Scan 45
Musical Courier 1893-05-17: Vol 26 Iss 689, 1893
65 lines. Read by computer on 25 September 2026. Printed page 46. See the scan on archive.org.
1for the present, for any extensive sales for American pianos in our country."
2"You ask about trade visitors in London from foreign parts. What you call the Colonial trade we call the shipping trade, and the many firms that do business with our houses in London in this shipping trade come to us from all sections of the globe, from the Cape, from India, China, Australia, and indeed we have a good many American visitors."
3"Such an institution, however, like THE MUSICAL COURIER is unknown in England or on the Continent. Our music papers are small and our music trade papers are monthlies. A weekly paper such as yours with a series of large offices and a large staff, all devoted to this one subject exclusively, such an institution as I said before is unknown to us."
5KNABE PIANOS.
6Marvelous in All Respects.
7THIS year 1893 will be distinguished, among a great many other things in the piano trade, as the year in which the greatest variety of artistic pianos has ever been produced. How it is possible to excel those instruments made by Wm. Knabe & Co., Baltimore, is a problem which we leave to the piano manufacturer, and we are under the impression that whoever he may be he will find great difficulty in solving it.
8On one of the display pages of this edition will be found the illustrations of two grand pianos made by this house—two of a set of artistic instruments, all of which have been shipped to the representatives of the house in Chicago, Messrs. Lyon & Healy, which deserve more extended notices than we can usually afford to give to individual instruments.
9The large illustration is that of a full concert grand which cost $10,000 to make. It was specially designed by Thomas E. Colcutt, one of the representative noted English architects, who spent a great deal of time in elaborating the original design. The case which is rosewood, is divided into fourteen panels, representing a variety of mythological and musical figures and subjects, and these panels are inclosed in an ornately carved arcade of rosewood surrounded and supported by an embellished plinth and frieze. The inlaid wood is satinwood. The legs and lyre are of the Colonial design, and are of solid rosewood, the capitals being of the Corinthian order. Some idea can be gathered of the amount of detail, labor and work applied to this instrument when we state that it has taken over a year to make it. We are absolutely safe in stating that there is no duplicate of it to be found on the globe to-day.
10The other illustration on the same page to which we refer is a grand piano of the Renaissance style of white enamel and gold. It is always a difficult matter to reproduce with the aid of the printer's art a satisfactory illustration of a white piano, but we believe that the cut we publish is an exceptionally fine reproduction of the photograph.
11Both of these pianos have been tested by some of the best experts and pianists, and they are just as remarkable in quality of tone, in volume and in touch as they are in their architectural design and elaborate workmanship. They are the most eloquent monuments of the genius of the house of Knabe.
13"THE Cooper-Hewitt Wire" has, through the earnest efforts of Mr. Robert M. Webb, become a commodity so much talked about that it has been deemed necessary for THE MUSICAL COURIER to tell its readers something about it. There isn't room enough in this issue, but in weeks to come there will be some statements that will interest every manufacturer, tuner and dealer in the land. Watch for the word "Wire."
15HAVE you paid more than the usual attention to the Vose advertisements this year? We mean have you gone into them with some purpose or effort to discover their inner meaning? Of course the immediate effect of these advertisements is at once striking, but have you sought to ascertain their purpose and object? There certainly is such a thing. The Vose & Sons Piano Company is made up of intelligent people, who always have an object in view. They had more than one in view in getting up these special advertisements. They are testing the effect of special advertising that attracts first the eye, the visual sense, and then sets the mind to work through the appeal to reasoning made by the character of the advertisement. Study the question and you will find a great deal in it.
17August Gemunder & Sons.
18IN the musical division of this week's issue of this paper will be found a unique half page advertisement of August Gemunder & Sons, the makers of high grade solo violins, guitars and mandolins, who are located at 13 East Sixteenth street, New York city.
19At the first glance the purport of this array of business cards comprising the advertisement may not be apparent; a little consideration will, however, make the object clear and afford an interesting study for the many who have become familiar with the name Gemunder as associated with the violin.
20It is interesting further as showing the evolution of the firm during the past quarter of a century.
21We say a quarter of a century; it is 28 years, to be exact, because the evidence presented covers that space, but to go back to the origin of the house of August Gemunder & Sons in this country extends yet another quarter of a century back to 1846.
22The first business card, dated 1865, was very simple and unostentatious, typical of the plain, sturdy German, who introduced himself through his works rather than by publication.
23This simple form of business announcement continued, it will be observed, for many years until the sons of the family acquired position in the firm. This infusion of new blood with accompanying ambition and energy demanded something more pretentious, and now the business cards are large, handsome lithographic affairs, showing a registered trade mark. This trade mark they found necessary to establish as a protection for their famous Gemunder art instruments.
24The contrast between the card of 1865 and that of 1893 is typical as a contrast between the business of this firm in 1865 and that of 1893.
25Then Mr. Gemunder made a few violins for artists' use and only on individual orders, necessarily confined to a limited number each year. Now the Gemunder art violins and Gemunder solo guitars are supplied to the trade, and can be found in the large cities throughout the country, where dealers are pushing the sale of them—pushing them because these instruments meet the requirements of artists in every particular.
26At the World's Fair the Thompson Music Company, of Chicago, have charge of the exhibit of the Gemunder goods, which are displayed in two large and elaborately finished cases. A description of this exhibit will appear in a later number of THE MUSICAL COURIER.
27August Gemunder & Sons are experts in the selection and knowledge of old Italian violins, and in their wareroom can always be found some well preserved and desirable specimens which they offer for sale.
29The Starr.
30MR. BENJ. STARR, of Richmond, Ind., who has been in New York for the past two weeks, left for his home yesterday.
31Mr. Starr has visited most of the Eastern agents during his stay, and has found them doing a satisfactory business, with every prospect of an increase for 1893.
32He will stop at Philadelphia on his way West and will probably determine the future of the Starr in that city.
33There should be no trouble in placing the piano on Chestnut street. There is a demand for the Starr, and for any dealer who will give it the attention it deserves it will prove a profitable and satisfactory instrument to handle.
35Assignees' Sale.
36THE undersigned will offer for sale the entire music store of James Baker, located at 217 and 219 Euclid avenue, Cleveland, Ohio, consisting of his entire stock of sheet music, music books, instruments, store fixtures and everything pertaining to said store to the highest and best bidder.
37Said sale will begin at 10 a. m., May 29, 1893. A rare chance for any party desiring to engage in such business in Cleveland, Ohio.
38A. G. CARPENTER, Assignee of James Baker.
40The Autoharp.
41THE new autoharp factory at Dolgeville, N. Y., is fast assuming habitable conditions, and it is anticipated will be occupied about June 1 by the C. F. Zimmermann Company.
42This building is on the ground where the old club house used to stand, and is somewhat of a contrast to that structure, being four stories in height, and in other proportions much more pretentious.
43They want to turn out a 100,000 autoharps at least this year, and to make that number requires more extensive facilities than they have heretofore possessed. This new factory will furnish these opportunities.
44Mr. S. Singleton, who will be the musician in charge of the autoharp exhibit at the World's Fair, leaves for Chicago at once.
46—Mr. Winter, of the Toronto firm of Winter, Leeming & Gourley, departed for Europe from this city on the Umbria last Saturday to be gone a few months.
48THE "TIMES" DOES NOT KNOW.
49A FEW extracts from an editorial in the New York "Times" of last Saturday will make Western piano men smile. Here is one:
50The nature of the Western business man has not been so remarkably exemplified in anything connected with the World's Fair as in the Department of Music.
51And here is another:
52• • • the Western business man appeared as complainant, prosecutor and judge.
53Another, and the last we feel like quoting, says:
54Though undoubtedly a hustler, the Western business man engaged in the manufacture of musical instruments does not seem to be a sage.
55Now the reason for smiling is due to the fact that the "protesting" piano man (if that designation proves acceptable), the piano man who does not take any stock in the fairness of Theodore Thomas, is not the Western piano man at all. The very chairman of the "protestors" is a New York piano man—Mr. Dutton, of Hardman, Peck & Co.—and if the "Times" man will look up the list of "protestors" published in this paper, he will find that the Eastern house of Chickering & Sons figures in it prominently. "The nature of the Western business" is good, but wherein, in this instance at least, does it differ from "the nature of the Eastern business man"?
56Among the "protestors" there were only four or, at the utmost, five Western piano men, the great bulk consisting of Eastern men. But then these daily papers always do manage to get their reputations for sober and judicious judgment tarnished when they begin to experiment with specialties. The fact is that the "Times" does not know what it is commenting upon. It gives force to its utterance by making it editorial, and its premise is not founded upon facts—and hence "the Western business man" has the laugh on his Eastern colleague who is after all the victim of the "Times" critical castigation.
57As to the statement that "the Western business man engaged in the manufacture of musical instruments does not seem to be a sage," it would be best not to ask the Eastern manufacturer of musical instruments for a corroboration of this sentiment.
58Suppose the New York "Times" were to send out a reporter to interview our New York piano manufacturers on the subject of the sagacity of the Western maker of musical instruments! It would be a charming time for that reporter, we apprehend. Suppose that reporter were to visit Fischer's and ask them to express their opinion of the sagacity of Lyon & Healy, and suppose that reporter happened to ask the question with a sneer on the strength of the inspiration of the editorial in the "Times"? Suppose that reporter, if he lived through the Fischer interview, were to walk up the street, and ask Chickering & Sons what they thought of the Chicago Cottage Organ Company as a "sage" in business? We should like to watch the play of his features if he based the tone of his question upon the tone of the "Times" editorial. Then suppose he were to go into Hallet & Davis' place on the avenue and ask there what they thought of the sagacity of the W. W. Kimball Company? Suppose he were to try that? Suppose the editor were to accompany him on that single visit and then observe how things progress?
59"Does not seem to be a sage" is good; in fact is excellent. Men who in about 15 to 20 years have given to the local Chicago music trade industry a value of about $13,000,000 capital, not seeming to be sages!!
60The difficulty in this whole controversy must in most cases similar to this "Times" case be attributed to ignorance. The "Times" is not a corrupt paper; the members of the Directory who stood by Thomas are not corrupt, but these people were all called upon to decide upon intricate problems that were too far removed from their personal experience, and they could not comprehend the situation or were misled, and decided to reach conclusions after starting from false premises.
61The "Times" does not even know that the leaders of the protest were Eastern men, and that the seven Eastern seceders could not join them for reasons it would be futile to attempt to explain to the "Times," but which every man in the music trade understands. So it might as well be dropped.
63WANTED—Good action finisher and regulator in a factory in New York State. Address "Action," care THE MUSICAL COURIER.
64WANTED—Music clerk, young man; experienced; good education and knowledge of German. Address "D.K.," 79 West Fourth street, Cincinnati, Ohio.
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