90
THE
COIN
MACHINE
JOURNAL
February , 1933
ED ITO R IAL CO M M EN T
Keeping Faith with Our Readers
We notice in another publication going to the coin
machine industry a news item to the effect that in a
certain town it is now possible to operate machines
that heretofore have been prohibited.
Having operated machines ourselves, we realize
what it means to spend our good time and money in
legal fees and other expense involved in order to make
arrangements to operate machines and then to have
some publisher, merely for the sake of gossip, expose
our deal. Naturally, in the position we occupy in this
industry, we are aware of practically every operation
in existence. As a matter of fact, we have informed
a great many of our friends and subscribers as to
where they can operate various machines, but we have
only done this after first inquiring of the operators
who have already made satisfactory arrangements
whether they want anyone else to participate with
them.
The quicker the coin machine industry, as a whole,
realizes that there are certainly trade secrets in this
business as well as in any other that must be protected,
and the sooner they stop supporting any medium that
does not know when to keep quiet, the quicker operat
ing conditions will improve and not before.
The Clearing House of the Industry
Like the annual automobile shows, the Annual Coin
Machine Show, marks the start of a new year of sales
activity.
Further than that the show brings together many
new and old time operators. As a result of this union
and contact new friendships are established, many of
them of life long duration.
.
The show is. the clearing house of the industry,
growing bigger and of greater importance every year.-
We hope you will be there—as we know you will
if humanly possible.
New Blood vs. Turnip Juice
One of the most delicate and difficult of operations
in the surgical world is the transfusion of new blood.
Such an operation is performed only after a careful
preparation and attended with painstaking attention
to detail since the uncertainty of success leaves the
patient’s life constantly in the balance.
No less delicate is the task of infusion of new blood
in to the vending machine business. New comers
taken into the industry through the regular and na
tural process of absorption invariably leads to sound
and healthy growth for the business as a whole. But
for scatterbrain publishers with an eye to the bank
roll, who with extravagant inducements to advertisers
hold out the rewards of a shortlived wholesale small
lot buyers, to peddle the free masonry of the business
to every Tom, Dick and Harry, is to court inevitable
disaster.
A balanced program of distribution of a publication
among regular quantity and quality buyers is a boon
to the coin machine industry. It tends to keep manu
facturers running on an even keel, with a steady bal
anced production resulting in earnings consistent with
their investments. -
It may boost the prestige of a publisher for the
moment to circulate a strictly trade publication among
chicken peddlers, pool rooms, barbershops, beauty par
lors, roadside stands, hotels, and even to laundry and
pop-route drivers. But there must come a day of
reckoning; the day when the industry is saturated with
operators, trampling one another’s feet. That will be
the day when manufacturers find their plants geared
up to high production with no comparable sales vol
ume ; and jobbers’ stocks piled high in their base
ments and lofts with no buyers. Then publisher’s
revenues will drop like a plumet back to a level,
most likely below their normal mark. Such a state
of affairs, too, will leave some publishers high and
dry without a talking point or a vestige of prestige
to hold on to.
A good thing to remember, particularly when a
great deal of noise is being made about new blood by
some publishers out to get their’s while the getting is
still good, is that:
\ One good buyer is worth a hundred rubber-necks.
Old Timers Will Remember
■ Many old time operators will recall their interest in,
if not their affiliations with the old time boxers, or
prize fighters.
Those were the good old days when operators, many
of them, had machines of the day in saloons, a popular
resort of fighters and their followers.
This year old timers are awaiting with regret the
expected passing of Gentleman Jim Corbett, who is
fighting his last fight. When Corbett passes the last
of the old school of fighters will have taken the count.
We are living in a new day. Are we, with the bene
fit of years of experience making the most of it?
Visit Every Exhibit
Visit every exhibit, whether large or small. Get
acquainted with the various manufacturers. This is
your one great opportunity to meet these producers
face to face; to swap ideas, perchance a complaint or
two will be exchanged, between operators and
manufacturers.
At any rate personal contact is the greatest remedy
for business ills ever known.
Make the most of it at this the greatest show ever
held.
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