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Hardwood Record — Veneer & Panel Section 



July 25, I 9:1 



Fair Business Continues in Chicago 



Volume of Furniture Orders Booked Far Exceeds Purchases on the January 

 Market; Good Road Business Is Expected in August 



Exhibitors at the various Chicago furniture market buildings 

 enjoyed a fair business throughout the two weeks which ended 

 July 24. the buying fully bearing out the promise of the second week 

 of the market when "buying buyers" first began to appear in 

 Chicago in goodly number. 



There have been variations from this state of "fair business" 

 in both directions. Some concerns have booked an extremely fine 

 volume of orders, while others have failed to secure what they 

 consider a fair volume. For instance, S. Karpen & Bros., have done 

 a booming business at their South Wabash avenue show building. 

 King Karpen, sales manager, declared that twice as large a volume 

 of orders was booked on this market as his concern expected. Busi- 

 ness is quite up to normal, he said, and their plants will continue 

 to operate full time. They are sold up to November. On the 

 other hand, A. W. Adams, sales manager of the Heywood-Wake- 

 field Company, when interviewed at 1415 Michigan avenue, 

 said that business in their chair lines on the July market has not 

 been at all satisfactory. 



Mr. Adams said that the buyers do not appear to have regained 

 confidence enough to buy chairs except for their urgent needs. 

 They appear to still anticipate lower prices. Prospects do a great 

 deal of looking and memorandum taking but buy very little. He 

 expects a good road business in August, however. Mr. Adams 

 believes that the retailers need chairs and other furniture. His 

 information is that while in volume they may have pretty fair 

 stocks, these are not properly assorted to serve their trade. What 

 the retailer must buy for at this time is to properly balance his 

 stock. Mr. Adams also believes that th" majority of the retailers 

 have already largely liquidated their c'ocks and those who have 

 done so will put their prices down and hold August sales. He cited 

 one instance where a large department store in a city of metro- 

 politan size, which up to this time has not liquidated its furniture 

 stocks, intends to do so in August. Mr. Adams talked to an official 

 of this concern, who said that he would go back home and prepare 

 for a sale in August. 



The August sales by the furniture stores in the larger cities 

 will clear the way for the sale of a great deal of furniture to the re- 

 tailers, Mr. Adams believes and his opinion was confirmed by the 

 views of other sellers on the July market. 



Mr. Adams reported that his company has done a good business 

 in its lines of reed furniture, in spite of the small demand for chairs. 

 He attributed this to the demand of the public for cheaper furniture. 



Other manufacturers of chairs reported slow business. The 

 representative of one big company said that the buyers are refusing 

 to take the high class lines of chairs and are confining their buying 

 largely to the cheaper lines. 



The Spencer Table Company of Marion, Indiana, dining room 

 table manufacturers, is one of the firms that has been rejoicing 



in a good, steady demand. F. E. Hoop of this company said a week 

 ago that enough orders had already been booked for a two months* 

 run at full time. 



The Kiel Furniture Company, of Milwaukee, manufacturers of 

 library, living room, parlor and dining room tables, have had a 

 fine business in all lines, but especially in library tables. Walnut 

 and mahogany lead in demand, though they sold a good volume of 

 oak. 



R. P. Burkhardt of the Stomps-Burkhardt Company, manufactur- 

 ers of chairs and rockers, reported only a fair business, which he 

 said he expected would be greatly improved upon by ;he road 

 men in August. 



The Stout Furniture Company has done a good business, justi- 

 fying in orders booked on this market the continued operation of 

 its plant at capacity. 



Business on this market has not been at all satisfactory to E. H. 

 Mersman of the Mersman Bros. Brandts Company. Celina, O. This 

 company manufactures dining and library tables, dining room 

 suites. Mr. Mersman w^as very hopeful for the road business in 

 August, but found the buyers in no general buying mood. He said 

 they were taking very little stuff because they seem to believe that 

 prices of furniture are in for further recessions. Mr. Mersman 

 shares this opinion and said that in spite of the desire of the furni- 

 ture manufacturers to pay their workers a better wage than they 

 received prior to the war or in 1914, he believes the demand for 

 cheaper furniture will force wages back to 1914 levels. 



These expressions are by no means all that have been secured 

 from manufacturers selling in the July market in Chicago, but they 

 will serve to show the trend of conditions. Where one concern is 

 found that did only a poor business another is discovered that has 

 booked a good volume. And on the average, as said at the be- 

 ginning of this article, a fair volume of business has been booked. 

 Though buyers may have done a great deal of looking and taken 

 a great deal of memoranda, at the same time they placed orders 

 to fill their needs. Their attitude was entirely different from that 

 of January when they hardly wanted to buy at any price and were 

 on a "strike." Since that time they have traveled far along the 

 road of "liquidation" and are compelled to buy a certain amount 

 of merchandise to fill up their greatly depleted stocks. 



There is no doubt that the July market resulted in further 

 real progress out of depression toward normalcy. There is a long 

 way yet to go before the demand for furniture assumes a satis- 

 factory volume but demand now^ is so much larger than in January 

 the evidence of improvement can not be denied. 



The registration of buyers showed 3,300 at the middle of the 

 week ending July 24. It is considered very likely that before the 

 close of the market this will come very near to the 4.000 registered 

 last January. 



Evansville Does Well at Chicago 



The furniture manufacturers of Evansville, Ind., who attended the 

 furniture market at Chicago in July returned feeling mighty good 

 over the situation. The local firms sold a great deal more furniture 

 at the Chicago July market this time than they did at the January 

 market. The manufacturers say that where manufacturers showed 

 a w^illingness to reduce their prices to a reasonable point they got 

 business and that retailers were not slow to take advantage of the 

 reductions. Benjamin Bosse, mayor of Evansville and head of the 



Clobe-Bosse- World Furniture Company, reported that the com- 

 panies he represented at the market secured enough orders to keep 

 their plants in operation for the next three months. He was well 

 pleased with the volume of business the Evansville manufacturers 

 did. Mayor Bosse said that practically all the goods that his com- 

 panies sold were to retailers in the east. He takes this as an in- 

 dication that the east is reviving rapidly and that it will be but a 

 {Conthiiii'd on iitjfft' o'Jt 



