Presto
Issue: 1934 2274 - Page 3
MUSICAL
TIMES
Established
1881
PRESTO
Established
1884
THE AMERICAN MUSIC TRADE JOURNAL
Vcar....$l.no. ft Months. . .fiO cents
DOINGS OF THE CHICAGO P. & O.
ASSOCIATION
The ,._.
Chicago Piano and Organ Association, held at the
club's favorite clubroom in the Auditorium Hotel the
second Thursday in November, was well attended,
every seat at the tables being occupied.
The officers^elect for the ensuing year, as per the
slate brought in by Chairman of the Nominating Com-
mittee L. C. Wagner are: President, Richard O'Con-
nell, of Lyon & Healy; first vice-president, Fred-
erick L. Ryder of Cable Piano Company; second vice-
president, Percy Tonk of Tonk Manufacturing Com-
pany: secretary, B. F. Duvall of Kimball Company,
and treasurer and executive secretary, Adam Schneider.
Retiring President Kimball introduced the new
officers and President-elect O'Connell, being called
upon for a "speech," gave a felicitous offhand talk
which was pleasant to hear and without any speciai
promises for the future, but "between the lines," so to
speak, indicated that the old and reliable C. P. and O.
Association would keep moving forward successfully.
This was the occasion of the association's fiftieth
anniversary, an occasion for honorary and manifold
officer Adam Schneider to present an interesting his-
torical account of the origin and early days of the
association on up to the present time and name from
his records the officers who have served since 189y-
lyOO when the association was re-established as
existent today.
Since that time the association has had thirty-three
presidents starting with E. S. Conway, who was
elected from 1F99-19C0, on to the present incumbent,
Richard O'Connell, elected for 1934-1935. One presi-
dent, James F, Bowers of Lyon & Healy. served three
continuous years. 1916 to 1919.
The interval from the time the association was
started in 1884 could not be definitely described be-
cause the books of the association prior to 1900 had
been lost or destroyed but from about 1890 on through
the World's Fair and in fact up to 1900 the P. and O.
Association members joined with the newly organized
Music Trade Association, an association which had
invited membership from the music trades and indus-
tries generally, manufacturers, dealers, clerks, etc..
while on the other hand the Chicago Piano and Organ
Association was limited to piano and organ manu-
facturers and proprietors of music houses. In fact,
Mr. Adam Schneider himself was not eligible in the
membership of the 'P. and O. Association but did be-
come a member of the Chicago Music Trade Associa-
tion and, in fact, was elected as secretary in 1891. The
Chicago Music Trade Association was set in motion
largely in anticipation of activities which would take
place in music and music trade circles during the ap-
proaching World's Columbian Exposition and the
society did splendid work from 1890 on past those
exposition days and up to 1899, when the Chicago
1- iano and Organ Association again started to function.
The annual dinner of the association is scheduled
for some date in January yet to be announced.
GREAT BRITAIN TRYING TO RE-
VIVE THE PLAYER PIANO
A movement is on foot in Great Britain looking
toward a return or somewhat of a rejuvenation ot
mechanical piano player fed by music rolls embrac-
ing the method from the reproducing grand to the
small upright. Meetings have been held, speeches
made and, what is more, specimens of new creations
shown. A meeting was recently held at Aeolian Hall,
London, when committees were named and a national
player-piano week arranged for.
This movement, or any movement toward piano
player progress, will be regarded with interest on
both sides of the water, and if any way may be
devised or methods brought about that will result
in producing a usable and salable music roll player,
one to meet the requirements of persons who want
to bring out music in a musical way and with pleasure
lo themselves and others, such an achievement and
such an event is something devoutly to be wished for.
It may come—it can be.
CHICAGO, ILL., NOV.-DEC, 1934
RECENT FEATURE OF PIANO
SELLING BUSINESS
A business in second-hand pianos has been develop-
ing the past tw 7 o or three years and has reached con-
siderable dimensions, carried on mainly by persons
not regularly engaged in the music business. Most
of this traffic has been carried on by second-hand
stores and warehouses, but a few former piano men
took a turn at buying up old stock for makeshift re-
sale. A warehouse at New Orleans, La., has supplied
dealers in that section of the South and has also had
auction sales of warehouse stock, "bought-up" goods.
and the like, to which dealers were invited to make
purchases. At Los Angeles, Calif., a second-hand
specialist writes Presto-Times that he has negotiated
as many as a hundred and fifty second-hand instru-
ments in a week, almost entirely to Pacific Coast
dealers.
In Chicago a well-known warehouse w ? hich has
been specializing in uprights, supplying dealers with
one, two or more instruments, thus enabling them to
meet certain requirements, has met with marked suc-
cess. This warehouse replenishes its stock largely
by purchasing here and there from families who are
compelled to part with the piano in helping to meet
expenses. This warehouse buys dealers' stocks of
trade-ins and comebacks and when put in salable con-
dition out they go to dealers on orders many of which
have been waiting for weeks to get certain models
required in their localities. The volume and wide
extent of these sales, some of them a thousand miles
away from Chicago, can be taken as a sure indication
that the piano business will continue at a good rate.
It further indicates that an encouraging and potential
condition exists in that people buy old instruments
because they realize the need of a piano in the home
and that though not in position today to have a finer
instrument they accept the alternative of using the
old upright until conditions will permit them to possess
a grand. This class of piano purchasers will always
have a piano in their home and every sale of this kind
means a grand piano deal later on. They mean, too,
that when that day arrives the old third-time trade-
in upright is finally destined to meet its doom at the
scrap heap.
The second-hand craze which has had a grip on the
piano branch of the music business for several years
past and almost developed into an independent fixture
in the piano business has nearly run its course, mainly
by reason of "everything sold out." Given an impetus
and a big start through the unprecedented volume of
repossessions brought on by economic conditions,
dealers naturally put forth every effort to unload these
constantly increasing repossessions. This condition
brought aboui a situation of negligence in disposing
of new goods. Dealers became inadvertent in their
endeavors to sell new stock and eventually finding
customers who could not or would not pay the price
of a new piano but could be induced to buy a make-
shift second-hand, it was easy to let the new instru-
ments remain unsold and work along the line of least
resistance. Finally repossessions and "take-ins" be-
came pretty well sold out and some dealers even
induced families to sell their pianos. Many purchases
of this kind have been made in an endeavor to keep
business going.
This thing has been going on for a long time now
with the result that a real shortage in salable second-
hand pianos is manifest all over the country. For
weeks and months dealers have been clamoring their
jobbers and manufacturers to supply them with sal-
able second-hands and repossessed grands and small
uprights. As many as a dozen letters and two or
three telegrams of this import have frequently been
shown Presto-Times. Some of them really begging
for this class of instruments. One of these telegrams
reads: "Must have one more shipment of something
that T can sell as repossessed goods. What can you
do?"
The rest of the story is an open book, well read
and well understood by the trade everywhere. Every
dealer has experienced this second-hand episode of
the music business and now that a scarcity of instru-
ments confronts dealers and repossessions have
slackened they begin to ask, "What is to be done
about it?" Some jobbers and manufacturers have de-
clined to supply dealers with old instruments even if
they have a good supply on hand, because, as one
Fifteenth of Publication Month
manufacturer writes to Presto-Times, "the harder it
is for a dealer to find second-hand pianos to sell, the
sooner he will try to sell new ones, and this is what
the trade and industry needs most of all—sales
of new pianos, increased output of piano factories. As
for ourselves, we do not particularly care to sell
second-hand pianos to anyone, much less to a dealer."
In this dilemna the best advice to be given is: Get
back into the piano business proper; make your store
a regular, legitimate music emporium. This will bring
better profit, give you better satisfaction, bring out
better salesmanship in your organization and put you
among the enterprising building-up-business class.
You can then say with satisfaction, "Here I am back
in the music business again."
STORY & CLARK MASTERPIECES
IN PIANO PRODUCTION
"Musical masterpiece"' is an entirely fitting name to
apply to the instruments of the Story & Clark Piano
Company now coming from the factory at Grand
Haven. Mich. The appellation is distinctively ap-
propriate because the Story & Clark product of today,
as to styles and models of casework, design and finish,
is a distinct advance in the art of piano making
brought to completion within the last twelve to
fifteen months.
A brief reference to Story & Clark piano quality
as well as to Story & Clark enterprise may be sum-
marized in the exprersion of a piano man, a tech-
nician, expert piano maker and draftsman, who re-
cently while visiting in Grand Haven, Mich., called
at the Story & Clark factory where he was shown
the courtesy extended to a gentleman of his caliber
in the piano-making world. After leaving Grand
Haven this gentleman remarked to an acquaintance
in Chicago: "Story & Clark are busy and are produc-
ing a remarkable value in the things that combine to
make up value, beauty and desirability in piano con-
struction." He went further into detail about the in-
teresting things he came in contact with at the Story
& Clark factory, but his estimate quoted above sum-
marized clearly and definitely his views about Story
& Clark achievements.
It is well to bear in mind concerning these Story
& Clark activities that the factory at Grand Haven
has undergone a general cleaning-out process within
the past two or three years. Every piano on hand,
old, modern or whatever description, was disposed of
and the present output is absolutely new and what
the trade likes to designate as "fresh stock," clean and
up to date.
Numerous dealers these days appreciate the de-
sirability of making permanent connection on their
best agencies and the Story & Clark line comes within
a category of an extraordinarily desirable agency, a
valuable line on which to build up a profitable and
worthwhile business. Presto-Times says without hesi-
tation that a Story & Clark agency is one of the best
assets any music house can obtain in the piano field.
KEEPS ON USING AEROPLANE
TRANSPORTATION
Simply because Philip VVynian, vice-president of
the Baldwin Piano Company, may have been in St.
Paul or Minneapolis on a Tuesday forenoon does not
mean that he could not have been in conference with
Manager L. C. Wagner in Chicago the afternoon of
the same day. In fact just about such an incident
did occur not long ago for Mr. Wyman's trips to
New York, Denver, Chicago and other points that
he visits more or less regularly are made either to or
fro or both ways by aeroplane. The one way that
Mr. Wyman kills time is by devouring space between
two given points.
The J. W. Greene Company, Toledo, Ohio, say that
prices and terms today give the purchaser "a real op-
portunity to bring a new and beautiful piano into
your home at the lowest price in twenty years," but
W. W. Smith, the president of the Greene Company,
adds to this statement that the reductions in prices
which they are now offering "are not to be construed
as an out and out merchandising event." By the
way, the present location in Toledo of the Green Com-
pany is where this business has been located for
sixty-three years.
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/
TIMES
Established
1881
PRESTO
Established
1884
THE AMERICAN MUSIC TRADE JOURNAL
Vcar....$l.no. ft Months. . .fiO cents
DOINGS OF THE CHICAGO P. & O.
ASSOCIATION
The ,._.
Chicago Piano and Organ Association, held at the
club's favorite clubroom in the Auditorium Hotel the
second Thursday in November, was well attended,
every seat at the tables being occupied.
The officers^elect for the ensuing year, as per the
slate brought in by Chairman of the Nominating Com-
mittee L. C. Wagner are: President, Richard O'Con-
nell, of Lyon & Healy; first vice-president, Fred-
erick L. Ryder of Cable Piano Company; second vice-
president, Percy Tonk of Tonk Manufacturing Com-
pany: secretary, B. F. Duvall of Kimball Company,
and treasurer and executive secretary, Adam Schneider.
Retiring President Kimball introduced the new
officers and President-elect O'Connell, being called
upon for a "speech," gave a felicitous offhand talk
which was pleasant to hear and without any speciai
promises for the future, but "between the lines," so to
speak, indicated that the old and reliable C. P. and O.
Association would keep moving forward successfully.
This was the occasion of the association's fiftieth
anniversary, an occasion for honorary and manifold
officer Adam Schneider to present an interesting his-
torical account of the origin and early days of the
association on up to the present time and name from
his records the officers who have served since 189y-
lyOO when the association was re-established as
existent today.
Since that time the association has had thirty-three
presidents starting with E. S. Conway, who was
elected from 1F99-19C0, on to the present incumbent,
Richard O'Connell, elected for 1934-1935. One presi-
dent, James F, Bowers of Lyon & Healy. served three
continuous years. 1916 to 1919.
The interval from the time the association was
started in 1884 could not be definitely described be-
cause the books of the association prior to 1900 had
been lost or destroyed but from about 1890 on through
the World's Fair and in fact up to 1900 the P. and O.
Association members joined with the newly organized
Music Trade Association, an association which had
invited membership from the music trades and indus-
tries generally, manufacturers, dealers, clerks, etc..
while on the other hand the Chicago Piano and Organ
Association was limited to piano and organ manu-
facturers and proprietors of music houses. In fact,
Mr. Adam Schneider himself was not eligible in the
membership of the 'P. and O. Association but did be-
come a member of the Chicago Music Trade Associa-
tion and, in fact, was elected as secretary in 1891. The
Chicago Music Trade Association was set in motion
largely in anticipation of activities which would take
place in music and music trade circles during the ap-
proaching World's Columbian Exposition and the
society did splendid work from 1890 on past those
exposition days and up to 1899, when the Chicago
1- iano and Organ Association again started to function.
The annual dinner of the association is scheduled
for some date in January yet to be announced.
GREAT BRITAIN TRYING TO RE-
VIVE THE PLAYER PIANO
A movement is on foot in Great Britain looking
toward a return or somewhat of a rejuvenation ot
mechanical piano player fed by music rolls embrac-
ing the method from the reproducing grand to the
small upright. Meetings have been held, speeches
made and, what is more, specimens of new creations
shown. A meeting was recently held at Aeolian Hall,
London, when committees were named and a national
player-piano week arranged for.
This movement, or any movement toward piano
player progress, will be regarded with interest on
both sides of the water, and if any way may be
devised or methods brought about that will result
in producing a usable and salable music roll player,
one to meet the requirements of persons who want
to bring out music in a musical way and with pleasure
lo themselves and others, such an achievement and
such an event is something devoutly to be wished for.
It may come—it can be.
CHICAGO, ILL., NOV.-DEC, 1934
RECENT FEATURE OF PIANO
SELLING BUSINESS
A business in second-hand pianos has been develop-
ing the past tw 7 o or three years and has reached con-
siderable dimensions, carried on mainly by persons
not regularly engaged in the music business. Most
of this traffic has been carried on by second-hand
stores and warehouses, but a few former piano men
took a turn at buying up old stock for makeshift re-
sale. A warehouse at New Orleans, La., has supplied
dealers in that section of the South and has also had
auction sales of warehouse stock, "bought-up" goods.
and the like, to which dealers were invited to make
purchases. At Los Angeles, Calif., a second-hand
specialist writes Presto-Times that he has negotiated
as many as a hundred and fifty second-hand instru-
ments in a week, almost entirely to Pacific Coast
dealers.
In Chicago a well-known warehouse w ? hich has
been specializing in uprights, supplying dealers with
one, two or more instruments, thus enabling them to
meet certain requirements, has met with marked suc-
cess. This warehouse replenishes its stock largely
by purchasing here and there from families who are
compelled to part with the piano in helping to meet
expenses. This warehouse buys dealers' stocks of
trade-ins and comebacks and when put in salable con-
dition out they go to dealers on orders many of which
have been waiting for weeks to get certain models
required in their localities. The volume and wide
extent of these sales, some of them a thousand miles
away from Chicago, can be taken as a sure indication
that the piano business will continue at a good rate.
It further indicates that an encouraging and potential
condition exists in that people buy old instruments
because they realize the need of a piano in the home
and that though not in position today to have a finer
instrument they accept the alternative of using the
old upright until conditions will permit them to possess
a grand. This class of piano purchasers will always
have a piano in their home and every sale of this kind
means a grand piano deal later on. They mean, too,
that when that day arrives the old third-time trade-
in upright is finally destined to meet its doom at the
scrap heap.
The second-hand craze which has had a grip on the
piano branch of the music business for several years
past and almost developed into an independent fixture
in the piano business has nearly run its course, mainly
by reason of "everything sold out." Given an impetus
and a big start through the unprecedented volume of
repossessions brought on by economic conditions,
dealers naturally put forth every effort to unload these
constantly increasing repossessions. This condition
brought aboui a situation of negligence in disposing
of new goods. Dealers became inadvertent in their
endeavors to sell new stock and eventually finding
customers who could not or would not pay the price
of a new piano but could be induced to buy a make-
shift second-hand, it was easy to let the new instru-
ments remain unsold and work along the line of least
resistance. Finally repossessions and "take-ins" be-
came pretty well sold out and some dealers even
induced families to sell their pianos. Many purchases
of this kind have been made in an endeavor to keep
business going.
This thing has been going on for a long time now
with the result that a real shortage in salable second-
hand pianos is manifest all over the country. For
weeks and months dealers have been clamoring their
jobbers and manufacturers to supply them with sal-
able second-hands and repossessed grands and small
uprights. As many as a dozen letters and two or
three telegrams of this import have frequently been
shown Presto-Times. Some of them really begging
for this class of instruments. One of these telegrams
reads: "Must have one more shipment of something
that T can sell as repossessed goods. What can you
do?"
The rest of the story is an open book, well read
and well understood by the trade everywhere. Every
dealer has experienced this second-hand episode of
the music business and now that a scarcity of instru-
ments confronts dealers and repossessions have
slackened they begin to ask, "What is to be done
about it?" Some jobbers and manufacturers have de-
clined to supply dealers with old instruments even if
they have a good supply on hand, because, as one
Fifteenth of Publication Month
manufacturer writes to Presto-Times, "the harder it
is for a dealer to find second-hand pianos to sell, the
sooner he will try to sell new ones, and this is what
the trade and industry needs most of all—sales
of new pianos, increased output of piano factories. As
for ourselves, we do not particularly care to sell
second-hand pianos to anyone, much less to a dealer."
In this dilemna the best advice to be given is: Get
back into the piano business proper; make your store
a regular, legitimate music emporium. This will bring
better profit, give you better satisfaction, bring out
better salesmanship in your organization and put you
among the enterprising building-up-business class.
You can then say with satisfaction, "Here I am back
in the music business again."
STORY & CLARK MASTERPIECES
IN PIANO PRODUCTION
"Musical masterpiece"' is an entirely fitting name to
apply to the instruments of the Story & Clark Piano
Company now coming from the factory at Grand
Haven. Mich. The appellation is distinctively ap-
propriate because the Story & Clark product of today,
as to styles and models of casework, design and finish,
is a distinct advance in the art of piano making
brought to completion within the last twelve to
fifteen months.
A brief reference to Story & Clark piano quality
as well as to Story & Clark enterprise may be sum-
marized in the exprersion of a piano man, a tech-
nician, expert piano maker and draftsman, who re-
cently while visiting in Grand Haven, Mich., called
at the Story & Clark factory where he was shown
the courtesy extended to a gentleman of his caliber
in the piano-making world. After leaving Grand
Haven this gentleman remarked to an acquaintance
in Chicago: "Story & Clark are busy and are produc-
ing a remarkable value in the things that combine to
make up value, beauty and desirability in piano con-
struction." He went further into detail about the in-
teresting things he came in contact with at the Story
& Clark factory, but his estimate quoted above sum-
marized clearly and definitely his views about Story
& Clark achievements.
It is well to bear in mind concerning these Story
& Clark activities that the factory at Grand Haven
has undergone a general cleaning-out process within
the past two or three years. Every piano on hand,
old, modern or whatever description, was disposed of
and the present output is absolutely new and what
the trade likes to designate as "fresh stock," clean and
up to date.
Numerous dealers these days appreciate the de-
sirability of making permanent connection on their
best agencies and the Story & Clark line comes within
a category of an extraordinarily desirable agency, a
valuable line on which to build up a profitable and
worthwhile business. Presto-Times says without hesi-
tation that a Story & Clark agency is one of the best
assets any music house can obtain in the piano field.
KEEPS ON USING AEROPLANE
TRANSPORTATION
Simply because Philip VVynian, vice-president of
the Baldwin Piano Company, may have been in St.
Paul or Minneapolis on a Tuesday forenoon does not
mean that he could not have been in conference with
Manager L. C. Wagner in Chicago the afternoon of
the same day. In fact just about such an incident
did occur not long ago for Mr. Wyman's trips to
New York, Denver, Chicago and other points that
he visits more or less regularly are made either to or
fro or both ways by aeroplane. The one way that
Mr. Wyman kills time is by devouring space between
two given points.
The J. W. Greene Company, Toledo, Ohio, say that
prices and terms today give the purchaser "a real op-
portunity to bring a new and beautiful piano into
your home at the lowest price in twenty years," but
W. W. Smith, the president of the Greene Company,
adds to this statement that the reductions in prices
which they are now offering "are not to be construed
as an out and out merchandising event." By the
way, the present location in Toledo of the Green Com-
pany is where this business has been located for
sixty-three years.
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).