PLAN No. 387. “KNOCK-DOWN” PICTURE FRAMES
In every home in the land are many valuable pictures that are lying around loose, with excellent prospects of being soiled, torn or lost, simply because the owners of them to do not feel able to pay the high prices asked for frames already made, or made to order.
A Kansas City man, who thoroughly understood this condition, decided upon a plan by which thousands of these pictures could be enclosed in handsome and appropriate frames at comparatively little cost.
Being handy with tools, and having but little available capital, he bought a modest stock of picture-frame mouldings of various styles, sizes and grades, a mitre-box, a saw, a small mortiser, some tacks, etc. He also provided himself with stationery and an illustrated circular concerning picture frames, showing the difference in prices between frames already made and those ready to put together, besides cuts showing the different styles and prices of “knock-down” frames, and the manner of putting them together, particularly emphasizing the saving in cost by using those he advertised.
Through a local agency he placed ads. in a large number of newspapers circulating mainly in the country, and from these he received several hundred inquiries. In answer to these he sent his illustrated circular—which must have been a good one for it brought orders by the score—and these he filled with such satisfaction that he was soon busy enough to hire a boy to make the frames, while he put up the orders. The complete outfit, packed neatly in a box, contained the four sides of the frame, the corners grooved so as to be put together with glue, four small tacks for the corners, two screw eyelets and three or four feet of picture wire; in fact, everything except the glass, which could be obtained at any crossroads store.
And the business grew until its profits were several thousand dollars a year.