MANUFACTURE OF PIANOS

Press, Volume C, Issue 29696, 14 December 1961, Page 15

MANUFACTURE OF PIANOS

City Man’s Study Abroad What Mr G. Elcock, of Christchurch, described as “partly a business trip” was a tour lasting six months which took him through Australia, Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Russia. and America, studying the manufacture and marketing of musical instruments. Mr Elcock, who returned to Christchurch recently, is in charge of the musical instrument department of a Christchurch music shop. “My interest lay in seeing how pianos and other musical instruments were manufactured, displayed, and sold,” said Mr Elcock, “and seeing the methods used in teaching musical instruments. “I was very interested in displays of instruments,” he said. “In Russia music stores were tied up with other big stores, and the instruments sold were not of as high a quality as those Russia exported.” Mr Elcock said he visited firms in England and America and on the Continent, which were associated with his own firm in Christchurch. “In England shops were not interested in promoting the sale of instruments, but in America there was far more outside selling, and promotion of sales in a big way. “In Germany many people who work for a music factory do not work in the factory.” Mr Elcock said. The wives of factory workers making hand-made instruments would collect the pieces of violins or guitars and take them home for their husbands to work on. They have been doing it in the family for years.” Mr Elcock said that much of what he had learned from the trip could not be put to oractical use at present in New Zealand because of import restrictions. £30,000 Offered For Boys’ Town (N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, Dec. 12. A Chicago multi-million-aire, Mr Clement E. Stone, has offered to give £30,000 to the Auckland Boys’ Town appeal if citizens can raise the other £37,000 needed by September next year.