Presto

July, 1931
P R E S T 0-T I M E S
ISSUED THE
FIFTEENTH IN EACH
MONTH
F R A N K D. ABBOTT
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PRESTO PUBLISHING CO.
Publishers
417 So. Dearborn St.
Chicago, IIL
The American Music Trade Journal
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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, $1.25 a year; 6 months, 75 cents; foreign.
$3.00. Payable in advance. No extra charge in United
States possessions, Cuba and Mexico. Rates for adver-
tising 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 three days preceding date of pub-
lication. Latest news matter and telegraphic communica-
tions should be in not later than 11 o'clock on that day.
Advertising copy should be in hand four days before pub-
lication day to insure preferred position. Full page
dis-
play copy should be in hand three days preceding 1 publi-
cation day. Want advertisements for current issue, to
insure classification, should be in three days in advance
of publication.
Address all communications for the editorial or business
departments to PRESTO PUBLISHING CO., 417 South
Dearborn Street, Chicago, III.
The last form of Presto-Times goes to press at 11 a. m
three days preceding publication day. Any news trans-
piring after that hour cannot be expected in the current
issue. Nothing received at the office that is not strictly
news of importance can have attention after 9 a. m. of
that date. If they concern the interests of manufactur-
ers or dealers such items will appear the issue following.
CHICAGO, JULY, 1931
Player-pianos are not dead. There is a good deal
of life and fire left in the player-piano business de-
spite the opinion of many that the player-piano is
now mostly kindling wood being split up by the
hatchets of hoboes for fuel with which to heat their
soup in camps beside the railroad tracks. Many
dealers are selling players, both new and used ones,
and they are richly enjoyed by people who have not
had piano lessons, even though such homes have also
a radio. Most of the letters that reach Presto-Times
office from the dealers mention the player as part of
the regular trade of the writers. The piano manu-
facturers, too, have noticed the pick-up in player
trade from several localities, and some of them have
cleaned out accumulated stocks of this style of in-
strument, which have been stored there for some
time.
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Music dealers to a certain extent are taking hold
of the refrigerator business. About 50 per cent of
them, according to careful estimates, are now handling
refrigerators as part of their lines of goods. And
why not? The line of least resistance in trade, as in
everything else, may be the line of the greatest
power when one slides along with it. The day of
the hard-shell man who is so set in his ways that he
will never take on a side-line as a meal ticket is past.
Selling apples on a street corner may not lead a man
to the presidential chair in the White House, but it
may be a start to get part way along the route. And,
come to think of it, the piano and radio are associates
of the refrigerator, for, like the dog and the cat—
unlike in nature—they occupy a welcome and appre-
ciated place in the home.
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There has been a bit of rivalry among leading
piano corporations in making sales of their instru-
ments to broadcasting stations, but not all of them
have given out the result of such enterprising selling.
However, the Baldwin Piano Co. has had consider-
able success in that class of trade and makes free
to announce many such sales, several of which have
already been published in the trade papers.
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The Zenith Radio Corporation deficit of $482,740
for the fiscal year ended April 30, 1931, as reported
in the daily papers, doesn't seem to dampen the spirit
of the enterprising gentlemen who conduct its af-
fairs, as they say a strong financial position was shown
in the balance sheet. However, in the radio field of
late, these men seem to have several others for good
company.
WEATHER TOO HOT
TO CARRY HIS GRIP
THE PIANO'S RETURN
The editorial topic, "The Piano Coming' Back," which was set a-going several months ago
by an editorial in Presto-Times, has been making the grand circuit of the big and little dailies,
the weeklies and several other publications. This expanded publicity proves that the topic is
a live one and that it has the widest public interest. It also proves that the original assertion
was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
IMMORTALITY OF THE PHONOGRAPH
Edwin Jarrett, of New York, scholar and wit, said to a Presto-Times representative the
other day: "I have always believed that in a more leisurely age, the enjoyments from hearing
voices plucked from the dead past will have an appeal. The present 'turn on the dial and
listen to some jazz' will never be all-sufficing." Mr. Jarrett called the trade paper man's atten-
tion to a very readable and thought-creating article in the New York Herald Tribune entitled
"Musical Mortality and the Machine," written by Lawrence Gilman, in which Mr. Gilman says:
"Some of us are inclined to sneer at what is abusively called 'mechanical music'; yet the droll
and surprising fact emerges that it is precisely the machine which has conferred a kind of
deathlessness upon the mortal body of projected sound." Farther on, Mr. Gilman says: "The
day is approaching when we shall be able to say of all created musical loveliness, as the seers
have long said of another kind of immortality, 'In the midst of death we are in life.' "
HOOVER'S PLANS HELPING PIANO TRADE
The market influence of President Hoover's plan of proposing a one-year suspension of
war-debt and reparations payments by the nations that owe these millions has been working
in several instances in helping dealers sell grand pianos to well-to-do customers. The effect,
it is to be understood, is psychological, but as it is working well, who cares what name it is
sailing under? One young man in Chicago told a Presto-Times representative that he credits
the rise in the stock market caused by the proposed moratorium for directly aiding him in
closing quickly and easily four grand piano sales within this week. The buyers were so elated
over the turn in affairs that they bought easily and signed the contracts without hesitation.
This dealer added that he believed the sale of pianos to the wealthier class of customers
would continue to be the cream of his business all summer. It was a red-hot day at high
noon when the Presto-Times man was in his store and yet there were two customers in dif-
ferent parts of the room, each closing a contract for the purchase of a grand.
THE LESSONS OF THE CONVENTION
Most of the dealers are expected to put into effect some of the lessons they learned at
the recent Palmer House convention in Chicago. They came and they listened. Many of them
did more than pose as class-mates, for the more aggressive members took part in the jere-
miads, the orations, the perorations, the suggestions, the advice, the offerings of panaceas
and cure-alls, and telling of their experiences in handling their weapons of defense and offense
in waging war against the spirit of depression.
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They listened intently to all the good advice offered at the open forum meetings, some
of them joining eagerly in the debates that ensued from the handling of the topics. For these
open iorum meetings have proved to be by far the most aggressive and inspiring and inform-
ing parts of convention work.
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So this piano traveler adopts the novel expedient
of having his grip walk beside him.
Just how far the returned dealers, now that they are back home in the old bailiwicks, will
go in inaugurating reform methods in conducting their business remains to be seen, for a
good deal depends on the individuality of the man. and not a little depends on the community
he serves. However, as they will all admit, they learned a good deal at the Palmer House
convention—enough to set them thinking more broadly than they have been doing hereto-
fore, for there are many other things for the reflection of music dealers beside those sug-
gested or discussed at the recent convention.
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