BUYING AND SELLING

Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot … they bought, they sold …

—Luke 17:28

571 Kroger Profits From Volume

Seventy-five years ago a young grocery clerk had $372 and an idea. He founded a little store on the Cincinnati riverfront. Today that one store has grown into a system operating some 2,000 stores in 19 midwestern and southern states. His name was Bernard H. Kroger.

He helped foster a merchandising revolution based on the premise that if a large enough volume of goods could be sold at a very small unit profit, a satisfactory total profit would be earned.

572 Woolworth’s Big Idea

F. W. Woolworth had a big idea. And it was an impatient employer who gave him the chance. Mr. Woolworth was instructed by his employer to gather some remnants from several shelves, make a job lot of them, and get what he could. He did, and then stuck a sign up offering any article for five cents. The rapidity with which the remnants disappeared at the bargain price gave Mr. Woolworth his idea for a five-and-ten-cent store.

The average man would not have seen any idea in the quick sale, and would have forgotten the matter as soon as the remnants had been sold. Mr. Woolworth borrowed money to try out his idea, and although it failed to get across in several cities, he stuck to it until he had turned defeat into victory. As a result he accumulated a fortune of some forty million dollars.

—E. M. Wicks

573 Penney—Golden Rule Merchant

James Cash Penney’s first venture as a retail proprietor—a butchershop in Longmont, Colo.—opened in 1899 and failed almost immediately, after he refused to bribe an important local hotel chef with a weekly bottle of bourbon. “I lost everything I had,” said Penney, “but I learned never to compromise.”

Penney’s unwavering faith in the copybook maxims of his youth roused skepticism in a mercenary age, but his credo underlay his success. At his death in 1971 Penney, 95, left a 1,660-store empire that he built without compromising the stiff principles he had absorbed from three generations of Baptist-preacher ancestors. He neither smoked nor drank, and for years demanded the same abstemious conduct from his employees. “I believe in adherence to the Golden Rule, faith in God and the country,” he often said. “I would rather be known as a Christian than a merchant.”

With annual sales of $4.1 billion, J. C. Penney today ranks as the nation’s fifth merchandising company. Penney’s personal holding of its stock was worth $24 million.

Until his final illness, he worked regularly at Penney’s mid-Manhattan headquarters, where he kept five secretaries busy with volumes of correspondence.

—Time

574 Wanamaker Trusted In God

John Wanamaker earned his first money (7¢) at his father’s brickyard turning bricks. When his father died, he worked in a bookstore at $1.25 a week. He walked four miles twice a day to work and lunched on an apple or a roll. For twenty-five cents more, he was lured to a clothing salesroom. There he decided to be a great merchant.

He became involved in Christian and temperance work and was appointed the first salaried secretary of the Philadelphia YMCA. After seven years of service, he plunged into business again.

He rented a store with his brother-in-law, and delivered goods in a two-wheeled pushcart. Every cent of the day’s profit was invested in an advertisement in the next day’s issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer. He created the department store and organized the one-price system.

In ten years, he became the leading merchant of Philadelphia. He paid high salaries to his best men. And dozens of men under him were receiving higher salaries than US cabinet secretaries.

Wanamaker testified that his business success was due to his religious training and actual practice of Christianity. “I attribute my success,” he said, “to thinking, trying, and trusting in God.”

575 Birth Of The Cone

The ice cream cone is a case of necessity being the mother of invention.

Charles E. Menches was one of 50 vendors serving saucers of ice cream at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Loius, Mo. Business was booming on a hot August day when he ran out of clean saucers!

Menches turned to the stand next door, operated by a Syrian named Hamwi who had come to the fair from Damascus to sell zalabia—a waferlike pastry baked on a waffle iron. Hamwi is supposed to have rolled his still-soft zalabia into a cornucopia, which Menches filled with ice cream and handed to a customer. Success was instantaneous.

576 “Beatle-Scented Souvenirs”

Two enterprising Chicago merchants followed the Beatles on a tour. They bought the Beatle’s used bed sheets and pillowslips for $1,150 from hotels in Detroit and Kansas City. The yield: 160,000 bits of Beatle sheet, each of which was mounted on a certificate that showed the Beatle who was supposed to have left his scented sweat on the cloth. Price per inch of Beatle sheet: $1.

577 These People Were Different—And Succeeded

Woolworth conceived the idea of the Five-and-Ten-Cent store. That was different. His fortune was measured by millions when he passed away. Wanamaker conceived the idea of the one-price system to everybody in his retail stores. That was different, for at the time he put this policy into effect it was directly contrary to accepted practice throughout the country.

Ford determined to build a light, cheap car for the millions. That was different. His reward came in the greatest automobile output in the world. Human progress has often depended on the courage of a man who dared to be different.

—Herbert V. Prochnow

578 The Model-T Success

The Model T., brought out in 1908, had sales of 10,607 the first year. In four years, sales jumped to 168,304, and in four more, to 730,041. In 1919, Ford bought out the minority stockholders for nearly $106 million. They had invested $33,100.

During Model T’s lifetime, 1908–1927, production added up to 15,458, 781 cars—more than the total for all other cars for those years. It has been called the “most widely-used vehicle in human history.”

—Selected

MEANWHILE, HIGH-PRICED BUYING AND SELLING GOES ON IN UNUSUAL OR RARE ITEMS

579 Snobbery In Collections

“Snobbery,” claims art collector Joe Brody, “is one reason why people buy the fantastic art productions of today.” Says Brody, “I happen to own an original Salvador Dali, for which I have been offered $12,400. I am positive that without the Dali signature I would not have been offered $12.00. I happen to dislike the painting intensely, but I keep it for one reason only. Snobbery. People who come over to my house are invariable impressed when they learn that the rather grotesque painting hanging over my couch is indeed an original Dali.”

—Time

580 Napoleon’s Sword

Texas millionaire, Charles Cranford, is now owner of Napoleon Bonaparte’s sword. He bought the sword at an auction in Switzerland, sight unseen. Mr. Cranford refused to say how much he paid for it, but it is believed to have been over three times as much as Napoleon’s hat, which went to another bidder for $32,000.

581 Louis XVI Table

Henri Sabet, an Iranian oilman, paid $415,800 for a Louis XVI table, said to be the most expensive piece of furniture in existence.

Large sums are also paid for extraordinary paintings. Recently $5,544,000 was paid for a Velasquez painting.

Paul Getty paid over $4,000,000 for the “Death of Actaeon,” by Titian.

A Renoir painting brought $1,959, 200!

582 Antique Chinese Bottle

London (AP)—An antique Chinese bottle was sold in 1974 for 420,000 pounds—just over a million dollars. Sotheby’s the auctioneers, said it was a world-record price for any work of art other than a painting.

The 16-inch-high bottle, dating from about 1400 in the early Ming period, was sent for sale anonymously and was bought by a London dealer. Only three bottles of the type are recorded as having survived, experts say.

The bottle is decorated in blue and white with a picture of a dragon set among foliage and trees.

Sotheby’s said the previous record for other than paintings was $528,000 paid for a Chinese wine jar.

583 Rare Ming Vase

A United Press International report from New York said that a rare Ming vase, bought for $150 in the 1940s, was auctioned for $260,000 in 1976. This is supposed to be a record price in America at auction for Chinese art. Mr. and Mrs. A. Douglas Oliver bought it for $150 in an antique shop in the late ’40s in Philadelphia. The Ming polychrome jar was unusual in having 5 colors, whereas normally Ming has two or three colors.

584 Rare Manuscript

A twelfth-century copy of the Helmarshausen Latin Gospels and Eusebian Canons was purchased in London by a New York dealer. The price, highest sterling amount ever paid at auction for a rare manuscript, was $109,200.

585 Boy’s Idea For Appalachia’s Poor

Postmaster General John A. Gronouski reports an idea for ending poverty in Appalachia offered by a 16-year-old boy: “His idea was both simple and ingenious. He wanted us to print a few thousand stamps with deliberate errors in them, which would make them quite valuable. These stamps we were to send to the towns in Appalachia, where people would buy them for five cents apiece, then resell them to stamp collectors for $1000 or $10,000 or whatever the market could stand. And this would cure poverty.”

—Writer’s Digest

586 Unique Stamp Error Brings Profit

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing is a very meticulous outfit, so when an error does appear in a stamp, collectors’ hearts leap—generally with avarice.

In 1918,400 copies of a 24¢ airmail were run off showing the Curtiss Jenny biplane flying upside-down. At that point the plane was turned right-side-up on the press, but the faulty stamps are today worth $30,000 apiece. Some copies of an 1847 British stamp now go for more than $78,000, because they were engraved “post office” instead of “post paid.”

Errors occasionally go through an entire run without being detected, although nobody then gets richer since all copies are the same.

LEFT-HANDED WARES AND OTHER TIDBITS

587 Anything Left-Handed, Ltd.

There is now a firm called Anything Left-Handed, Ltd. The firm caters to a large portion of the population who are left-handed or southpaws. The idea came to Bill and Claudia Gruby during a dinner party when their four left-handed guests lamented their problems in a right-handed society.

The Grubys started the firm as a mail-order service, but quickly expanded to their present site in London. A chainstore operation is being planned. The store’s first catalog listed twenty products; now it offers 400.

“Our aim,” says Gruby, “is to sell any tool, object, or devise, no matter how bizarre, that the lefthander wants and will use.”

588 Babying The Pig In Hungary

The customs guards on the frontier between Austria and Hungary were struck by the number of young Hungarian peasant women who would cross the border every day with children in their arms. The thing that aroused their curiosity was the fact that these fond Hungarian mothers left the babies on the Austrian side when they crossed the frontier again at night to go back home. On the following morning, however, the same young women would cross over into Austria again with apparently the same baby.

So one inquisitive guard stopped a good-looking peasant damsel and investigated the baby. It wasn’t a baby at all. It was a young pig. The high duties levied by the Austrian tariff on Hungarian pigs had suggested this economy to the thrifty Hungarian peasants. They would take the porkers and dress them up in babies’ clothes with a handsomely embroidered bonnet covering the head. Their ingenuity went still further. In order to prevent the pigs from squealing, they first fed them with grain soaked in alcohol, which put the porkers to sleep—in a drunken stupor.

—Lowell Thomas

589 And Gravy?

Sign in a Milwaukee window: “T-bone, 25¢.” Then you get close enough to read the fine print: “With Meat, $4.00.”

590 Pawning Start For Newlyweds

That a visit to the pawnbroker may actually be a profitable transaction was proved by the young Irishman who walked into a London pawnshop, pawned a valuable camera and went across to the other counter to buy a wedding ring.

The next day he returned with his bride, pawned the ring, redeemed the camera, went outside and photographed her in her wedding dress.

Two hours later the couple came back, pawned the camera and the wedding dress, then departed on their honeymoon.

—Everybody’s

591 Return Mail Of Irate “Customers”

Many irate citizens complained to the Better Business Bureaus about having merchandise mailed to them that they had not ordered and did not want—and then being billed for it. A Chicago physician received such a package with the following letter: “We are taking the liberty of sending you three exceptionally fine ties. Because these ties have the approval of thousands of discriminating dressers, we know you will like them. Please send $2.”

The indignant doctor replied: “I am taking the liberty of sending you $2 worth of extra fine pills. These pills have helped thousands and I am sure you will appreciate my thoughtfulness in sending them. Please accept them in payment of the ties which you sent me recently.”

592 Sailboat For Sale Right Away

A certain chap discovered, after attending a charity auction, that he had bought a sailboat, about which he knew nothing. He was startled, but his wife was downright stunned. So he took her out to the auction site to christen their new boat and to give her the great privilege of naming it. She splashed a glass of champagne across the bow and announced: “I name this boat FOR SALE.”

—San Diego Tribune

593 Special Discount

A Paris shopkeeper wrote to one of his customers as follows:

“I am able to offer you cloth like the enclosed sample at nine francs the meter. In case I do not hear from you I shall conclude that you wish to pay only eight francs. In order to lose no time, I accept the last mentioned price.”

594 Sale For Police Officers Only

A would-be holdup man pointed a gun at a cashier in a Detroit store, but he dropped the weapon and fled when he realized the cashier had been able to reach the burglar alarm. In a few minutes the place was swarming with police officers. Seeing all the men in blue, the store’s manager immediately sent this message over the loudspeaker system: “Special sale now in progress for police officers only!”

—Detroit Free Press

595 Why Women Buy Things

There are eight reasons why a woman buys something: because her husband says she can’t have it; it will make her look thin: it comes from Paris; the neighbors can’t afford it; nobody has one; everybody has one; it’s different; because.

—True Story Magazine

596 Lucky Saucer And The Cat

In front of an East Side delicatessen, a well-known art connoisseur noticed a mangy, little kitten, lapping up milk from a saucer. The saucer, he realized with a start, was a rare and precious piece of pottery.

He sauntered into the store and offered two dollars for the cat. “It’s not for sale,” said the proprietor. “Look,” said the collector, “that cat is dirty and undesirable, but I’m eccentric. I like cats that way. I’ll raise my offer to five dollars.” “It’s a deal,” said the proprietor, and pocketed the fivespot. “For that sum I’m sure you won’t mind throwing in the saucer,” said the connoisseur. “The kitten seems so happy drinking from it.” “Nothing doing,” said the proprietor firmly. “That’s my lucky saucer. From that saucer, so far this week, I’ve sold thirty-four cats.”

597 Around The British Red-Tape

A British firm of furniture manufacturers advised a customer: “The Board of Trade has halved your order for 20 oak chairs and has sanctioned only 10. Will you please submit a further order for 20 chairs so that the Board of Trade can halve this and we can give you the requisite number of chairs?”

—Natural Science of Stupidity

598 The American Industrialist

Commerce Department officials observe that the man to be pitied is the American industrialist—every time he puts a new product on the market the Russians invent it a week later, and within two weeks the Japanese are making it cheaper.

—Walter Trohan

599 Hoarding Problem

Hoarding is a constant problem in modern society. Skyrocketing prices and items in short supply cause the consumer to purchase items he really doesn’t need at the moment. In 1974 the Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago rationed pennies because of a shortage. The cause of hoarding was rising copper prices. Speculators thought that the government would stop making the coins and their value would zoom.

See also: Merchandising ; Rev. 13:17; 18:3.

C