MAGNETIC LIPSTICK TUBES???

Guitars were important because of their high unit volume and profitability. The Danelectro Company was a supplier of electric guitars and amplifiers. Nat Daniel was the founder, president and sole owner, who in addition to amplifiers also introduced the affordable solid body electric guitar in the early fifties. Today the Danelectro brand is a collector’s item among guitar aficionados. Nat was an innovator who understood the principle of “rigid control of expense,” an example of which was his innovative and inexpensive guitar magnetic pickups used in electric guitars. He made them from surplus lipstick tubes, bought from a cosmetics manufacturer. He inserted the electronics in the tubes and produced the lowest cost guitar pickup in the industry. An acoustic guitar, manufactured by the Harmony Company was our biggest unit seller in 1954, priced at $9.95 in Sears catalog. It was a beginner's guitar and many serious amateurs, some of whom later became professionals, learned to play on their Silvertone, stock number 605. I asked Nat if he could do something with a low priced electric guitar that would appeal to the same beginner's market as the 605. He did and we enjoyed resounding success with this exclusive innovation that included the guitar with an amplifier built in to the case, sale priced at $49.95. I think the reason I respected people like Nat Daniel was because he disagreed when he thought my ideas were off base, even though I, representing Sears, was his economic life-line. How different from the “Tell me what I want to hear not what you really think” malaise of my corporate life.