Sales Downbeat, Colton Piano Files Chapter 11 Petition : Recession: Irvine-based chain will stay in business during its reorganization. Attorney says volume dealer is still ‘very viable’ despite debts.
Sounding a recessionary sour note in the musical instrument industry, one of the largest piano and organ dealers in Southern California has filed for a Chapter 11 reorganization, a lawyer said Wednesday.
Vern Schafer’s Colton Piano Co., a volume dealer in keyboard instruments which does business as Colton Piano and Organ, filed its petition Monday in federal Bankruptcy Court in Santa Ana, said attorney R. Neil Rodgers.
Colton Piano will stay in business as it scales back its operations, he said. Chapter 11 allows a company to continue its operation while being protected from creditors’ lawsuits. Colton sought help with its financial troubles months ago, so it is well positioned to make a comeback.
“It’s a very viable business,” Rodgers said. “Even with the hard times, (the company) is still selling units.”
Colton President Vern Schafer Jr. could not be reached for comment. The Irvine-based company has stores in Colton, Carson, Pasadena, Tustin and Tarzana.
The company lists about $11 million in debts--about $5 million owed to its largest secured creditor, Union Bank, and another $6 million to 173 unsecured creditors. The largest of those is $5.4 million owed to Daewoo International, the Korean conglomerate that makes Sojin pianos.
Bob Laube, marketing manager for the Sojin piano division in Compton, said that Colton was once--and still may be--the top-selling piano dealer in Southern California. The company, which once had 10 stores, has advertised heavily and was built around the “superstore” concept--with showrooms typically 10 times the size of the average music store.
But the piano industry is particularly sensitive to downbeats in the economy, Laube noted. U.S. piano sales reached a crescendo in 1980 and have been on a slow but steady decline since.
American dealers received 129,400 domestic and imported pianos, valued at $623.4 million at retail, last year compared to 175,000 pianos worth $682.7 million in 1987, according to the American Music Conference, a musical instrument trade group based in Chicago. Many younger adults have bought electronic keyboards instead of pianos.
The decline, Laube said, has been felt strongest among lower-income families that previously had $2,000 to $2,600 to invest in a new instrument so their children could learn to play the piano.
“He just has so many expenses that he can’t buy a piano for his kid” during this recession, Laube said. But the more expensive pianos--instruments that can range in cost up to $90,000--are still selling well, he added.
