Way back in about 1989 I ran a successful business. I was in the first grade and I made some savvy investments. The library at Bailey Inglish Elementary had a pencil vending machine. Before school started we had access to this fantastic dispenser of Number 2 graphite filled wooden instruments of communication. I went there one morning and deposited my quarter. And the mystery prize that popped out was...a golden San Francisco 49ers pencil.
I didn't know anything about football other than the Dallas Cowboys broke my Dad's heart every Sunday. When some kid saw my find, he offered me a dollar. Four US quarters for the pencil! Sold! NFL logos weren't the only thing in that machine. There were also college football and girl pencils. Think of them as Lisa Frank type nonsense. The next morning I dropped my coins in the machine and got four more pencils. Boom. Three NFL pencils and a girl pencil. I had a very reasonable pricing strategy. 49ers were a dollar, Broncos were 75 cents, the Dolphins, Oilers, Cowboys, Bengals, Steelers, Bears, Rams, Vikings, Packers, Eagles, Giants, Washington, Lions, Saints, Falcons, Chargers, Seahawks, Chiefs, Browns, Jets and Colts were 50 cents. The Patriots and Buccaneers were lousy and ugly logos. They were pencils I kept for myself to write with. Unless somebody needed one to complete his collection. I'd just give it to him for free.
The girl pencils I'd sell for 25 cents each. The college football pencils were just the Texas teams. Nobody really wanted them unless it was Texas A&M. Houston, Rice, TCU, Baylor and SMU didn't move the needle. And the University of Texas stunk. People liked seeing what they were buying. They didn't like playing the lottery. I didn't mind. It worked out for me.
I had very reasonable prices and made decent profit. I liked the attention and making other kids feel good. I even told them they could refer to me as “discount Jones”!
So after making 75 cents profit off that first quarter, I got four more pencils. Three NFL and one girl one. The girl one sold at cost. The three NFL ones were 50 cents each. That's a $1.75 return off a $1.00 investment or 25 cents netted me $1.50 in two days. Free money. Eventually I hit on Buccaneers and Patriot pencils but that was about as often as landing the super teams of Denver and San Francisco.
I kept this up for a few months. I wold spend chunks of my profit at the Town and Country mart on my walk home. Big League Chew was a favorite of mine. As was Andy Capps Hot Fries.
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| http://www.andycapps.com |
So delicious. When I wasn't buying junk food with my money, I was saving up to buy Christmas presents for my mom and sister. James Coughenour's mom made these horrible leather tasseled key chains with beads dangling from them. I thought my mom would love them. So I ordered one for her and my sister too, although my sister didn't carry around keys. They were two bucks each and handmade locally, they were perfect. One small business man helping out another. James brought my gifts and they looked like something straight out of the Reba McEntire Collection.
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| The Reba McEntire Collection, available at Dillards. |
A while after the Super Bowl though, my business dried up. The supply of NFL pencils was replaced by Major League baseball teams. Nobody liked that. Turns out Discount Jones's Insanely Priced Pencil Emporium was only a seasonal venture.
My experiment in capitalism was successful but had run its course. I came out ahead and knew my market. I was reasonably priced and provided service with a smile. My only regret was having to look at the hideous Tampa Bay Buccaneer guy when I did my homework.
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| Begrudgingly holding my baby brother in 1989 at the infamous house on 8th street. |
If I had to pick a single song to be the soundtrack to this post it would be...
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