[78-L] more exciting Grey Gull ads

[Donna Halper]

For those who care deeply about the life and times of Grey Gull, and 
who among us does not, I found another series of newspaper ads that 
Theodore Lyman Shaw placed in 1922, a year when he seemed to truly 
believe he was gonna put GG on the map -- he advertised in a bunch of 
newspapers in 1922/early 1923, and that must have cost him quite a 
few bucks... given his own reputation for being cheap, it's 
interesting that there was a time when he really did spend money 
trying to spread the word about GG.

These ads I found ran in the Philadelphia Inquirer spradically from 
July to December.  The early ads stressed the amazing price of a GG 
record (55 cents).  One ad was for the song "Stumbling" which the ad 
described as "this sensational foxtrot is far snappier on Grey Gull 
than on any other record. Wonderful rhythm!  Dandy vocal 
chorus!"  Okay, I give up-- what was better about the GG version of 
the song?  And the July ad said over 600 stores in Philly were 
carrying GG records-- drug stores, music stores, stationery stores 
and variety stores, according to the ad. [The number of stores varied 
with each ad-- one ad said 600, another claimed 800, a third said 
700.  I guess he couldn't decide on his own talking points.]

Theo did refer repeatedly to the benefits of selling GG in so many 
different kinds of stores, as we have discussed in an earlier GG 
thread, and this concept was a favourite talking point-- he claimed 
that selling his records in so many different types of stores (not 
just in record stores) actually kept prices low-- an early October 
1922 ad claimed that this "self-service rack of Grey Gull Records" in 
each store meant that there were "no high-priced clerks to 'push' 
them at you-- no frills-- no unnecessary 'service'.  The records are 
simply there, for people who see and want them.  This is the most 
sensible, direct and economical way of selling that is humanly 
possible, and it just naturally slices 20 cents off the price of 
records."  Now, whether the records were worth even 55 cents is 
something we have debated, but I digress.

By December, when he was promoting the Button Buster song, he claimed 
GG records were the fastest selling records in Philly. How he 
determined that is anyone's guess, but he now was charging 65 cents 
for them.