In the course of a week, he took orders for several hundred dollars worth and then placed it on sale in the drug stores, at the same time notifying his patrons and the public in general to that effect.
That was ten years ago, and today that former cheap drug clerk is the owner of one of the best pharmacies in the city.
Air-pencils used in writing show cards and for other purposes can be made at home very cheaply, and sold at considerably less than the kind one buys at paint stores, and elsewhere, at the same time yielding a good profit, and a young man, who did card-writing for a Minneapolis department store, figured out a way to make them.
At a drug store he bought a white rubber syringe bulb, No. 3 size, open at one end only, and cut off the neck down to the bulb part. Then he got a small oil can, of the size used for sewing machines, etc., and cut off the screw or thread part of this. He inserted this in the bulb of the syringe, and secured it with a fine wire twisted about the neck of the bulb. He then screwed the nozzle of the oil can into the neck, and the air-pencil was complete.
To fill the air-pencil, he unscrewed the nozzle from the neck of the bulb, pressed the bulb partly together, placed the neck or mouth of the bulb in the lettering mixture, and released his hold on the bulb, thus filling it by suction. Then he inserted the nozzle in the bulb, and was ready to begin lettering.
Whenever he was through using the air-pencil, he rinsed the bulb out thoroughly, with water, as the lettering mixture, if left in, would soon harden and render the pencil useless.
This home-made pencil worked so perfectly that he decided to make a number of them for sale, and did so, getting good price concessions on both bulbs and cans when buying a good many at a time. Having made up about 200 of the air-pencils, he advertised them in a journal devoted to department stores, and sold the entire lot from the first ad. Receiving calls for more, he made them up in larger quantities, and, offering them at about three-fourths the regular prices, sold several thousand of them at a very good profit.
A young card writer in Los Angeles, who had bought an air-pencil for doing his work, after becoming thoroughly familiar with its use, concluded to take orders for various kinds of work from the city merchants, and follow this as a special line.