Presto

P R E S T 0-T I M E S
The American Muaic 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
- - - - - - - -
(C. A. DAN I ELL—1904-1927.)
Editor
Managing Editor
J. FERGUS O'RYAN
Telephones, Local and Long Distance, Harrison 0234.
Private Phones to all Departments. Cable Address (Com-
mercial Cable Co.'s Code), "PRESTO," Chicago.
Entered as second-class matter Jan. 29, 1896, at th«
Post Office, Chicago, 115., 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
ehould be 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, NOVEMBER 10, 1928.
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
concern the interests of manufacturers or
dealers such items will appear the week follow-
ing. Copy for advertising designed for the
current issue must reach the office not later
than Wednesday noon of each week.
THE USED PIANO
It is not what prominent people in the piano
trade think or say about the used piano that
makes it a problem but the conditions created
by the thing itself. Things are said about the
used piano by the men most interested in its
influences on the sales of new pianos because
these influences alarm them. A deplorable
feature of their sale, which is pointed out, is
that some dealers pay the greatest attention
to the used piano sale instead of concentrating
on the new piano.
While it is admitted that there is justifica-
tion for a certain number of used and recondi-
tioned pianos in a store, the practice of ad-
vertising them and featuring them in a promi-
nent manner is condemned. That junk prices
placed on advertised used pianos of the scrap-
pile character , lowers the standing of the
music house announcing them, is the opinion
of many prominent dealers who have the wel-
fare of the trade generally in their minds.
It is a fact that many of the used pianos
taken in trade are "museum pieces." The
toneless, decrepit antiques serve their only re-
maining purpose when they help to promote or
close negotiations for the sales of new pianos.
That is, if they are considered at a price truly
representing their antiquity and worthless-
ness. But when it is taken in trade at a ridic-
ulously high valuation which skimps the prof-
its on the new piano too far below the just
and prudent margin, its possession creates for
the dealer another difficulty that perplexes
him and raises a doubt as to his business dis-
cretion.
It has often been suggested in convention
gatherings that the piano trade should be
unanimous in refusing to consider the old used
pianos in negotiations for sales of new pianos.
It is readily understood why the thought never
went beyond the suggestion stage. Of course,
if that suggestion became a rigidly observed
rule of the trade and the public continued to
want new pianos, the taken-in-trade would
no longer be an irritating problem. It is a
hopeful thought but it also excites despair
when considered as a possibility.
RADIO PIANO LESSONS
The radio piano lessons inaugurated four
years ago by WGN, the Chicago Tribune sta-
tion on the Drake Hotel, were resumed on
November 2, with a "first day at school" in-
troductory talk. And from the facts about
the success of last year's course, disclosed by
Edward Barry, conducting the classes, it is
clear that the radio course of piano lessons is
an effective promotional plan for encouraging
the study of piano playing. The first lesson
began on Friday of this week.
The piano trade should welcome every
means for the encouragement of piano classes.
The radio lessons, like the group classes in
schools and stores, should prove an incentive
to the piano buying thought. The aim of the
piano trade frankly is to sell pianos. And the
best way to increase sales is to increase the
number of those interested in the piano art.
It is clear that the consideration of music is
the strongest argument in the appeal for piano
sales. The moment that music disappears from
the argument, all real need for the musical in-
strument disappears likewise. The principle
is plain that all desires for the purchase of
musical instrutnentSH^egJts upon the ability and
desire to play.
So the success of the WGN course of piano
lessons should prove an incentive to sales just
as the group lessons given in schools and
music stores have been. Last year the WGN
lessons had an enrollment of 5.000. The les-
sons start the listeners at the element of piano
playing and take them on through the thirty
weeks to where simple pieces are mastered,
after which he or she can continue piano les-
sons with a local teacher.
It is a new means of spreading the gospel
of music in the home ; the radio-age w r ay of
inciting desire to play the piano as a home
accomplishment. And, alter all, the great ar-
gument for the piano is its ability to make the
home happier.
November 10, 1928
ers. Mr. Lomb considers it humiliating that
comparatively few slogans submitted have
come "from sources that have had direct con-
tact with music dealers."
* * *
The active, forward-looking spirit imparted
to the O. K. Houck Music Company, Memphis,
Tenn.. by the late O. K. Houck. is plainly dis-
cernible today in the schemes for the advance-
ment of music so actively carried out by the
company. The Tennessee Society for Better
Music is an able means towards a musical end.
THIRTY=F1VE YEARS AGO
(From Presto of November 10, 1893.)
Mr. Geo. J. Dowling, who has been in attendance
at the Vose Sons World's Columbian exhibit during
the Exposition, has returned to Boston. Mr. Dowling
proved a most valuable man for the place and won a
host of good opinions for his unfailing courtesy and
business ability. A great deal of the success at the
Vose booth can be attributed to him.
Mr. Leo Heerwagen, who has looked after the
western interests of Farrand & Votey during the ill-
ness of Mr. Davis, has been appointed to succeed that
gentleman, recently deceased, and will have charge of
the Chicago office.
Speaking of business improvement Mr. A. M.
Wright, manager of the Manufacturers' Piano Co.,
says he is not looking for a boom in trade for some
time to come.
"Oh, business is all right," said a prominent music
trade man on Tuesday, "pretty good, considering.
There is some retail business and some revival in
wholesale, but there should be in this latter for there
has been mighty little of it of late. Everybody is
lying low now, I can tell you, and awaiting develop-
ments."
Wissner Hall, in Fulton street, Brooklyn, has just
been completed and will be opened with a concert
on December 1.
"Lakeside" pianos appear to be increasing in popu-
larity every day.
Now that the World's Fair is over az&l things are
settling down to their normal state, it is rather pleas-
ant to look over the books and see what a great num-
ber of subscriptions have come to The Presto during
the past six months. Better still, is it, to find them
coming in now with nearly every mail from North,
South, East and West.
There is every reason to believe that a revival
of business is at hand. In fact, it may be said by
some to be already begun.
Elaborate preparations are being made for the
World's Fair Prize Winners' Exposition, which will
open at the Grand Central Palace, New York, Nov.
30. Already some twelve hundred exhibitors have
been secured, who take with them some of the most
notable features of the great Chicago World's Fair.
It took some time for the exhibitors in Section I
to realize that the great Fair was really over and a
thing of the past.
Regrets have now ceased, and a desire to get away
from the scenes of the last six months predominates
among those who are still there. They whose goods
are boxed ready for shipment as soon as a car can be
secured are happier. These are (on Tuesday) Behr
Bros. Co., Stieff, Henry F. Miller and Chickering.
The great increase in the number of children
taking class instruction and the spread of
piano classes in schools suggests a definite
course of action in the pursuit of piano sales.
The families represented by the youthful
pupils may have pianos but that fact does not
discourage the selling efforts of the dealers.
A cheap or moderately priced piano, consid-
ered by parents as good enough while the chil-
dren are taking their earlier lessons, no longer
fills the requirements when the youthful pupils
arrive at a more advanced stage in their mu-
sical education. Then, to the ambitious stu-
dents and their sympathetic parents, the best
piano is not too good for practice.
They who were, at the time of writing, waiting for
their boxes to come from the warehouse are Mehlin,
Kranich & Bach, Hardman, Starr, Ivers & Pond,
Keller Bros. & Blight, and the Russian exhibit.
The Canadian exhibits are still in their respective
booths, covered and ready for boxing, but the boxes
are still in the warehouse. Ditto the French, German
and English.
Mr. Emil Liebling has been playing the Kimball
grand in several concerts this week. The instrument
is making warmer friends every day.
Mr. L. E. Thayer, the indefatigable traveler for the
Ft. Wayne Organ Co., was in Philadelphia Monday
of this week, going thence to New York, on Tuesday.
F. F. Kramer of Allentown, Pa., who was burned
out recently, has secured and opened new warerooms.
The charge that music dealers are apathetic
to the slogan contest inaugurated by the Music
Industries Chamber of Commerce, is made in
a letter written this week by Henry C. Lomb,
president of the National Association of Mu-
sical Instrument and Accessories Manufactur-
WANTED—Situation by first-class action finisher
and regulator. I am Al piano tuner. Address C. B.,
cor. 14th and 9th Sts., Rockford, Illinois. The best
of references furnished.
P O S I T I O N WANTED—A man well known in the
music trade as a thorough designer, and foreman,
desires position with an organ factory.
Address
Thomas Hill, Box 37, Fort Wayne, Ind.
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