"BUY TO USE"

In reducing the prevalent notion of Sterling silverware as a gift article, The Gorham Company has done not only the entire industry, but all of us, a good turn.

Multitudes whose practice it is to wear all-wool suits of clothes and who furnish their homes with articles of solid mahogany and of walnut have hesitated in the past to provide themselves with articles of Sterling silver, reserving these purchases for gift purposes, and unwisely denying themselves the lasting satisfaction of possessing for themselves and their heirs a reasonable equipment of household silver.

"Buy to use" is the terse phrasing in which the company is delivering this

public.

FOOLISH GUARANTIES

Franklin A. Taylor, President of The Gorham Company, in a recent address delivered at West Baden before the National Wholesale Jewelers' Association, attacked two general fallacies as to silverware in memorable language:

"Sales of silverware-and I speak now particularly of Sterling silver-are all too often killed by the false idea that plated ware is just as good for all ordinary purposes, and far less expensive. No substitute can be as satisfactory as the real thing. Veneered wood is not 'just as good as' solid wood. Plated ware is the veneered wood of the silverware business. It can never serve as well as Sterling silver, nor will it satisfy the owner once he or she has been aroused to a level of appreciation of the worthiness of solid silverware-the kind

Institutional Story Advertisement

of product that made the silversmiths of old famous and keeps their names and their skill fresh in the memory of each succeeding generation.

"Extravagant and unwarranted guaranties of plated ware have been largely effective in establishing the notion that it is unwise to purchase solid silverware. Guaranties of twenty-five, fifty, and even one hundred years are published broadcast, a practice that is drag. ging the silver business down to the level of a competition in selling guaranties instead of merchandise.

"The experience of the watch-case trade, and of manufacturers of tires, hosiery, gloves, and many other industries has proved that a time guaranty, regardless of the use or abuse an article may be put to, is impossible and unjust. There are only two conclusions to reach: either the goods are not intended to survive the guaranty and the guaranty is merely a bluff, or else the price

is fixed to cover unwarranted wear by the careless user at the expense of the careful one.

"Solid silverware is not guaranteed for a certain term of years. Suppose it were! Suppose it were guaranteed on the basis of its wearing qualities as compared with plate! Instead of being guaranteed for one hundred years, it would be guaranteed for four or five or six hundred, possibly one thousand years. How ridiculous! But how much more ridiculous to guarantee plated ware for fifty to one hundred years! Imagine the heirs of the original purchasers trying to have the guaranty fulfilled fifty or a hundred years after date of purchase! Does such a guaranty really mean anything?

THE SHEFFIELD MISUNDERSTANDING

"Still another condition operating to discourage the purchase of Sterling silverware is the misrepresentation perpe

trated under the word 'Sheffield' wrongly applied. Sheffield plate, if made to-day, could not compete with solid silverware in price, as the laborious method involved would more than offset the greater amount of silver used in Sterling ware.

"Electroplate, sold to-day as Sheffield, is a misrepresentation that fools the public and causes it to couple up some vague notion of superiority with the goods as offered-a notion that is entirely unwarranted by the facts.

"Jewelers can help to eradicate this evil by correctly presenting plated ware, in justice to their customers and to their own integrity. It would be wise for the entire trade to wake up to the necessity of eliminating this practice of misrepresentation-innocent or intentional-for by this time next year, if the Gorham Interests' advertising plans bear fruit, the public will be very well informed as to what is Sheffield and

Institutional Story Advertisement

what is not. Incorrect statements will not then meet with credence as they do to-day.

"Another false notion is that silver is expensive, when, as a matter of fact, it is economical, if we measure its everlasting qualities against the brief life of its substitutes, whether they be china or plate. Still another is the idea that the initial cost is beyond the average pocketbook, when that average pocketbook yields two billion dollars every year for automobiles and alleged automobiles."

REDUCING THE COST OF STERLING

It is one's taste rather than one's bank account that drives one to the purchase of Sterling silver, and there is probably as much taste among the fisherfolk of Maine and the open-range farmers of Nebraska as along the boulevards.

The classes of people who have heretofore not been looked upon as buyers of Sterling are hearing Bach on their

Nation-wide study of the situation in order to ascertain the facts.

This investigation disclosed that some jewelers, because of awkward methods, were working under unjustifiably high

expenses.

Many dealers were suffering because they were handling too highly restricted a line of goods, which automatically kept down the numbers of their customers. Others were staggering under unwarranted expense for engraving. Free polishing and other service added to the load.

The result was that excessive "overhead" made it imperative for dealers to fix Sterling silver prices at figures within reach only of the few, instead of enabling merchants to reduce them to a point within reach of the many.

player-pianos and Mozart on their phonographs. In their dining-rooms are chaste period designs of substantial construction instead of the tawdry furniture that used to sell so extensively for the sole reason that it was cheap. Public taste is far in advance of where it was a generation ago, and articles of solid and genuine worth are often in inarticulate demand where the dealer, bound by tradition, least expects to find that demand.

But in order to bring Sterling silverware within the reach and within the means of this vast, newly discovered demand, The Gorham Company found that it was necessary to reduce the costs of its distribution and sale, which were in many cases found to be excessive.

The Harvard's Bureau has reported that the retail jewelry business is more expensive to operate than any of the businesses the Bureau has studied, and this led The Gorham Company itself to undertake a very careful and

GETTING RID OF THE MIDDLEMAN

The Gorham Company at once undertook to get at this root of the unfortunate situation, and has helped large numbers of its dealers to correct their methods and accordingly to revise their prices downward.

Not content with this radical departure, the company attacked still another root of the danger-the middleman, or jobber. Eliminating the jobber from Gorham distribution was a difficult step to take; it meant lopping off considerable business, and meant parting company with many old and valued business friends.

"It is one of the peculiarities of our

class of merchandise that it cannot be successfully sold in all classes of jewelry stores," it is explained in stating the company's reasons for this unusual course. "If it were marketed through some stores. it would be dropped by others. Not all stores can handle it to advantage, and it is detrimental alike to the logical dealers and to us to have the goods get into improper channels of distribution.

RESTORING THE VALUE OF THE DOLLAR

"Now there is no way to control the flow of our merchandise through the proper channels except by selling direct

and keeping the selection of retailers entirely within our own organization. It is impracticable to control distribution of merchandise and at the same time market goods through jobbers. No manufacturer could expect a jobber to make the required investigations or to curtail his sales in the manner necessary to keep up the restrictions we find necessary in distributing our products, for a jobber necessarily works on a small margin; volume is essential with him, and he cannot be expected to limit natural demand by exercising the discrimination which a particular manufacturer finds advisable because of the peculiar character of his merchandise.

Institutional Story Advertisement

American homes to enrich themselves with Sterling silverware with less effort than heretofore.

"NO COMPETITORS"

The head of The Gorham Company is the father of a new nomenclature in

business. He has banished from his vocabulary the word "competitor," bristling with its connotations of strife and conquest. There is a menace about this word that he has never liked, for if a word can frown, the word "competitors" certainly does it.

Mr. Taylor has set up in its place the term "associates." For twenty-five years he has applied the term "associates" to his rival manufacturers, all and sundry. His terminology rises above and beyond the sinister alleyways of competition.

The metals with which The Gorham Company works provide a fitting background for this faith in its manufacturer-colleagues. In the celebrated Gorham smithy in Providence this friendly trade word has been coined into widespread currency. It is the keynote of a new and charming business language; it chimes through the world of affairs almost like the note of a silver bell.

Here is at least one large organization of silversmiths that is concerned not so much with the sale of Sterling silverware stamped with its own markas with the sale of Sterling silver generally. It believes that the gratification of possessing an article of Sterling silver is out of all proportion to its cost to the buyer, and a fine thing for any family. If the choice happens to be Gorham, well and good, but if the choice happens to be some "associate" make, no Gorham tears are shed. Silver's the thing, and the Gorham heart is gratified whenever and however a new appreciation of Sterling silver and its worth enters a home where once its nearest approach consisted in the German silver clasp on the family album.

useful substitute for the loving-cup. Since convention seems to have decreed the loving-cup, many people have more than they require. Who ever drinks from a loving-cup? And this has long since led The Gorham Company to recommend inscribed silver platters instead of loving-cups, since no home has probably ever had enough platters. Givers of trophies are encouraged to favor the more useful platter, and the idea has gained extensive vogue. Some customers have even adopted the novel practice of giving appropriately in

Brass altar cross in Gothic style, richly chased and ornamented with symbolic decoration and figures of saints in miniature-a noteworthy example of Gorham ecclesiastical art

HUMANIZING THE BUSINESS

Shortly before last Easter one of New York's leading florists was called in by The Gorham Company's Fifth Avenue store, and the interesting custom of decorating the store with flowers was inaugurated.

Thousands of shoppers on the avenue were attracted, and the store was flooded with new customers. Many who had not been in the store for years dropped in to see what was happening. The largest stockholder of a leading Chicago jewelry house was attracted by the flowers; he inspected numerous departments, and almost yielded to the temptation to make some purchases.

Another interesting phase of humanizing the business, and likewise a characteristic example of the "Buy to Use" spirit, centers around the platter as a

Institutional Story Advertisement

Gorham candlesticks in brass, with Renaissance ornamentation