The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-04-09
THE BOOK sCALPER.
The Scheme Adopted to Stop their
Business.

The Scheme Adopted to Stop their
Business.
New YORK April IL suppose there
are 'scalpers in every trade" said a promi-
nent book publisher, but | think there are
more in our trade than in any other. But
at last we have got them in our own hands.
| never thought we could do it, but thanks
TO the simplest invention in the world, we
now can trace every book that we turn out
from our presses. The story is a curious
one and one that has never been printed.
You see we publish a first class work which
we sell on subscription for five dollars We
advertise it in the daily and weekly press
and engage canvaSsers or agents In every
town and city in the union. All of "A sud
den we find the book in some dry goods
store or emporium IN New York, Philadel-
phia or other large city offered for sale at
three or four dollars. That, Of course, ruins
the trade of the canvasser in that place and
he naturally makes "A row. We can do
nothing. The dry goods man will not tell
us who has sold the books to him and we
have or rather had, no means Of Identifying
any particular volume The~result was
that the book dropped in value and none
would buy it, so that in many cases we are
put TO dead loss.
at was John Wanamaker's method that
so largely hurt the sale of Grants Memoirs
in Philadelphia, and 'Walling's Recollec-
tions were injured in Chicago in the same
manner, and so on through the long list. OF
course if we could find out who the little
foxes were we could remedy the evil, but
how could we find outs We tried all sorts
of schemes to detect the scalpers, but with
little or no success. One was to break the
letters on the back of the bound volume
Suppose the title read, Grants Memoirs
we would disfigure the g of the title for the
first one hundred copies, the r for the
second hundred, the A for the third and so
on. When we had gone through all the
letters we would dsfgure two or three up
TO the last volume. Upon this basis, if /
found book whose back showed the G. and
the o disfgured / would know that the
number was g700, and by referring 10 our
books / could learn the name of the agent
/ who had sold the work surreptitiousy. But
the scalpers were as wary as ourselves.
They perceived the broken letters from the
first, and hired some poor bookbinder to cor
rect the fault we had purposely made
Then, when ! found such a book in some
store where it had no business TO be, could
not tell in anywise from whom it came or
how the shopkeeper had managed TO get it,
Our next movewas to put fancy figures on
the corners of the back and varying lines
under the title. But the scalper perceived
the point almost as soon as we invented the
and erased the corner figure, and changed
or increased the lines. Things kept on
this way until an ingenio1s New Yorker
devised system which many Of the know
ing ones have adopted. 1t consists of a
duplicate stamp, engraved and numbered
from one up indefinitely. One half is
bound into n concealed portion of the
cover, and cannot be seen or exposed with
out destroying the book The other half is
attached TO any page you will. Any gem
uine buyer tears off the attached half and
cares nothing for the unseen buried half.
This scalper, however, is blocked. He cen
tear Off the loose half, but he can't remove
the other without SO dishguring the book
that it would become valueless If he leaves
il there the publisher can come around, buy
a volume, open the binding, find out who
sold it C oOked, and not only stop supplies,
but also bring suit against both agent and
tradesman. The new system has already
worked wonders The book scalper, as we
will call him, will grow less numerous every
day, aud the stores where subscription
books are sold at cut rates will be less and
less in number. / cannot suggest any inn
proyement in the present system unless the
government give IL official sanction. As it
stands, il practically gives each book an in
dividuality Of its own, and SO enables the
publisher 70 know the history of every
volume ne issues and Of every agent he en-
ploys. If the system is adopted by the
national government it gives every book
legal status, as good and binding as any one
note Of the currency. The chief beauty of
the new system is its inexpsnsiveness. The
duplicate stamps cost next 10 nothing The
expense Of binding one-half in and OF at
taching the other half is so inflnitessimai
that il Is hard 10 estimate. IL may seem
trhing matter TO outsiders, but to US pub
fishers 1t is very big thing. And TO the
book scalpers and cut-rate booksellers it is a
wall hi cher than they can ever overcome or
break through" r. Il. VALENTINE.