Scan 28
Musical Courier 1893-07-01: Vol 27 Iss 695, 1893
93 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1business, and are willing to step down and out should a company be found that will pay our claim.
3The citizens of Oregon are desirous of having the factory continued, and make overtures to that effect.
5Just how the Oregon people and the Citizens' Bank of Des Moines will settle the ownership of the estate it is impossible to predict.
7In regard to our Chicago stock we never intended remaining in this field, so that the closing of the ware-rooms of the Rice-Macy Company in Chicago on July 1 is a natural result.
9We will turn over the keys of the store to-night, having shipped the stock to our agencies at different points.
11JOHN E. HALL.
13WM. STEINWAY DECORATED.
15The Cross of the Red Eagle Given to Him by Emperor William.
17THE Cross of the Order of the Red Eagle has been conferred on William Steinway by Emperor William of Germany. Mr. Steinway received the notification by cable from Count Merbach, Privy Councillor of the Emperor.
19"I am very much gratified at this honor," said Mr. Steinway to me last night. "When in Europe last year I had an audience with the Emperor, in which he thanked me for some of my benefactions to the German people.
21"The direct cause for the decoration, however, I ascribe to my gift of 62,000 marks to the Memorial Church of William I. and the Memorial Church of the Empress Augusta, both in Berlin. I also gave a park to my native village of Seesen, at the foot of the Hartz Mountains, together with enough money to keep it in order, besides notifying the village authorities I would annually contribute 1,000 marks to the school taxes, thus relieving 77 families of this onerous burden."
23The Cross of the Order of the Red Eagle is highly prized and Mr. Steinway is probably the only resident of America who has been thus honored. The decoration consists of a cross containing the coat of arms of Germany in gold and enamel surmounted by gems.
25Admiral Werner, of the Emperor's navy, showed a similar decoration to Mr. Steinway last year, saying it was the one he most highly prized.
27The cross, Mr. Steinway thinks, will be sent through the German Embassy in this country and will arrive in a week or so.
29IT cannot be doubted that the effect of the appointment of a receiver for Behr Brothers & Co., comes at an unfortunate time for the piano trade. It has been for a long time known that there are many institutions in the trade, both manufacturers and dealers, that have been obliged for several months to depend almost entirely upon the accommodations of the banks. This failing, it was but to be expected that some one must go under, and it is greatly to be feared that some other concerns will not be able to stand the strain much longer.
31It is of course not advisable to stir up distrust and to excite suspicion, but it is on the other hand but proper and sensible to look matters fairly in the face.
33There will be other failures.
35George Gemunder at the Fair.
37MESSRS. GEO. GEMUNDER & SONS have placed their violins on exhibition at the World's Fair in connection with the M. Steinert collection.
39The M. Steinert collection consists of ancient stringed instruments, and Mr. Steinert delivers each day an historical lecture on them. At this lecture a quartet of musicians renders an interesting program.
41The quartet is made up of two violins, a viola and 'cello. The instruments used are manufactured by Geo. Gemunder & Sons, who take this very unique and effective manner of displaying them.
43—George Logan will open a piano wareroom at Boonton, N. J.
44—E. Daron, of Steelton, Pa., will move his music store into larger quarters across the street from the present location.
45—The Wiebel-De Lima Violin Company, of New Jersey, has been incorporated with a capital stock of $100,000. The offices of the company are at 35 Wall street, in the Mills Building.
46—At the meeting of the Piano Varnishers' and Polishers' Union in Blanchford Hall, Boston, June 21, the following officers were elected: George Husband, president; Archie McLean, vice-president; John Ryan, recording secretary; Richard Dwyer, financial secretary; Robert Willis, treasurer.
48CONSERVATISM IN BUSINESS.
50IN America these days the temptation to spread out a business is very strong. There is so much territory to cover that many good business men have caught the infection, increased their business and in the end been wrecked. Many a prosperous man with a good, substantial A to his name in Dun's or Bradstreet's has had that rating reduced by increasing his liabilities so as to spread without offsetting said increase by one of assets, and after a few years of prosperity the storm has broken and his name has disappeared from the commercial rating books altogether.
52There is not a safer business in America than piano and organ manufacturing when properly conducted.
54To prove that we merely resort to the good old New England fashion of interrogation. How many piano and organ factories have failed in America?
56The bankruptcy of producing musical instrument factories have been fewer than in any other line of manufacture. Those that have gone have been through mismanagement both careless and criminal. This is remarkable when one reflects that pianos and organs are luxuries and not necessaries. It is an axiom of trade that when financial depression comes, the manufacturers of luxuries either go to the wall or suffer a severe drought of trade. This comes from natural causes. When a man merely has money to buy bread he will forswear cake, for bread sustains life, while cake is but an incident after substantial dining. Give this same man plenty of bread with finances to spare and he immediately turns to luxuries, adding cake or some other delicacy to his menu.
58While the simile is a homely one, it is applicable to a trade in luxuries. Naturally one would ask why there have been so few failures among piano and organ manufacturers, as their goods are luxuries pure and simple. This is easy to understand. There are not enough piano and organ factories in the country to adequately supply the growing trade.
60This is a fact easily provable by the figures we suggested last week in an editorial on "over production." This being the case, the piano and organ manufacturing trade is naturally the last of the luxury producing manufacturers to feel financial depression.
62With these facts before him the intelligent manufacturer finds out what the public likes and then goes ahead fearlessly. Well he may, for his risk as a luxury producer is less than manufacturers in other lines will have. This applies only to the thoughtful, conservative maker, who insists on prompt returns from all agents, and whose trade relations with those gentlemen are based on a sound financial policy rigidly adhered to.
64In making a policy many boards are necessarily sawed, rejected as being either too long or too short, resawed and fitted until a platform on which to stand is the result. The consignment trade is dear to the heart of all manufacturers, and when properly done is the safest way to do business. There is only one right way to push business on this line. Secure good collateral security for the goods you intrust to a dealer. This may seem somewhat harsh on the honest man, but it will help him, as the rogue will be leashed and kept in hand, thus leaving no bad debts behind him to hamper the manufacturer financially in his dealings with the honest man.
66The advisability of turning consignment stock cannot be too strongly urged. If a dealer has a piano a year compel him to return it and pay a 10 per cent. depreciation. This is just and easily proven. The instrument has stood idle a year. It represents so many dollars on which there has been no interest paid, and on which the acid of idleness and disuse has eaten holes. The principal has depreciated and a distinct loss can be figured. But to urge conservatism on manufacturers is not our object, and the foregoing is only a preliminary to conservatism in the dealer, but as the manufacturer is directly interested in the success of that gentleman the few hints thrown out if followed will oftine prevent the spreading of the dealer until he collapses and leaves debts behind him.
68Before turning to the dealer there is one class of manufacturers in whom a non-conservative policy is excusable. These gentlemen are the few rare men that have new principles of great value worked out, and who are so positive of their merit that they determine to either sink or swim with them at the masthead. This is true American grit, and is to be applauded. But when a man merely has what several others have, who are more fortunate as to money or prestige, that man to pursue such a policy must be either a natural born fool or has acquired lunacy with maturing years.
70The dealer is the man on whom manufacturers should urge conservatism. This middleman when successful is subjected to great temptations to reach out after more territory, thus doing more business. He does not sufficiently realize that in doing this he is crippling himself. A lump of gold is compact, solid and heavy. When exposed to the elements they have but little effect excepting to further harden its exterior, making it callous to storm. The outer layers may be dulled, but the centre is as brilliant as ever and the value has not decreased; but put this same lump between skins, let the gold beater's hammer descend on it until it is as thin as the proverbial wafer, and although the value of the metal is intact the first summer zephyr that blows will cause it to sail into space while the owner is the loser.
72So with the non-conservative dealer who extends his business without adding more capital. He has beaten his gold until it spreads into leaf, and the winds of financial depression blow it all away. The original capital was all there, but in such a thin form that its specific gravity in monetary waters had been so lessened that it lightly floated on them, thus offering no resistance to the storm that easily blew it into chaos. There is a limitation to what a man can do with a certain amount of capital, and he can accomplish more with his money in a lump than he can with it spread out. To attempt, then, to control more territory, working more trade centres without adding capital in proportion, is to merely show how foolish a man can be.
74A safe business cannot be done on paper when a house's liabilities are in inverse ratio to its assets. It may live for a time and apparently flourish, but when there is any setback in trade it will go to the wall just as certain as the coming of night after day. Its gold has been beaten to leaf and blown away. It is rank folly to extend a business that is paying by the use of commercial paper. A man merely jeopardizes his lump of gold, and any financial disaster will see him a bankrupt. Not only does he go down himself, but in a great many cases he cripples the piano and organ manufacturer who comes who carry him. Thus every manufacturer is interested in any spreading move of the dealer who sells his goods and whose paper he accepts. He should at once cut this man's credit if he cannot see a favorable financial solution to the move, or so limit his relations that the new business will find its own level.
76In running branches separate accounts should be kept; that when they are found unprofitable they may be cut off at once. All dead limbs on a living trunk cause stagnation of sap, and if not removed will result in the destruction of the parent. This holds true in the relation of branches to the main house.
78In conclusion, a few words on the main house's relations with branches when in trouble seem necessary. After the dealer has spread out and he finds that the branches are not paying property there comes the temptation to kite checks. He yields, thinking that the storm of depression is momentary, only to find the supposed "capful of wind" has developed into a hurricane, which threatens to carry down the flagship of the squadron as well as her consorts. How many men have realized this when too late, only the back files of Dun's or Bradstreet's will show.
80Our purpose has not been didactical, only to throw out a few hints to the trade in these times when retrenchment and contraction are uppermost in the minds of all thinkers. If these few words shall have further deepened the ideas of the trade men to the necessity of conservatism we will not have written in vain.
82Take in Tonk's.
84FOR the convenience of our Eastern patrons visiting the World's Fair, we have arranged to have our salesman, Mr. D. Jacobson, stationed at Chicago from about June 20 to August 1.
86His office hours will be from 9 A. M. to 12 M. at our Chicago branch, 271 Wabash avenue, corner Van Buren street.
88Mr. Jacobson will not only be fully prepared for business, but also ready to extend such courtesies as may be welcome to visitors in a strange city.
90Very respectfully, WILLIAM TONK & BRO. 26 Warren street, New York. 271 Wabash avenue Chicago.
92—Mr. Robt. R. Yost, with H. Sinsheimer & Co., of Portland, Ore., is in the city.
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.