The times., 1898-02-13
TOURS THE WORLD FOR TOYS.
Interesting Features of the Toy
Buyers Work Abroad.

Buyers Work Abroad.
The professional buyer going to Eu-
| rope to purchase goods generally travels
on the best boats-and often on the same
boat which he finds familiar and COM
Portable 1t may be that he knows the
hotels abroad, in the country that he
visits, better than he does those Of his
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 faces or linens or wooIlens or leather
goods, CT what not. he goes TO the coun-
try where the things are made to buy
them, whether it is in Russia. or in Aus
tria, or in France, or Ireland. This takes
him to the greatest cities and TO small
er ones, and sometimes into remote coun-
try districts, off the lines of railroads
where he buys of individual producers
This would be true, for example, of the
toy buyer
The buyer for a New York wholesale
toy house goes to Germany, Austria,
France and England, and, it may be, to
other European countries, buying in
each the productions peculiar to them.
In Germany he buys, among other
things, certain kinds of chinaware and
lAITe Il -
there in cities. but he buys things as
well in the country. in the houses CT the
people who make them Household in
dustries exist in Germany in way that
is practically unknown in this country
Whole families engage in some work,
perhaps the decorating Of toy china, or
in making dolls, and so on, and whole
communities may be thus engaged.
The toy buyer goes off into these places
and buys at first hand, and, going 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
the difference between a profit and a
loss; between a thing that will sell and
one that won't. On doll, for instance,
even a cheap doll, the til.est bit Of lace
properly disposed, or the arrangement of
the dress CT the coIors used, or some
slight change in the face OF the doll.
may make the difference between a doll
that is duh and wooden and inanimate
and one that is alive and attractive and
saiable II may be that the buyer sits
down in the doll-maker's home and ex-
plains these things, and gets the dolls
made as ne wants them.
One district in Germany that the toy
buyer visits is, in its characteristics,
much like the Catskill region in New
York State The buyer makes his head
quarters in a town from which he drives
off UP the valleys and about the noun
tains to the homes of the people. He
goes there year after year, ard he knows
the country well: its landmarks are IA
miliar, and he knows the people. As he
drives along the road he meets boys who
live in the neighborhood and take off
their hats to him as they salute him and
address him by name They know him.
and they know what brings him to the
mountains; his coming may mean an or
der for their own families. In recent
years railroads have been built up
through some cf these valleys and ii will
probably be not very many years be-
fore most Of them will be accessible in
that manner.
From Germany the toy-buyer goes to
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 house TO find fam
lily workshop. In France, in Paris, he
buys some things at the home of the
maker, but an increasing proportion he
buys in the warehouses where they are
collected. Pretty much everything that
he gets in London he buys in wholesale
Adjustments.