for the
more solemn, more impressive, perhaps, char-
acter of the instrument universally associated
with praise and the inspiration of faith. It
is the antithesis of jazz.
Until recently the largest industry produc-
ing cheap reed organs was in the South. Its
customers were no doubt principally among
the colored people of that section. In the
North the organs from that Southern industry
seldom were to be found. The only high class
reed organs of the North, in many years, have
come from the state of Vermont.
The figures quoted suggest forcibly the
great changes which have taken place in the
industry and, trade during the past quarter-
century. For even at that comparatively
short time ago there were many more reed
organ industries than piano factories. The
stores throughout every section of the coun-
try carried a brave showing of the fanciful
"pa'rlor tops," and even the larger piano in-
dustries still also manufactured organs.
For a time it was believed by some that the
reed instrument would experience a "come
back" because of the inroads of the "auto-
matic" music. But the reproducing piano and
the perfection of some of the playerpianos,
have side-tracked that notion and the reed
organ industry has nearly disappeared. But
in the old world reed organs are as popular
as ever, and the German trade papers are well
filled with advertisements of the "harmo-
niums," and even the "melodeons" which to
the American trade seem so antiquated.
THE FIRST PIANO
A writer in Musical Times draws attention
to a fact of historic piano interest, in which
there is food for rather singular reflection. It
may be an interest more commercial than
artistic, or, rather, more curious than impor-
tant in a general way. For our twelve-times-
a-year contemporary makes conspicuous the
fact that the famous piano which is frequently
called the "first," as to its foundation, and the
direct result of the genius of the "father of
the American piano," is not that at all.
But this late discoverer of the Bacon piano,
as the real pioneer in the lists, does not go far
enough. He doesn't even support his per-
fectly correct statement of fact by saying that
the Bacon piano dates back to the year 1789,
whereas the Chickering can claim the com-
paratively recent year of 1823 as that of its
birth.
So that the Bacon piano is thirty-four years
older, in its traditions, evolution and develop-
ment than the Boston piano which is com-
monly given credit for being America's "old-
est." And, somewhat strange to consider, also,
the Bacon possesses the advantage of having
been under the personal direction of the same
family, or succession of heirs, to even a more
prolonged degree than the Chickering.
And, necessarily, to the mind of the piano
man, it may seem strange that so large a share
of the honor which seems to attach to longev-
ity in this industry should go so wholly un-
challenged. For, as a rule, the piano is a very
jealous article of art-industry. The value of
pedigree has been emphasized through its
whole career. And if a piano—an American
piano—has been able to boast of even a half
century's career the fact has usually been
made the theme of pages of printed proclama-
tion.
Bacon is a good name in any business. It
is as good and appetizing on the fall-board as
any other name. And the Bacon piano has
been the pride and product of a succession of
lives devoted to its perfecting and propagating.
But it has seemingly been so modest in its
long and useful life that it is left, at this late
day, for a monthly music journal to set forth a
fact of historic interest in which any astute
piano salesman should be easily able to find a
strangle hold upon a certain kind of com-
petition.
The upward trend of trade is felt in the very
air. Few of the piano makers or dealers will say
that they can't detect it. The watchword to the
retail piano men is Get Busy.
* * *
The little local piano dealer is the real publicity
man of the average piano that is worth selling.
The little local piano man makes his living by pro-
moting the pianos he represents. This is an item
which not all piano manufacturers seem to under-
stand or fully realize. Only the man, whether a
piano manufacturer, piano editor or piano sales-
man, who has been in the field in a small city, or
September 27, 1924.
in the country town, can know just how far the
little local piano dealer goes to advertise the in-
struments in which he is interested because from
its sale he makes his living, and sometimes a little
more.
* * *
The player music roll, properly handled, should
be one of the steady and very important sources
of the piano dealer's resources. A well arranged
music roll department will pay the smallest piano
dealer. And it will afford influence in an adver-
tising way that is impossible to anything else. If
you haven't a music roll department, put one in.
* * *
A notable change may be seen in the style of
retail piano advertising within the past ten years.
It is not often that we find big display lines in
the newspapers telling about cut prices, and even
the "dollar down" has seemingly disappeared.
* * *
Every time you sell a piano without profit—if
you ever do such a foolish thing—you are not
only robbing yourself but spoiling your future
prospects and forever losing an opportunity. It's
foolish "business."
* .* *
Are you keeping track of the playerpianos in
your vicinity ? Send bulletins of new music rolls
to all of them, and keep at it. Your player roll
business should be more profitable.
* * *
Knowing how to write a "pulling" piano ad
needs more than an education; it is more like in-
tuition. To know a thing means more than to
recognize it.
30 YEARS AGO IN THE TRADE
From the Files of Presto
September 27, 1894.
Mr. Lucien Wulsin, of D. H. Baldwin & Co., Cin-
cinnati, is expected back from his trip to England
soon.
Mr. A. G. Cone, of the W. W. Kimball Co., is tak-
ing a holiday at Colorado Springs. Mr. E. S. Con-
way has returned from Chattanooga, where he was
attending the conclave of Odd Fellows.
A visit to the warerooms of Adam Schaaf will
show increased activity and the same may be seen at
his factory. The Adam Schaaf piano is each week
widening the circle of its popularity and the prospects
are that it will this season bring in returns to its
maker that will gladden his heart and greatly Jn-
crease his bank account.
The passing of the fortieth anniversary of Mr. P.
J. Healy's connection with the music trade has drawn
attention to others who have been at work in the
same field longer than the average business life. Mr.
Healy is still comparatively a young man and there
are many who have been in the trade much longer
than he has, but who can lay claim to the place of
patriarch-in-chief in this direction? Where is the
member of the trade who has been in it longer than
all the rest? It would be interesting to know.
20 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
From Presto, September 29, 1904.
Henry Gennett, president of the Starr Piano Com-
pany, Richmond, Ind., was a Chicago visitor on
Tuesday of this week.
There will be an opening before long of the new
Straube factory at Hammond, Ind. Piano manufac-
turing is going on in the new factory and the formal
opening will be an event of the near future.
The pusillanimous personalities pertaining to rival
editors are gradually disappearing from trade papers.
It is one of the good signs of broadening influence
and a drawing forward and away from the micro-
scopic mental processes of the "trade journalism" of
the past.
The corner of Wabash avenue and Adams street,
Chicago, is such a desirable one for the piano busi-
ness that many enterprising dealers and manufactur-
ers have been asking what the cost of it may be.
Among the applicants have been all of these: Phil
Starck, William Gerner, Van Livingston, Platt Gibbs,
Cable-Nelson Co., Grosvenor, Lapham & Co., Krell
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