The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1905-02-16
PIANO SALES increase
Nothing in the Talk AOou. IT'S
Beng a back NuuDll
MECHANICAL DEVICES
Stimulation Of the Business IS the Re-
suit OF extended Use OF inese
Contrivances.-Wes Farmers
Want Best Pianos.--Some Costly
Pianos.

Pianos.
New York.-It is often lightly said
nowadays that the piano is ueconlng
back number; that piano is no
onger considered an essential item
1t equipment in homes making any
fetence TO refinement; that fewer
slildren are taking piano lessons than
mere were a few years ago; that the
great plano players are fast coming
to have a monopoly in piano playing
because there is less tolerance for
mere piano walloping and humping
than there was few years ago, and
that the increasing number of de-
vices Tor producing something akin
to music from the piano by means of
strips OF perforated paper have taken
the heart out of amateur and modio-
ere players, with the result that the
sale Of pianos has materially fallen
off.
j. b. Spillae, managing editor of the
Music Trade Review, in an interview
said: 1T is utter nonsense without
grain OF truth to hang it on. So far
from the sales of pianos diminishing
they never before have been SO large
rs within the last three or four years.
Inc greatest demand came from the
Northwest and the Middle West, al
though the sale of pianos on the Pa
sihc Coast in the last two or three
yet RS has broken all records.
There is another thing to be said
sf the remarkable boom in the piano
trade within the past three or four
years, and that is that quality of pi-
amos sold has been, as a general rule,
exceedingly good. The farmers have
not been buying for their wives and
daughters the cheap grade of instru-
nents, which go to pieces after year
Or two's use. They have been buy
ing pianos Of the better makes
should say that as a rule they had
been paying on an average about $3.50
plano When you get much below
that figure you are getting into the
grade OF cheap pianos; when you get
above 1t you are getting into the class
mat may be called expensive.
Il do not mean, of course, the very
Npensive-the so-called art pianos.
There are few firms which make a
Wecialty of these art pianos. The
prices paid for them are sometimes
fabulous. They are hand-painted by
artists of the first order of talent, and
ometimes two or three years may be
gent In working out the subject of
tie paintings and putting them on the
tolished tops and sides of the instru-
hent, to say nothing Of the great
-2nount Of time and skill that are ex-
pended on the beautiful wood carving
that is put upon them
There has developed a great ten
aency among Americans of great
wealth to have pianos which are indi-
vidual and unlike any others and that
are in themselves art masterpieces
The cost Of these pianos ranges all
The way from $4,000 and $4,000 to SIS,
e000 and $4,000. The most expensive
piano, l believe, that was ever made
to order by firm in this country cost
between $4,000 and $4,000.
There has been in the last three
OF four years an unprecedented de.
nand for these high priced pianos es.
pecially out on the Pacific Coast,
which is still another refutation of
the statement that the demand for
pianos is decreasing among people of
wealth and refinement. The actual
fact is that never before in the his
story of the trade has there been so
rapid an increase of sales among this
very class, as well as among the mod.
erately well to do.
AS to the statement that the me-
shanical devices for playing the piano
have lowered the standing of the in
strument and decreased the demand
for 1t. that is, on its face, ridiculous.
There are number of such devices on
the market and they have particular.
ly stimulated the sale of pianos, as
Of logical necessity they must. Hun
dreds of people buy pianos just be-
cause OF the mechanical devices for
playing them-people who would me-
yer think OF buying piano but for
the existence of those devices, be-
cause they had nobody in their fam
uies who was able to play.
las for the alleged decrease in the
number of young people who are
learning to play the piano, that, too,
is untrue. There are more young peo-
pie learning to play the piano than
ever"