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Gelber offers vivid portraits of several automotive flim-flam artists, and he captures the antics of dealers like Earl 'Madman' Muntz, who revolutionized auto sales in the 1940s and early '50s by creating a sales-crazed character for his advertising.
Whatever cultural and economic factors keep horse trading alive in the age of cars and the internet, this carefully researched and well-written study is our best guide to the history of this paradoxical situation.
Gelber's work is... praiseworthy because it avoids the kind of temporal parochialism that characterizes so many contemporary monographs, covering the entire automobile age.
Horse Trading in the Age of Cars is an original work that accomplishes something admirable.
Combines a sophisticated history of horse trading and car dealing with a critical analysis of the way both worked... it functions both as an entertaining history and a buyers’ guide, divulging trade secrets that will benefit today’s consumers even as it recounts a colorful past... A sterling example of the ways in which culture and the human actors enmeshed in that culture shape economic practice.
About
Book Details
Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x 9
Pages
248
ISBN
9780801889974
Illustration Description
7 halftones
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction: The Cowboy and the Flapper
1. Horse Trading: During the Buyer
Horses as Masculine Symbols
The Manly Art of Horse Trading
The Reputation of Horse Traders
The Horse Trading Business
Horse
Preface
Introduction: The Cowboy and the Flapper
1. Horse Trading: During the Buyer
Horses as Masculine Symbols
The Manly Art of Horse Trading
The Reputation of Horse Traders
The Horse Trading Business
Horse Trading as a Game
The Rules of the Game
Hiding Faults
Warranties
2. Retailing: Satisfying the Buyer
Manufactured Transportation: Carriages and Bicycles
Negotiated (Discriminatory) Prices
Single (Democratic) Prices
Satisfaction Guaranteed or Your Money Cheerfully Refunded
3. Cars: Joining the New Marketplace
Coachmen to Chauffeurs: The Male Lineage
Cars in Stores
One Posted Price to All
One-Price by Law
Advertising List Prices
4. Used Cars: Undermining the New Marketplace
Origins
Trade-In Allowances and Over-Allowances
Controlling Over-Allowances
Cheating: "Buyers Are Liars"—And So Are Sellers
5. The Triumph of the Price Pack: Selling the Deal
Price Padding with the Pack
After-Sales Packing
The 1950s: "... for Thieves to Sell to Mental Defectives"
Advertising and Blitz Marketing
Posting a Price
The Great Warranty War
6. Bad Guys
The Car Seller's Career: Nasty, Brutish, and Short
The Sales Game: Tactics
The Sales Game: Strategy
Car Dealers' Reputation and Character
7. Bargaining and Gender
"The Great American Sport of Bargaining"
Brokers
Cars and Masculinity
Women as Buyers and Sellers
Epilogue: Still Horse Trading in the Internet Age
The Dealer's Cost
Make Me an Offer!
Notes
Index
Resources
