As probably almost all of us know, advertisers in old comics seemed to be very determined to get children to sell all sorts of things around their neighborhood to get cash and prizes. A very few examples picked tonight:
Christmas cards
Mottoes
Seeds
And probably the most unrealistic prospect of these, selling tins of petroleum salve to their friends (with a bonus swell art picture!).
So did anyone ever try selling anything like this? Was it as dismal a failure as seems likely?
“Swell.” LOL! A decade later, they would have said “groovy.”
Cloverine Salve is still marketed, although probably not this way.
Anyone remember “Sell GRIT!” ? I have some old issues of Boys’ Life that had the ad, and the application form says, “Are you a boy?” (Oooookay…..) Anyway, GRIT is also still being printed, although nowadays, it’s a farming and homesteading magazine.
So did I. I remember making a grand total of $6 before I gave it up. I was probably around 10 as well. Not a terriblly small sum for my age and the time, but for all the shlepping around the neighborhood I did, it probably worked out to 25 cents an hour.
I knew a few kids at school who tried to sell Grit. An issue was always the same price as a comic book. It wasn’t a hard decision for a 12- year-old to decide where to spend his 15 cents.
Like a paper route, you were given the product first and expected to remit a portion of your sales. The “law firm” was almost certainly an in-house entity which shook down parents to protect their child’s “permanent record.”.
There’s a Jean Shepherd story where, after another failed attempt as a child to sell some junk advertised in comic magazines, his father lays down the law and orders him to send the stuff back, bellowing “Let 'em sue! They can’t get blood from a turnip!”.
In 1967 the Wilson Chemical Company was dealt a crushing blow by the Federal Trade Commission, which decided that the company’s advertising method of luring young salesmen had to stop.
I tried selling Grit. It was a profound failure as a business venture, but I learned a few things:
If I’m going to be an entrepreneur, I need more of a business plan than merely saying “I’ll get some stuff and sell it and come home with money.”
I don’t have much of an interest in trying to sell things.
I don’t have much talent for asking people to buy things. It was only later that I realized this, but I really don’t think I came across very well in my presentation. I’m sure it was partially because of point #2, but only partially. Really, my best talents, such as they are, lie elsewhere.
An older kid than I (late 1960’s) went door to door selling variety greeting card boxes. Had genetic cards for Christmas, anniversaries, birthdays, etc . I think people kept those as an emergency stock in case they suddenly remembered someone’s event.
My Ma bought 2 boxes from him.
The next spring he was riding around on a shiny new 3 speed bike he got for doing so. So at least somebody made out with one of those schemes.
Whether he would have been better off getting a regular job I know not. He was older and not someone I conversed with real often.
That’s my recollection; it wasn’t necessarily a publication for kids to read, it was a general-interest newspaper, and the idea was that you’d sell copies to the adults in your neighborhood.
Speaking of greeting cards, my elderly mother would sometimes watch the home shopping networks when she was up late at night. One thing she bought from them was a nice box of assorted Hallmark greeting cards, for, I think, fifteen bucks. Given that Hallmark cards cost several dollars each, we definitely got our money’s worth out of that purchase. My guess is that they packed unsold cards returned from their retail stores or discontinued cards in those boxes.
