One Thousand Ways to Make a Living; or, An Encyclopædia of Plans to Make Money

by Harold Morse Dunphy

PLAN No. 227. PAPER COVERS FOR SCHOOL BOOKS ASSIST IN PUTTING MAN THROUGH COLLEGE

A young man in an eastern Washington town, who was obliged to work his way through the agricultural college, adopted, as one of his numerous plans for making money, that of providing substantial yet inexpensive manilla covers for school books.

He bought from a wholesale paper store, a quantity of the best manilla paper at 4 cents a pound and, at a cost of 15 cents additional, had it cut into different sizes and the corners cut off on a regular paper cutter. The ends he cut off himself with a pair of shears, and pasted them down so they could be slipped on over any school book, to protect it. The cover, completed, cost him less than 2 cents each, yet he sold a large number of them for 5 cents each. Finally, he induced the school board to buy 5,000 of them, at 3¹⁄₂ cents each. He made enough in this to put him through the greater part of his first year’s schooling. He operated the same plan in other school districts the second and third years, and completed his course with the money he thus earned.