vinage framing book

Marc Lizer

SGF, Supreme Grumble Framer
Joined
Jun 28, 1999
Posts
1,545
Loc
North Hollywood, CA
I have several.
I will post them bit by bit, as I OCR them.

The cover and ads will be scanned.
I will post by chapeter, that way you can comment on the text.

The first post will be longer, as it is the cover, and the pages leading up to the TOC and the first chaper.

The cover
picture%20frame%20book%20cover%20modifed.jpg



Inside cover, and fronstpage.

picture%20frame%20book%20page2.JPG


Frontpaper 1
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Frontpaper 2
picture%20frame%20book%20page4.JPG


Copyright and Preface/Foreward
picture%20frame%20book%20page6.JPG


And the Table of Contents. I did it in a larger scan so you can read it better. But I will post it as a link, otherwise it will skew the html with of this page.
Link to Table of Contents

Next post will be chapter one.

[ 08-31-2003, 04:53 AM: Message edited by: Marc Lizer ]
 
Here is the first chaper.

I have scanned it, and hit it with some OCR software, it takes up less space as text compared to a Jpeg.


A Word to, the Picture and Art Dealer

THE successful Picture and Art Dealer is the one who watches his business carefully, and studies to buy goods that will sell. He gets as near to a cash business as possible and takes advantage of cash discounts. Buy for cash; sell for cash, is the best rule any dealer can aspire to. If you cannot pay cash, strive to get as near it as possible, and be very particular to meet all obligations when they become due. This habit will do more than anything else to insure your success, in business. Buy good goods and sell them for good prices.
THE live Picture and Art Dealer is awakening to the fact that he must add new goods to his regular lines. A visit to several leading stores in different cities reveals the fact that art wares, art lamps, art clocks, art electric lighting fixtures, art rugs and other goods are finding a place in the Picture and Art Store. Added to this are camera and photo supplies, postal cards, art stationery, art books, art fancy goods, art cabinet ware and art wall papers, and yet the list is not complete. And this is just as it should be. We are decidedly in favor of the dealer adding any goods, provided they are the best and most artistic of their kind and will not reflect on his business. But even here a point might be strained in favor of goods which, can be sold at a profit, even if they were not in the art line. ' In our opinion the dealer, who from a sense of dignity, refuses to touch anything not strictly in accordance with the old fashioned picture and art ideas, makes a mistake. Those dealers who can afford to run the old fashioned picture and art store as they did twenty years ago need no advice from us.
MANY Picture and Art Dealers are satisfied with too small a per cent profit business, when they should could make more if they had the right idea of their business. The average Picture and Art Dealer needs more backbone. He needs to realize that he is, in one sense, in a high grade of business; a business that, requires qualifications of a s pecial .nature, and of a superior order, and which should command a higher renumeration than the ordinary business. He must remember that he is not farming, neither is he in the grocery business, consequently he should get a superior compensation for his labor and capital invested. Moreover, to a certain extent tent his business is a luxury, and luxuries never sell like flour , and sugar. Therefore, when he makes a $ale he should aim to get the largest consistent profit. He need seldom fear that he is getting too good a profit. The successful man who conducts a Picture Store carefully figures up every cent of expense involved in the purchase of his pictures, frames and other wares. He then adds the actual expense of running his store, cost of help, rent, insurance, deterioration in stock, advertising, and all other necessary expenses. If one hundred per cent is then added for profit, it will be found none too much.
AND even 100 per cent may not be enough on every class of goods. There must be good business judgment to discriminate in the matter. The point we wish to enforce is, that more money can and ought to be made, in this class of business. We cannot give exact advice on this important subject, only a cautionary hint. There are some goods, some mouldings, or frames, for example, as we have stated, that the above suggested 100 per cent for a reasonable profit would not be large enough.
 
EXCELLENT!!! As the old saying goes, "I'd give my eye teeth" to have a book like this.

This just proves that "good business and good marketing" is timeless!

If you're going to post the whole thing, I may just copy it and print it off for myself.

Betty
 
Thanks for sharing this, Marc. I'm enjoying reading it. If I hadn't seen the 1906 copyright date I'd be wondering if Bob Carter wrote it. (How old is Bob, anyway???)

If the book gets into specifics, I'm sure we'll find them amusingly archaic but the advice in the opening chapter is timeless.

Kit
 
If I hadn't seen the 1906 copyright
date I'd be wondering if Bob Carter wrote it.
(How old is Bob, anyway???)
Funny, Less was thinking of writing the same thing,
but I stopped him.

[ 08-31-2003, 12:39 PM: Message edited by: lessafinger ]
 
What treasures, Marc! Did you find them somewhere, or did they 'come with the business'?

I LOVE their slogan:
<center>"GOODS WELL BOUGHT SELL THEMSELVES"</center>
 
I can't edit my post again, so here goes another post.

Marc, The table of contents ends at "M". Can we find the next page?

Also, my printer will only print through "G". What am I doing wrong?

[ 08-31-2003, 07:22 PM: Message edited by: SusanNolan ]
 
You need to reformat the picture to a smaller size.

I will be doing that with the ones already posted, and re-uploading them.

That will make the Grumble page width correct again.

I can make the TOC smaller, but I think then it will be harder to read.
 
Oh yes, what they are calling the TOC is actually more like an index we find at the back of books now. But they call it the TOC, and have it at the front.

I will post the book in page order.
 
Thanks Marc, you've come through with another winner.

I think a lot of us were thinking of Bob when we read this. I guess it proves that he does have an excellent education in business.

I think most of us have always known the principals of running a small business, it's just putting them into action, and sticking to it, that is the hard part for us.

One thing for sure, the attitude seems the same now in our industry, as it was in 1906. The bulk of them were just as stubborn about running a businesses their way as we are now. The author seemed as frustrated with his readers as Bob sometimes seems to be with us.

John
 
That's great Marc, thanks for sharing. It seems to be a long lost precourser to Paul Frederick's

picture framer's bible "The Framer’s Book of Materials and Techniques". I wonder if the

advertisement from "Larson and Co." of Chicago is the same company as our current
Larson-Juhl of Atlanta.
 
If you read "Final Frame" in Decor, you'll see reference to "The Picture and Art Trade Magazine."

This book was published from articles from the parent magazine of our present Decor.


Ooooh, what John Taff wouldn't do to get his hands on this little book!

Betty
 
Betty,

I thought so too, but, I looked at that listing of what happened "way back when" and the old publication was called " The Picture and Gift Journal".

The compilation of the book that Marc has may have come from a different publication.

................. Or maybe not.

Framerguy
 
That's what I thought too, Tom. But the Decor issue that I happened to have lying near the desk was Jan 03 and it quotes "The Picture and Art Trade, March 1891."

Maybe there were 2 parents! What a novel idea!

Betty
 
I did a google serach on the title and came up with just a single hit. Clicking on the link gave an error so the page may no longer exist. However google kept a cached copy of the page at :

What the Four Million Bought: Cheap Oil Paintings of the 1880s

This page has an article of about 10 pages that used this book as a reference and is interesting reading. Since the original web page is apparently no longer available, someone may wish to save this page. Maybe this is the time to suggest that theGrumble start an archive to preseve articles like this. Although the article is copyrighted, a release for an archive might be obtained.
 
Thnaks Marc. I am also interested in the next chapter.

Also, Did I SEE Farming mentioned in there? hee hee
 
Prices and Profits

This subject is of interest to every retail store and without question is the one reason that the business is not more satisfactory to those who are giving their time and capital to its development. Most dealers mark their moulding from the billing price regardless of their value as sellers. The retail dealer should consider what mouldings will bring joined in frames and make prices on same according to what they will bring than basing selling prices on cost of moulding.

Mouldings that are purchased by retail dealers at from 1 1/4 cents to 5 cents per foot should not be sold for less than four times their cost and then there should be figured a profit on glass and also on the fitting to cover shop expenses. The department stores of our country are making more money out of their framing order counter than they are likely making in any other department in their entire stores. They carry no stock of moulding and are furnished samples by the jobbers, who sell them moulding that costs from one to two cents, joined for four to eight cents per foot and they in turn double this cost as selling price

Retail dealers could by investigation convince themselves that the best competition they have are the department store framing counters, as they make a clean 100% on all odd frames they sell after giving a good profit to, the maker to begin with. The only way to get profit in making up frames is to make a price that affords a profit. Hitherto the dealers generally have been afraid to make a price that gave them a legitimate profit. In making prices the cost should not be considered, but what is the most that can be had for this moulding per foot joined. We know one dealer who has three plain wood mouldings all costing about the same in stained wood, viz.: plain oak, gum and birch, which he charges joined 4c, 6c and 8c per inch and nearly every case the buyer selects the highest price which just about doubles the profit to the maker.

The Picture and Art Trade from time to time tries by "line upon line and precept upon precept" to get the dealer to see the importance of getting a legitimate profit. The volume of business that must be done in an art store compared to the expense of other stocks proves that there must be the additional profit to meet this expense and give satisfactory returns on the investment and time. Some retail stores we have noticed are selling their goods at least 50% less than they should. In consequence after years of hard labor are no nearer meeting their bills promptly than they were ten years ago and all they have to show for their years of labor is a slightly increased accumulation of old stock while they should have a good balance in the bank and be discounting their bills.
 
Marc ... where did you find such a great book???
Antique shop or old book shop?
It is great! Thanks so much for sharing!
 
Calley,

Your e-mail address does not work anymore.

The book is thin, about 1/2 inch thick. It was used as filler in a frame job we took apart.
 
Found as a filler???!!!! What a HOOT!

It's also interesting that the last paragraph of this last part of "Prices and Profits" quotes the book of Isaiah. Now that wouldn't happen today!

Betty
 
I'm gonna stick them in the "Tips of the Trade" section.

This way people can make ongoing comments on an individual topic.

I'll make a dupe of this thread and place it there for general comments, as well as leave it here for no reason at all.

(edit follows)

If posting it in the forum is the kiss of death we'll see what happens then.

I think that each segement, on it's own, will be able to generate good discussions, and even better digressions.

[ 09-03-2003, 02:06 PM: Message edited by: Marc Lizer ]
 
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