And all you youngins, that is how life back in the old days, as he licks the egde of paper before rolling up his smoke
Yeah Larry, I guess there was some sort of law about whole sales to the public, underselling, or just an unwritten code for watching one another's back. This place I dealt with would tell the warehouse they were sending a guy to pick it up, as if I worked for them. I couldn't buy directly from their sources but they'd make it happen. I guess that was equal to drop-shipping today. I didn't mind driving to get the part. I was a good hour drive to Parts Jobbers as it was. Might as well keep driving to come home with the part the same day.
I was a mail ordering fool in HS. I remember back then most people would say "If I can't put my hands on it I'm not buying it" or "I'm not sending money off to hope they send me something back". Seriously, people would make me out to be a fool for doing mail order. And now look at where we are with Amazon. Yup, been some changes goin' on.
I'd do the look in the back of magazines at ads, order a catalog (had to pay), send a m.o. so I didn't have to wait for bank clearance, and wait for the item. People would always ask "Where did you find that" or "How did you know about those?". I think the biggest one was the set of 37/14.50 Armstrong Tru Tracs mounted & balanced on 10" wagon wheels from Dick Cepek in San Diego. Tire shops around here didn't even have computer balancers yet, let alone one big enough to do those tires. This was back when 12.00s were 32" tall. The truck got noticed and I got asked a lot! I always got what I ordered, except Lipton Soup. When I was about 6 they had an offer for Tootsietoy antique cars for $.25. I taped a quarter to a card in an envelope and sent off for a Model A Coupe. It never came and I was devastated. I vowed to boycott Lipton soup for ripping off innocent kids. I came to realize a postal employee probably pockets it. Imagine that now, a whole quarter!