ABSTRACT
In the early days of advertising agencies I do not think the majority of papers had any price for advertising. They depended mainly upon subscriptions for a livelihood, and if anything came for an advertisement it was so much clear gain, whether the price was high or low. When papers had rate cards the agent was justified in charging in accordance, if the rate seemed reasonable; but when agents multiplied and competed with each other it soon became the thing to do to charge an advertiser as near to the prices named on a rate card as it seemed likely he could be induced to pay, and then cut the paper down to as near nothing as the paper could be induced to accept. From sixty to a hundred dollars a column a year was an average price in a country weekly, forty years ago, but an agent who could secure an order for five hundred such papers at $25 a column—taking them as they run, in a specified territory—would very likely double his money on the cost of placing in four hundred and seventy-five out of the lot, while the other twenty-five might cost him $125 each, without one of those that cost so much being of a higher value than the average of the others.
