PLAN No. 385. GAVE TALKING MACHINES AWAY
It isn’t every one who believes he could make a very large sum on an investment of $100, but here is the story of a man in Los Angeles who thought he knew of a way in which it could be done.
From a New York firm, he purchased twenty small but good talking-machines, including disc records, for $2.50 each. He prepared a very fine silver polish, put up in one-ounce envelopes, to be sold at 10 cents each. He next had printed a number of attractive showcards for windows, and several thousand merchandise coupons, good for 5 cents each in trade. He was then ready for business.
He called upon one of the most enterprising merchants in each school district in the city, and made the following offer:
To place one of the talking-machines in his window, with a showcard beside it announcing that the machine would be given free to the boy or girl selling the largest number of packages of the silver polish, 500 of the 10-cent packages to be left with the merchant for that purpose, together with 25 cents’ worth of the coupons, and the contest to close when the last of the 500 packages were sold. To every boy or girl selling two of the packages, one of the 5-cent coupons would be given, and the merchant agreed to redeem these by taking them in trade at their face value.
The merchant was to collect the $50 from the boys and girls who sold the 500 packages of polish, award the talking-machine to the one selling the highest number, pay the promoter of the plan $25, and keep the balance which would be $17.50 net, after redeeming the 250 coupons, $7.50, upon which he also realized a profit equal to the difference between the wholesale cost and the retail price, and had received the benefit of a lot of free advertising, which brought him many new customers as a result.