What these poster stamps are worth as an advertising medium is best told by Mr. Hartin, who says;
” This advertising has given us more general publicity than any piece we have put out in our ten years of business experience. Many of our customers have called at our office for another copy.”
Poster stamps were made in sets of fifteen. The popularity which these attained is demonstrated by the fact that 226 calls were made for these sets in one day. In other words , the Hartin Company’s advertising went into 226 homes of St. Paul coal buyers in one day.The company is going to issue another lot of these stamps and intends to charge ten cents a set for them. It expects that they will go in the same rapid manner as did the first lot. This advertising brings out a point which every coal dealer must keep before him. He must try not only to secure the buyers patronage, but to help him get a more efficient and economical coal fro his purposes.
Realizing that most coal buyers know nothing about what size of coal should be used for certain purposes, C. G. Hartin of the C. G. Hartin Coal Company at St.Paul, Minnesota, has started to elucidate the buyer and to advertise his business while doing it. In a serious effort to explain the different sizes and to tell the use to which best adapted, the experiment has been tried of giving each size a military name such as General Grate, Colonel Egg, Major Stove, Captain Nut, Corporal Pea and Private Buckwheat. A short and humorous verse is printed beneath each cartoon and the proper use of each size should be put is told! For instance, on stamp shows “Colonel Cold”, pictured as a Snowman, being driven away at the point of a gun by Colonel Egg. These explanatory remarks appear below, “Egg size is used in hot air furnaces and steam boilers with large boxes. Do not purchase this size for hot water plants, self feeding stoves or kitchens.
A very good idea, a little effort, a good color scheme and a comparatively small expenditure has placed C.G. Hartin Coal Company in a favorable light before every regular and prospective customer of the company. It is hardly likely that the new customers who receive these poster stamps will want to buy coal on price! They will have seen wherein the Hartin Coal Company has tried to help them to get a more economical coal. They will prove the cheapest in the end. They will not be keen to save money on the first cost only to lose it through waste.
