Worcester morning daily spy. (Worcester, Mass.) 1888-1898, 1898-02-20
BUYING Toys ABROAD.


The following sketch from the New
York Sun explains how the foreign toys
that fill store windows at Christmas
time are purchased:
The professional buyer going to Eu-
rope to purchase goods travels on the
best boats-and often on the same boat,
which me finds familiar and comfort
able. 1t may be that he knows the
hotels abroad, in the countries that he
visits, better than he does those or his
own land, and he may come to have
better acquaintance with whole districts
in foreign countries than he does with
like districts of his own, for the simple
reason that he visits them regularly and
frequently Where he goes depends on
what he is buying; whether 1t IS silks
or laces or linens or woolens or leather
goods or what not he goes TO the coun-
frv where the things are made to buy
them whether it is in Russia, or in AUS
tr,a, or France, or Ireland. This takes
him to the greatest cities and smaller
ones and sometimes into remote coJn1-
try districts off the lines OF railroads.
where he buys of individual producers
This would be true, for example, OF Inc
toy buyer.
The buyer for a New York wholesale
France and England, and, 1t may De,
to other European countries, buying IN
each the productions peculiar to tnem-
In Germany he buys, among other
things, certain kinds Of chinaware ana
dolls and toys. He buys some things
there in cities, but he buys things as
well In the country, in the houses OF the
people who make them Household in
dustries exists in Germany in a way
that IS practically unknown in this
country Whole families engage in
some work. perhaps the decorating or
toy china, or in making dolls, and so on,
and whole communities may be thus en-
gagged.
The toy buyer goes off into these
places and buys at first hand. and, go
ing to the individual, he gets things just
as he wants them. He knows what he
wants, and he gets things made that
way A touch, single little grace may
make tine difference between 9 profit.
and a loss; between thing that viii
sch and one that won't. On doll, for
instance, even a cheap doll, the tiniest
bit of lace properly disposed, or the ar
rangement Of the dress or the coiors
used or some slight change in the face
of the doll, may make the difference be-
tween doll that is dull and wooden
and inanimate and one that is alive
and attractive and saleable, 1t may bel
that the buyer sits down IN Lne doll
makers home and explains these things
and gets the dolls made as he wants
them.
One district in Germany that the toy
buyer visits is in its characteristics
much like the Catskil region in this
state The buyer makes his headquar-
tiers in a town from which he drives off
up the valleys and about the mountains
to the homes Of the people. He goes
there year after year, and he knows
the country well; its landmarks are
familiar, and he knows the people. As
he drives along the roads he meets boys
who live in the neighborhood and take
off their hats to him as they salute him
and address MIN by name. They know
him and they know what brings him to
the mountains; his coming may mean
an order for their own families In re-
cent years railroads have been built UP
through some of these valleys, and II
will probably not be very many years
before most of them will be accessible
in that manner.
From Germany the toy buyer goes 10
Austria. 1t may be that even in Vienna
he buys the products of household In
dustries in the dwellings in which they
are made. Here he may have to climb
to the top story Of a house to find a,
family work shop. In France, in Paris,
he buys some things at the home of the
makers. but an increasing proportion
he buys in the warehouse where they
are collected. Pretty much everything
that he gets in London he buys in
wholesale establishments.