Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1951-03-25
By Mox HoII
Associated Press Stoff Writer

py Shafer lowered his SiX-fOOt-
four onto shoe fitting stool and
stared around him at the shelves
piled with shirts, underwear, pa
JamaS, socks, shoes and hats in his
Connecticut avenue store.
He clutched in his hand an i'm
posing document issued by the
Office of Price Sterilization ops
The document is known as Cell
ing Price Regulation T." Mr.
Shafer looked at it and said:
We'll have to close the shop
for week just to read the thing"
That was three weeks ago, and
Mr.. Shafer feels better about the
situation now. He found the regu-
lation wasn't quite so complicated
as it first seemed. But it does
require lot of paper work, and
he is still far from finished with
this paper work.
Mr.. Shafer and about 100000 re-
tailers all over the country are
preparing pricing charts" IN
order to determine their new CELL
ing prices under Regulation 7.
They have to file the charts with
OPS by April 80. Originally The
deadline was March 20, but the
harassed storekeepers set up "a
clamor for an extension, and the
other day the extension was
granted along with a few minor
amendments to the regulation.
Great was the relief of the retail
erS.
Deadline on April 7.
The retailers may start using
his new prices as soon as he
files the chart. After April 80.
if he hasn't filed, he is forbidden
to sell any goods covered by Reg
ulation 7.
Regulation 7 covers the retail
prices of all sorts of clothing lex
cept fur garments), shoes, furni-
ture, rugs, lamps, curtains, sheets,
towels and other household tex
tiles.
The regulation unfreezes the
prices of those goods, and freezes
instead the percentage of mark
up" which the retailers can add
to the cost of each item to deter
mines his selling price. The i'm
mediate effect will be some price
increases and some price reduce
tons; apparently nobody knows
how many of each.
OPS officials admit that prep
aration of the pricing charts is
a Understanding operation. But
| they say the charts are no more
complicated than under the OPA
of World War II. Leaders of the
American Retail Federation and
the National Retail Furniture AS
ISOLATION agree with that.
Actually, Regulation is pat
termed closely after an OPA regu-
laNon that came out in 1945.
inexperienced With OPA.
But Tuppy Shafer was not in
business in 1945.
He is 80 years old. During the
war he served three and a half
years in the Coast Guard. In
1916 he and his brother Rea
bought the small haberdashery
at 5512 Connecticut avenue NV,
where Tuppy now meets the GUS
toners. Rea, a physicist by pro-
fession, handles the bookkeeping
Tuppy is president of the Chevy
Chase Business Association, an
organization of merchants.
The brothers, staggered at first
by the length of Regulation Z,
gradually got a clearer under
standing by hard study of the
regulation itself, attending meet
! ing of retailers called by the local
/ OPS office, reading a trade paper,
and comforting with another re-
taller who had been through a
similar OrQeal IN 1945.
Tuppy is doing the preliminary
work on the pricing chart, includ-
ing an inventory of the store.
Rea will do much of the arith-
metic.
In fling a price chart, there are
no standard forms to fill out. You
start with a blank sheet of paper,
or rather pile of blank sheets.
Each page of the chart should
represent one Category" All the
goods covered by Regulation 7 are
grouped into categories. For ex-
ample: Category 117-men's and
boys shirts, Category 501-bed
linens" Category 709-chairs and
rockers" and so on.
Five Column Pages.
Each must have five columns.
In the first column the category
is named. In the second column
are listed all the different costs
that the retailer paid for articles
in that category which was offer
ing for sale on February "a.
In the third column are the
prices at which he was offering
the articles on February "a. If an
article was raised or lowered in
price after having been priced