Scan 33
Musical Courier 1894-02-14: Vol 28 Iss 727, 1894
47 lines. Read by computer on 21 September 2026. Printed page 34. See the scan on archive.org.
1Renting Pianos.
2(Continued from February 7.)
3He had the air of having heard something very frivolous and rather annoying. "Oh, no," he said, "but then you know these pianists have so many cranky notions."
4Then he looked far into the future again, and addressing a desk in the corner of the room, said almost absentmindedly: "I'd like to rent you one of those pianos."
5I said that I wouldn't make up my mind immediately, and backed out of the store, leaving him in a deep reverie.
6That afternoon I saw dozens of pianos that were better than all the other pianos in New York, if I could believe what their owners said, and I had such superior inducements offered me with each of them that it is a wonder I do not have a piano in each corner of my sitting room.
7"There, now," said one tall, entertaining young man in a Fifth avenue wareroom, "I shall have to offer you a piano from our selling stock. I wouldn't do it if I had anything else to rent, but all of our pianos are out and so I must sacrifice a perfectly new piano."
8He had a regretful, unhappy expression. I felt guilty. I would not take advantage of his helpless position. "Now, there's a piano," he said, and sitting down on the stool he struck off the customary chords and executed a few brilliant, disconnected runs—always with his foot on the loud pedal—"there's a piano that sells for $400. I hate to take it out of stock, but you may have it for $6 a month and the cartage."
9"What is the cartage?" I asked, more to collect my courage than because I cared about it. He saw a possible objection to the price.
10"Three dollars and a half," he said in a brilliant staccato.
11"But," he added—
12"I will do more. I will pay the cartage. You may have the piano for $18 for the first quarter. Or you may have any piano here." His arm swept the wareroom. "I must do it," he said. "I have nothing in the renting stock, and what difference can it make to me what piano you take?"
13There was a minor cadence that told of the regret he felt at spoiling one of those pianos from the selling stock. I told him that I would measure the piano and see if it would fit the place that I had allotted to an instrument against my east wall. His face fell.
14"You'd better let me send you that piano," he said, warmly; "or here is a smaller one. It is virtually rented. It is marked to be held for a man who will call today. But"—he sighed as though assuming a burden of responsibility—"I will please him with something else. Take the piano."
15His voice had a "take it and God bless you" tone that was hard to resist, but I stuck to my original proposition and escaped with a promise to return. I saw him looking after me regretfully. A customer who gets out of the door of the piano wareroom without signing a contract is accounted a customer-lost.
16The scramble to rent pianos in New York is so great that there are firms engaged in the manufacture of pianos solely for renting purposes. And the prices at which you can obtain a piano are simply absurd. You can get pianos for any price from $2 to $10 a month. Of course a $2 piano is not very good; but for $4 or $5 you can get an instrument that has never been out of the wareroom, and the owner will cart it to your door, set it up in your parlor and keep it in tune for you.
17You can get a piano of very good tone for $4 a month. For $6 you can get a piano of standard make, perfectly new or but very little used. A new piano of any good make will cost you $400 or $500. If you pay the list price, the cost may be $1,000, but you are very foolish to pay list. Piano prices are elastic. A dealer thinks nothing of knocking $100 off the retail price of a piano, and he makes a very good profit on it even then.
18Figure the cost of your piano at $400. It will remain in good tune, if well cared for, about 10 years. Then you can sell it for $75, if you are fortunate—possibly a dealer will allow you $100 on it in exchange. Interest on your original investment at 6 per cent. will be $24 a year, or $240 in ten years. You will have the piano tuned at least twice a year at a cost of $2, and repairs may cost you $1 more—total, $5 a year. Add together: Interest for 10 years, $240; depreciation, $300; tuning and repairs, $50, and you have $590 as the actual cost of owning a piano for 10 years.
19You can hire a piano for $5 a month or $50 a year, which will be quite as satisfactory, and you can have it exchanged for a new piano fresh from the shops at the end of every year and the net cost will be $500 for 10 years. And when you hire a piano you take no risk of ordinary damage. There is little wonder then that the people of New York generally prefer to hire pianos.
20One concern on Fourteenth street rented 500 pianos last year. Others keep 300 and 400 pianos going all the time. The number now on rental in New York city is in the tens of thousands. Every large manufacturing house but two has gone into the business of renting. These two still hold out. But you can get pianos of their make from other people.
21Every piano house, without exception, takes second-hand pianos in part payment for new stock. All of them, therefore, have assorted collections of second-hand pianos for sale, and those which are in the renting business sometimes confine their rentals to these second-hand instruments. There is not a make of piano on the market to-day which cannot be had, new or second hand, for rental.
22Next to renting, the largest business in pianos in New York city is selling on instalments. Every piano house does that. You can buy a piano by paying $4 a month or $5 or anything above that which comes within your means. On the best pianos a first payment of $25 or $50 must be made. On those of lower grade no more than the first instalment of $4 or $5 is demanded. The maker of a high grade instrument must have this first payment to protect him from loss, because if the piano has been out of his wareroom only three days it is a second-hand piano when it comes back, and it must be put on sale at a reduced price.
23In these hard times business in piano selling and piano renting is slow. It is not surprising then that the dealers in the little piano colony make dramatic appeals to possible customers. It would not be astonishing if the "puller-in" of the Bowery should find congenial occupation on Fourteenth street.
25A HANDSOME upright case, made by the firm of F. Muehlfeld & Co., piano manufacturers, of New York City.
27Sale of Some Old Musical Instruments.
28TWO remarkable sales took place recently at the rooms of Messrs. Puttick & Simpson, Leicester square, London. First there was sold a valuable collection of violins, violas, violoncellos and bows, the property of the late W. S. B. Woolhouse, Sir William Cusins and other owners; and later in the day there was dispersed a number of ancient and curious musical instruments, the property of a German lady, sent to this country to be sold.
29Perhaps these sales represent to a certain extent Darwin's doctrine of the survival of the fittest, as applied to instruments of music. Many curious pieces of musical mechanism that must have caused their makers much thought and time to construct were presented, and their destination could only be some museum, or the private collection of some enthusiast like Rev. F. Galpin; the day of these types is passed away, and modern music requires them not.
30But with regard to the art-works of the great Cremonese makers, we have advanced nothing. Their beautiful instruments stand out as necessary to our music as ever, and their value is enormously enhanced; no one wants these merely for museum purposes, but for a living practical use. A glance at the chief items may be interesting to our readers. The finest violin sold was one by Antonio Stradivari, bearing the date 1720; the instrument was an admirable one, but was by no means in perfect condition; it fetched the large price of £620.
31Another one by the same maker was sold for £200 and there seemed no reason why this wide difference in price should have obtained. A beautiful instrument by Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù, dated 1742, was sold for £270. Another one attributed to him, but probably made by his cousin, Giuseppe, the son of Andrea, was sold for £78. A Nicolo Amati, 1876, fetched £170, and a lovely violin by his son, Girolamo (1700), was sold for £130; a splendid tenor by the same maker bringing £85 and another £45.
32There were several Grancino instruments in the sale, a fine viola by Giovanni and Francesco Grancino, of Milan, was sold for £51; a violoncello for £65, and another, a violin by the brother Giuseppe, for £27. A violoncello by David Tecchler, of Rome, was sold for £91; a beautiful specimen by our countryman, William Forster, fetched £61, and one by Thomas Dodd, £26. Two violins by J. B. Vuillaume fetched good prices, one realizing £46, and the other £44.
33Among the minor lots instruments by Bernard Simon Fendt (1832) sold well. Bows made good prices, a 'cello bow by Tourte fetched £17, another £11, and a violin bow £20; bows by W. E. Hill realized high prices, and some by Tubbs and Dodd sold well. A beautiful manuscript of Mozart, the full score of his piano concerto in C minor, belonging to Mr. Otto Goldschmidt, realized the high price of £106, and the score of Spohr's Ottet, op. 82, for strings and wind, a fine work, which contains the clever variations on a theme resembling the "Harmonious Blacksmith," fetched £15.
34The sale reached nearly £3,000; so, despite the prevailing depression, musical instruments are still salable at good prices.
35There was a good deal of rubbish in the ancient instruments collection, and many of the items were in bad condition, but still there were sold some curiosities of interest which we may notice.
36A dancing master's kit, inclosed in a painted box, £8; a French dulcimer with beautifully painted case, £7 15s.; an inlaid Italian pandora, £5 15s.; a spinet, Italian, seventeenth century, £5; a sixteenth century cither, £4 10s.; a psaltery, beautifully inlaid with a carved angel's head at top, described as German, sixteenth century, but most probably Italian work of a much earlier period, £16 16s.
37Another small specimen, £5; a spinet, Italian, 17th century, £13; a box of Franklin's musical glasses, cleverly arranged, £8 15s.; an ancient Irish harp, £3 5s.; an antique piano, by L. Berger (London, 1779), £1; a lady's combination work-table piano, £6 10s. There were many obsolete wind instruments, guitars, harps, drums, and some few Indian examples.
38Perhaps the most interesting article was an ancient positive organ, inlaid on the sides of the woodwork, and having on the front a painting of St. Cecilia; there was no opportunity of hearing what this sounded like; it was probably German fifteenth or sixteenth century work. It was sold for £40. The total of the sale amounted to £300.
40F. G. Smith's Cases.
41AS an evidence of the impetus that the piano business has recently felt we can quote the extraordinary activity in the large piano case factory of Mr. F. G. Smith at Leominster, Mass. In fact orders have been coming in to such an extent for the last three or four weeks that Mr. Smith was obliged personally to visit the factory—something which his many engagements rarely permit him to do—for the purpose of consulting the superintendent regarding the increase of the force and other matters necessary to get orders filled.
42Mr. Smith's case work is used by many houses who admire the system in his factory, and the care and caution exercised in collecting material, and the uniform satisfaction that his cases give, insure a large trade for him whenever commerce is active.
43Of course the Bradbury, the Webster and the Hening pianos are made in their case department at Leominster, and the appearance and durability of this goods is an additional evidence of the character of the work done at the Leominster factory.
45—A. B. Seavey, dealer in pianos, organs and sewing machines, Saco, Me., was at work on a ladder at his residence. The ladder slipped from the bottom, taking him with it to the piazza below. He received such a jar as to break two ribs and otherwise bruise him. He will be laid up for some time.
46A FIRST-CLASS piano salesman, who is willing to demonstrate his ability by commencing on a very liberal commission, will be put on the track of a good opening by addressing P. O. Box 375, Syracuse, N. Y.
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