While we were mostly successful introducing new products to the retail market, occasionally we would introduce “Loser's Freaks, and Orphans”. My Father had 2 shopping trips each year, the National Hardware show and the American Rental Association show. The Hardware show in Chicago could be compared to today’s Consumer Electronics Show in that if you had an innovative new product the Hardware show was where you needed to be. Some of the more unusual items that were introduced at the Hardware show in the 1960’s that would find their way onto our shelves. were Lava Lights, the Skateboard, and backyard Propane Grills. We were the only store in Bethlehem where you could buy a Plastic Pink Flamingo’s in the 1960’s
Some Items we introduced before their time had come. Other Items there would never be a time for. We would take on Fads that would gain a market then implode. Some products would just disappear as the business evolved. Some of these stories and products are weaved into the story by decade, as the story evolves I will try to eliminate the duplicate stories
This chapter was getting a lot of hits with no content inside. With all the notes I have collected over the years this chapter keeps evolving. This Chapter has been the most enlightening for me as I add one item to the story I remember another. As I write the rough text I will add it to this chapter. It is going to be disorganized at first and will be mostly unedited. Comments, Questions, and Corrections are welcome. My e-mail for this project is info@rentalbarn.com
Rentals; in the early 60’s the rental concept was very new and still evolving. It took a lot of imagination to believe a product would turn out to be successful. The imagination was provided equally by my father and the requests by our customers. We kept notes on rental items requested by our customers. During the 1960’s lawyers and insurance companies didn't regulate the rental industry as it does today
Video Cameras
Our first rental video camera’s portability was the 15-foot cord attached to a 30 pound Beta VCR attached to the TV. It still worked great for recording Christmas morning and junior turning one. We could have used 30 Christmas morning, however, we could only afford 1. Our second unit was attached to a 15 pound VCR that hung around the videographer’s neck. The Battery allowed for about 30 min of taping before recharging. When I used it to record my sister’s wedding I would be testing a new use for a video camera.
The recording of my sister’s wedding can be found at this link.
As the units became smaller and easier to use the rental popularity would grow. Christmas would always find us booked solid.
Fur Coat Rentals; stapled to a wall at the counter of the old Bethlehem store was a 12 x 18” poster that read Fur Coat rentals with pictures of several styles of fur coats. The visual experience of entering the store was always hard to take in, however, a poster with an attractive woman in a Fur Coat always got attention. It was as true as our street sign read “This Idiot Rents Anything”. The Fur Coats were provided by a furrier in New York City on request, and we received a percentage of the rental. I can only ever remember one actual Fur Coat rental, however, the poster reminded our customers we were serious about rentals. The faded beat up poster never made the 1970 move to the new Bethlehem Store.
Big Box Rentals; would cut into our video camera rentals. What is a big box rental? I did not know Wall-Mart rented “Stuff”? Some consumers would take advantage of the discount retailers generous return policies and purchase a video camera or whatever tool they needed, use it and return it for a refund. It would take a few years before retailers would mostly stop this practice. For the self-proclaimed honest consumers, this is still called Fraud. Just because the crime is perpetrated on a corporation doesn't make it legal.
I still have a video camera for rent however even quality cameras are so inexpensive this is an item that is now mostly purchased. We also rented film still and movie cameras, and when the digital cameras were introduced we rented them. Occasionally we receive a call for a film or slide projector we still have some projectors however the bulbs are getting very expensive and this sets a high rental price.
The North Warehouse; before we computerized the rental inventory our inventory was recorded on large index cards. The rental inventory had a letter prefix it would be an E for Easton M for Macungie and NW stood for the north warehouse. The North warehouse was the Farm. NW meant the Farm was to be the permanent location or tools my father wanted to keep around for his use. NW did not mean the tool could not be rented in fact there was nothing we owned that couldn't be rented. My mother’s blender, mixer or the TV was all fair games. Years ago my wife returned home to find a 12’ portable where the 27” TV was. A customer needed a TV for the Super Bowl. As kids occasionally we could confiscate a rental item for our use a trampoline would be the first item that would come to mind
Yellow and Gray; a walk through the store today will still reveal equipment painted Yellow and Gray. Painting distinctive colors were never done universally in the rental industry however a few rental stores did identify their equipment by color. Today one of the few rental chains that continues this practice is Sunbelt Rentals.
My Fathers reason was that our equipment could be identified around the valley and to prevent customers from switching equipment. The colors my father chose were “Dover Gray” the color of a dodge station wagon he owned in the 1950’s and “School Bus Yellow”. Our Trucks had the same paint colors yellow tops and gray bottoms. When new equipment arrived it was painted before it would be rented. The Trucks and some of the larger equipment were sprayed the smaller equipment was brush painted.
The reasoning behind the brush painting was to make the equipment look sloppy and used; less likely to be stolen. On the positive side, it was helped with our name recognition, on the downside customers were sometimes concerned about the worthiness of the sloppily painted equipment. I am sure our suppliers were horrified when we painted over their brand colors and pasted our decals over there decals.
I never like the color combination and would sometimes add accents to the trucks to dress them up. As competitors provided customers with shiny factory painted equipment we dropped much of the painting. When Father added rental trucks he would have trucks painted yellow and gray and lettered. Two of our rental trucks would get some unneeded attention when one was jammed underneath a historic Covered bridge and another truck was used in criminal activity.
When I purchased my store I covered the gray paint with red or return the equipment to its original color. After dad died the Bethlehem store would brighten up the yellow and gray equipment by covering the gray with purple paint. Today’s customers sometimes shop by brands and contractors demand new looking equipment to prop up their image.
Sales
Some items just didn't fit with our other product lines; nothing exemplifies this example like the 1960’s Lava Light. We would introduce the Lava Light to the valley before there was a Spencer Gift or a Hallmark Store. Lava Lights were more of a conversation piece than profitable merchandise. I can’t recall that we sold more than a handful and the $150.00 three foot high giant would end up in my mother’s dining room.
A Keurig type hot drink/soup machine would find its way into our retail inventory. It was produced in Bethlehem and we had the only one I have ever seen. The freeze dried Soup, Coffee, Tea or Hot Chocolate was in a small foil cup. You emptied the powder into a drink cup set the cup on the machine and in less than 60 seconds the machine would dispense a cup full of hot water. We kids and the customers enjoyed the novelty, however, the product was not very tasty. The one and only soup machine we ever had was never sold and is collecting dust under my desk.
The Toro Flymo; Toro is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2014 and during Toro’s 50th anniversary the Toro Flymo was introduced. My Father was always looking for unusual products and the Flymo would be as unusual as the floating Hoover Vacuum cleaners we sold for a while. I am going to say the first order was for 25 mowers. At the time the story I was told that it was a Spanish design licensed to be produced and sold in the United States by Toro. What I learned on the internet the inventor was based in England, the product was invented in 1963 by a Swedish immigrant named Karl Dahlman. Spanish, Swedish I guess the story was lost in transition.
I can guess the original price was about $100.00. The first one assembled was used as a demo. On the showroom floor or in the parking lot the mower moved effortlessly on the lawn it was a little shaky. The construction was good as one would expect from Toro however its practicality was another story. On a sloped lawn, it tended to slide down the hill. We instructed customers to mow up and down. The 19” blade was a few inches from the edge of the deck so the mower did not trim close to trees. When the mower lost lift around flower beds it would sink and scalp. During this time Toro was working on mower designs that would create a lifting vacuum to pick the grass up for a cleaner straighter cut the Flymo pushed grass down.
We found a limited market for the Flymo and that was to cut steep banks. A petroleum storage facility would use the mower to cut the grass on the steep banks surrounding gasoline storage tanks. The operators would tie ropes on the handles and lower them down the bank take a step forward and pull the Flymo up the bank. We sold a few and stocked many. When we relocated the Bethlehem Store in 1970’s the remaining stack of Flymo’s would be sold at auction for $17.00 each.
Toro discontinued the Flymo however it didn’t disappear. The licensing agreement would be acquired by another company and the Flymo continued to be sold. For a time we ordered in Flymo’s as needed to fill customers’ requests.
A few years ago some mowers were found in the basement in Canton Ohio I would purchase 2 brand new Toro Mowers one would be a Flymo that is now in my Toro Collection.
Charmglow Grills; some items we introduced to our customers before their time had come. We introduced the propane grill to the valley. Anybody who watched “Let’s make a Deal” or any of the 1960’s and 70’s TV game shows heard of Charmglow Grills because they were given away as prizes. The product was a good fit in a Lawn and Garden center. At almost $400.00 they did not fly off the shelves, however, we did a good job marketing and demonstrating the product. During our annual open house, the Charmglow rep would have a line of customers waiting to try a cocktail hot dog dipped in his secret mustard. One question was always by grill customers; where can I get the propane tank refilled? This would lead us to install a propane tank refill station. When the discount retailers introduced cheap tin knockoffs of Charmglow grills we would drop the line. The propane tank refill station would go on to be our single most profitable item.
The Charmglow grill my father installed at the farm in 1971 has been rebuilt a few times and is still usable 40 years later.
Riding toys part 1
The Racing Go-Carts were before my time however when the rental store was moved out of the first rental store in 1961 (now Stefano’s) a display of racing go-carts was moved in. The positive part of this business was these go-carts were adult toys and a track was set up in a grocery store parking lot so there was a place to race and break go-carts. When the building was sold, the go-carts disappeared.
We also sold mini-bikes and go-carts in the 1960’s. The biggest part of this business was selling parts for building and repairing go-carts and mini-bikes. One of my early jobs was selling used lawnmower engines and used parts to the neighborhood kids.
One of the unintended consequences of the mini bike business was a number of break-in’s where the thieves only stole mini bike parts. The wide boulevards of Bethlehem’s East Hills and Liberty park were great for racing and riding until 2 kids were seriously injured and the Police cracked down on riding in the streets.
Riding toys Part 2
We also sold the scaled down model T’s that the Shriners popularized. At the time these were popular kids toys they were not fast or dangerous. This gave us an opportunity to sell the engines off the old reel mowers that were taking up space in the basement. Assembling these kits was time-consuming. When it got to a point that we just didn’t have time, the little cars were dropped.
Another very popular product was the legendary Flexible Flyer sleds. The Flexible Flyer sled was a little out of our product line however it produced by the garden equipment manufacturer we had a dealership contract with. At the time Planet Jr., whose walk behind Garden Tractors we sold also produced Flexible Flyers. There were numerous sledding hills scattered around Bethlehem including Camels Hump a hill located a ½ mile from our store. In the days before big box retailing we were one of the few north side businesses to sell sleds, toboggans, and aluminum disks. We were defiantly the only business in the Lehigh Valley that rented them. On a snowy day in a college town renting snow toys was popular
Over the decades, we introduced a few products that were unsuccessful because they were ahead of their time. Skateboard. To describe the National Hardware show in Chicago would be to compare it to today’s consumer electronics show. This was an annual event for my father. Following my father home from the Hardware show along with lava lamps and unicycle was the mid-1960’s Skateboard. We sold a shorter narrower, plywood version of today’s skateboard. The Skateboards were produced by the famous surfboard builders in California and popular with the California Surfers. Even a top 25 song written by Beach Boy Brian Wilson and recorded by Jan & Dean couldn’t move the skateboards out of the showroom.
When the main store moved in 1970 many of the Freak’s and Orphans from the 1960’s would be left behind. Skateboards Lava lamps and wind-powered go carts would not make the move.
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