[78-L] more exciting Grey Gull ads

[Michael Biel]

Good find.  Were the ads illustrated or just copy?  Button Buster wasn't 
a song, it was a laughing record.

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com

Donna Halper wrote:
> 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.      
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