Product Premiums—An Idea Whose Time Had Come

QUESTION: My grandmother has what she calls a “Larkin” desk. It doesn’t look like a normal desk but more like a tall oak bookshelf with a drop-down writing surface. She remembers her parents acquiring it around 1911.  Can you tell me more about it?

ANSWER: One of the most popular items from the Larkin Company was the drop-front combination bookcase/desk, also known as the Chautauqua desk. This desk became a common piece in homes at the beginning of the 20th Century.

In 1875, John D. Larkin opened a soap factory in Buffalo, New York, where he made two products— a yellow laundry soap he marketed as Sweet Home Soap and a toilet soap he called Crème Oatmeal. He sold both products using wholesalers and retailers. Larking originally sold his Sweet Home Soap to street vendors, who in turn sold it to customers along their routes. By 1878, he had expanded his product line to nine types of soap products.




His brother-in-law, Elbert Hubbard, the eventual founder of the Roycroft Arts and Crafts Community, came up with what he called "The Larkin Idea"—door-to-door sales to private residences. To establish brand identity, Hubbard, inserted a color picture with the company's logo into every box of soap as an incentive for customers to buy more soap. Housewives accumulated and traded these picture cards, and eventually the cards became more elaborate. This concept of offering a gift directly to customers was a new approach to marketing. And by the 1890's, Larkin’s premiums had become an overwhelming success and a vital part of the company’s   marketing plan.

The premiums Larkin offered included handkerchiefs with toilet soap, towels with soap powder, or one-cent coins. Eventually, Larkin inserted certificates into the packaged products which could be redeemed by mail at the company’s Buffalo headquarters. A $10 order of soap resulted in the awarding of a premium with a retail value of the same $10. By 1891 he placed his first wholesale order of items to be given as premiums, $40,000 worth of piano lamps. The next year he acquired 80,000 Morris chairs and 100,000 oak dining chairs—all to be given away with the purchase of soap.

Larkin and Hubbard knew the key to mass merchandising was to eliminate the sales force and sell directly to the consumer via direct-mail catalog. Larkin realized he would be better off if he made not only the products he sold, but also the premiums he distributed. His pitch was that since he manufactured the products he sold, unlike Sears & Roebuck and Montgomery Ward and sold them directly to the consumer, he was eliminating the "middleman" and giving the customer better value for the money. The Larkin Company motto became "Factory to Family." By the end of the 19th century, catalogs jammed people’s mailboxes.

The plan worked. Both his product line and his premium line expanded. By 1893, the Larkin Soap Manufacturing Company was sending semiannual catalogs to 1.5 million customers.

His first venture was the furniture assembly plant in Buffalo that made furniture from parts cut and milled in Tennessee. Here for the first time was a major catalog distributor who actually made the furniture they shipped. Furniture was one of the company’s primary premiums. Since Larkin was appealing to the mass market, he made sure to offer furniture premiums that appealed to ordinary people and not the wealthy.

His most famous premium was his oak drop-front desk with open bottom storage, first appearing in the 1901 catalog, that the company gave as a premium for a $10 purchase of soap. Constructed of either cold or quarter sawn oak plank, assembled with nail and glue construction, with a golden finish, each desk featured applied ash or maple molding and trim and back panels of three-layer plywood. Better desks also had stamped-brass escutcheons and brass hinges on the drop panel. Cheaper ones had iron-butt hinges. A somewhat oval French beveled mirror finished off each piece. Variations included a glass front case with a drop-front desk attached to the side, two glass front cases with a desk in the middle, or simply a drop-front desk with a small open bookcase below the drop and candle stands above it, with a mirror in the high . This small desk reflected the taste and style of the Golden Oak period of American furniture in a form modest enough fit into any middle-class home.

This type of desk became "Everyman's" desk and was a common item in most homes of the period. It became a trendy decorating item and remained so for many years. People began to associate Larkin's name to the form, even though his wasn’t the only company to manufacture them, and so evolved what has become known as the "Larkin Desk." Today, Larkin desks sell on eBay for around $400 and sometimes higher.

John Larkin and Elbert Hubbard not only provided the means for a growing American population to stay clean at a reasonable cost, but they also helped them furnish their homes for free.

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Listen to That Radio, Mister

QUESTION: I’ve been going through old boxes filled with junk that have sat in my attic for years. In the process, I came across several old transistor radios, all of which work. Are these collectible? And are they of any value?

ANSWER: Transistor radios were the first common electronic device to be downsized. Today, we take miniaturization for granted and have radio broadcasts and music at our fingertips on multiple devices. But when transistor radios first came on the scene, the modern age for many had begun.

Once a worthless, "modern" radio, the transistorized radio has become the foremost radio-related collectible. In the late 1980s, most transistor radios would be left on a dealer's table for $25 or less. Today, many of those same sets cost $50 to $250.




The Regency TR-1, the first transistor radio, introduced for the 1954 Christmas season, could have been bought in 1990 for about $100. Three years later, most TR-1s sold for about $300, and certain rare colors sold for several times that amount. But the market for transistor radios can be volatile. The Zenith 500H, a larger radio from 1957, sold for about $125 to $200. Not only is the styling of the 500H interesting, but the sound is better than many tube-type radios. However, quite a few 500H radios surfaced, so 500H radios often go unsold or for very low prices.

Novelty transistor radios, those shaped like an item or product, started the transistor collecting  craze, but few have ever broken the $200 mark. Most sell for $10 to $50 while early transistors have at least doubled in price.

If you’re considering collecting or dealing in novelty transistors, you can find early generic examples from the United States and Japan, like the derringer, rocket ship, and owl, or you can look for product-specific transistors like the Tropicana Orange, Mork from Ork TV-inspired set, and the Planters Peanuts can. Generally the typical bottle-, can-, and animal-shaped radios sell for under $25, while the early and interesting household item-shaped sets sell under $75.

You can assemble a good collection consisting of about 50 radios in a variety of shapes, sizes, colors and types can be put together for under $1,000. These can be easily picked up at flea markets, antique malls and shops. While many collectors look for 1960s-made sets in interesting shapes, don't ignore the 1970s and 1980s product-type sets, especially if they’re clean or boxed.

New novelty radios in the box are often twice the price of clean, but used, sets. Manufacturers made most of these novelty radios within the last 30 years, and sold or gave away tens of thousands of each variety, so selection and availability shouldn’t be a problem. You should wait and choose only the best examples of novelties, unlike the early transistor radios, which appeared over 50 years ago and often saw considerable use. People considered transistor radios to be disposable and threw many of them  away when they no longer worked.

If you’d like to start picking up the early transistors, experienced collectors agree that you should look for nicely colored, clean and complete sets and those that are small, pocket-sized if possible, usually with a plastic or nylon case. Few of the leather sets are popular, although some of the smaller, shirt-pocket sized leather radios from 1955 and 1956 are bought and sold. Look for civil defense markings on the dial. Most collectors choose AM-band only sets, although some AM/FM sets can have a nice look.

A collection of about 40 to 50 early transistor sets with some important radios included, may cost you well over $2.000, unless you spend a lot of time looking for bargains. However, if the sets are clean and complete, they should be worth more than the typical asking prices of today, that is if you hold your collection for a few years before deciding to resell. Regardless of your interests, early and novelty transistor radios are “hot,” and getting hotter and are a great item to collect.


To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Article section of my site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the other 18,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about the Victorians in the Winter 2018 Edition, "All Things Victorian," online now.