Presto

PRESTO-TIMES
The American Music Trade Weekly
Published Every Saturday at 417 South Dearborn
Street, Chicago, Illinois.
PRESTO P U B L I S H I N G CO., Publishers.
F R A N K D. A B B O T T
- - - - - - - - -
Editor
(C. A. DAN I ELL—1904-1927.)
J. FERGUS O'RYAN
_ _ _ _ _ Managing Editor
Telephones, Local and Long Distance, Harrison 0234.
Private Phones to all Departments. Cable Address (Com-
mercial Cable Co.'s Code), " P R E S T O , " Chicago.
Entered as second-class matter Jan. 29, 1896, at the
Post Office, Chicago, 111., under Act of March 3, 1879.
Subscription, $2 a year; 6 months, $1.25; 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 correspondents, and
their assistance is invited.
Payment is not accepted for matter printed in the edi-
torial or news columns of Presto-Times.
Where half-tones are made the actual cost of produc-
tion will be charged if of commercial character or" other
than strictly news interest.
When electrotypes are sent for publication it is re-
quested that their subjects and senders be carefully indi-
cated.
Forms close at noon on Thursday. Late news matter
should be in not later than 11 o'clock on that day. Ad-
vertising copy should be in hand before Tuesday, 5 p. m.,
to insure preferred position. Full page display copy
should he in hand by Tuesday noon preceding publication
day. Want advertisements for current week, to insure
classification, should be in by Wednesday noon.
Address all communications for the editorial or business
departments to PRESTO PUBLISHING CO., 417 South
Dearborn Street. Chicago, III.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 18, 1928.
to many progressive music houses in sections
where conditions differ from those of other
divisions of the country. A bright New Eng-
land salesman, even after a course in the Bos-
ton Retail Trade Board School, would need an
extension to his training were he to apply for
a piano and organ selling job in a house south
of the Mason and Dixon line. Such progres-
sive houses as the Cable-Shelby-Burton Piano
Company, the Starr Piano Company, Jesse
French & Sons Piano Company, and the E. E.
Forbes Piano Company, who have activities
radiating from Birmingham, Ala., have selling
problems peculiar to the section. The sales-
men on the outside for the firms named follow
theories and practices rather at variance with
those which obtain in the West and North.
But the South is not the only place where
human nature is considered in correlation with
selling pianos, organs and other musical in-
struments. Music stores of Phoenix or Tucson,
Ariz., have varieties of prospective customers
peculiar to the great open spaces where men
are men, but where the women have 90 per
cent of the say in the buying transaction.
Every department in the main store of
Sherman, Clay & Co., San Francisco, or any
of its branches along the Pacific Coast, is a
class in a great school of salesmanship which
has no vacation period. There the salesmen
and saleswomen are taught to analyze their
selling experiences so as to become increas-
ingly more proficient. In an admirable sys-
tem the sales folk profit by their mistakes.
The last form of Presto-Times goes to press
at 11 a. m. Thursday. Any news transpiring
after that hour cannot be expected in the cur-
rent issue. Nothing received at the office that
is not strictly news of importance can have
attention after 9 a. m. on Thursday. If they
BIG PROSPECT FIELD
concern the interests of manufacturers or
The
great
increase in the number of chil-
dealers such items will appear the week follow-
dren
taking
class
instruction and the spread
ing. Copy for advertising designed for the
of
piano
classes
in
schools suggests a definite
current issue must reach the office not later
fhan Wednesday noon of each week.
course of action in the pursuit of piano sales.
The families represented by the youthful
pupils
may have pianos but that fact does not
SCHOOLS FOR SALESMEN
discourage
the selling efforts of the dealers.
The Retail Trade Board of Boston has an
Alert piano sales managers now adopt a
institute for the training of store executives
and clerks which is considered a distinct step definite plan for seeking prospective buyers.
in retail store education. The music stores of This includes a keen observation of the effects
the Hub are not practically interested in this of the classes on parents and a timely ap-
plan of the Retail Trade Board, but an educa- proach with a definite proposition. Some of
tional course for salesmen, both retail and the homes of children taking the group les-
wholesale, is no novelty in the piano and kin- sons may already possess pianos. But they
call for action as well as the homes without
dred music trades there and elsewhere.
pianos.
The periodic meetings of the sales forces
A cheap or moderately-priced piano, consid-
of the Baldwin Piano Company, the Gulbran-
ered
by parents as good enough while the chil-
sen Company, Bush & Lane Piano Company,
dren
are taking their ealier lessons, no longer
The Cable Company, the Packard Piano Com-
pany, M. Schulz Company, Straube Piano Com- fills the requirements when the youthful pupils
pany, Jesse French & Sons Piano Co., Wal- arrive at a more advanced stage in their mu-
tham Piano Co., Weaver Piano Co., and other sical education. Then, to the ambitious stu-
piano manufacturers provide interesting news dents and their sympathetic parents, the best
piano is not too good for practice.
stories for the trade papers.
The meetings of dealers handling the band
and orchestra instruments made by C. G. Conn,
Musical merchandise dealers in nearly every
Ltd., Elkhart, Ind., an important annual occur- city in the United States have a grievance in
rence, is a post-graduate course that makes the unfair competition of the pawn shops. In
the "Conn Home Coming Week" of the high- several places the music dealers have been suc-
est value in the equipment of the men who sell cessful in influencing the city government to
the bugles and drums. It is the belief of the pass ordinances restricting the pawnbrokers
heads of the big band instrument factory that in their cut-throat practices, but in many more
the force of a salesman's talk is in equal ratio cities they are a menace to the legitimate deal-
to his knowledge of the construction of the er. It is a mistake to think that the offering
instrument. If a salesman can point out the in the windows of bargains in musical instru-
meritorious features and account for them in ments is only a means to quickly sell the un-
a clear way that comes from actual knowledge redeemed pledges. In reality the scheme is
of factory processes, it is not a necessity that only a means to an end. They are the baits
he should be able to demonstrate the instru- for goods regularly carried by regular dealers
ment. The customer is usually able to do that in the several lines. At the prices quoted by
himself.
the pawnbrokers for musical instruments it
would
be impossible for the legitimate dealer
The education of the salesman and sales-
to
pay
his overhead. Some of the musical
woman is a matter of the highest importance
August 18, 1928
commodities are of the standard kind. How
the pawnbrokers get the goods is one of the
tricks of the trade.
Prospect finding systems depending on the
advertising and follow-up methods of a piano
house may be productive of good results, but
no dealer minimizes the importance of the out-
side salesman, both for finding prospects and
converting them into customers.
THIRTY YEARS AGO
(From Presto of August 18, 1898.)
It is a pleasure to know that Mr. Geo. Grass is at
his desk in the offices of George Steck & Co., New
York, entirely recovered from his recent severe ill-
ness and ready for his share in the big boom prom-
ised the trade the coming fall.
There is no better music trade barometer than Mr.
P. J. Healy. And Mr. Healy said yesterday that the
business of Lyon & Healy was better than for July
of last year, when the era of prosperity was just
dawning. June of this year was also a good month,
notwithstanding the war.
An eastern trade paper says that Mr. Robert Prod-
dow, of the Estey Piano Co., has openly announced
his determination not to in any way support or en-
courage any journal that wilfully attacks reputable
manufacturers.
A very bold thief in Elkhart, Ind., on Tuesday
night last succeeded in taking the horse and carriage
of Mr. C. G. Conn from its hitching place on the
city's main street. The outfit is described as a bay
horse 15 hands high, hitched to an end spring top
buggy.
THE PIANO MEN IN WAR.
They left the keyboard for Key West,
And thence to Cuba's isle,
Where boom of guns in awful quest,
Drowned other "booms" the while.
ELECTRIC POWER AND LIGHT FROM THE
FOX RIVER.
On the morning of August 8, 1898, the wheels of
the Western Cottage Piano & Organ Co. at Ottawa,
111., turned for the first time without the aid of steam.
Ottawa is located at the confluence of the Illinois
and Fox rivers. There being no available water
power at home, Mr. Louis W. Merrifield, mechanical
superintendent of the company, conceived the idea
of utilizing the power of the Fox River, taken at a
point about four miles northeast of the city, and
transmitting it electrically to the factory at Ottawa.
We clip this from the Pittsburgh Commercial Ga-
zette of recent date:
A man came into our store one day last week and
while going through our warerooms came to one of
the A. B. Chase uprights. He played for nearly
twenty minutes before he slowly turned away from
the piano with the words: "That instrument has
the purest tone quality I have ever heard in any up-
right piano. I didn't know it could be had except
in a grand piano. It's marvelous."
S. HAMILTON,
Hamilton Bldg., 335-337 Fifth Ave., Pittsburgh.
Chas. W. Brainerd, for years connected as sales-
man with the Jesse French Piano Co,, and known
as one of the best salesmen in St. Louis and the
south, has been engaged as manager of the piano
department to be inaugurated September 1 by St.
Louis' largest furniture establishment, May Stern
& Co.
It was H. B. Morenus, the man with the Chicago
smile and the glad hand, that made that big sale to
Cox College at Atlanta, Ga., last week, and the
youngster has made many an old campaigner in the
piano business bite the dust and hide his face in
shame. This Cox College deal was the largest thing
in the shape of a single deal ever made in this section,
and all the piano houses were "horsin'," as Will Hays
says, for the contract.
W. B. Williams of the "Sterling" will start on a
western trip September 1.
Concerning the deplorable death of Chas. A. Gerold,
reported in last week's Presto, there are some inter-
esting details which it can do no harm to relate,
partly in extenuation and partly as illustrating how
seemingly trifling a provocation may nerve the hand
of a sensitive man to commit the terrible deed of self-
destruction.
GROSVENOR, LAPHAM & FOX.
The new firm of Grosvenor, Lapham & Fox is
doing a good and increasing business. They have
just added to their warerooms and now occupy a
good share of the entire fifth floor in the new Fine
Arts Building on Michigan avenue. There are six
doors to the big warerooms and entrances on three
sides. The "A. B. Chase" is, of course, the leader
with Grosvenor, Lapham & Fox, and the fine piano
is sustaining its place in the preferences of critical
music lovers.
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