JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
I found this sub-magnificent collection of Police-Sponsored Anti-Crime Bunko-Squad pamphlets in a collection of other material from long ago that today looks so mundanely sublime. They were published by the Boston Better Business Bureau, and listed an alphabet or thereabouts of small- (and not-so) time grifters and frauds and what-have-you who were set to produce ill among the good folks of Beantown, and how to recognize and avoid them. (The reports are all in the same format, printed via offset on 11×8.5 inch sheets, titled in pencil “Pamphlets on Fraudulent Business Methods and Schemes” and printed in 1936.) There are 34 in all, stapled sheets at left-top, each about 10pp long (making for about 350 leaves), with each having an example of a conversation between the consumer and the grifter.
[Source: ex-library with the occasional stamp from the Library of Congress (“Pamphlet Collection”), via the U.S. Copyright Office and then to my collection.]
These schemes have a colorful flavor, and some sort of antique pleasantness to them, except that they were all based on fraud and deceit. The schemes include numerous out-and-out bait-and-switch approaches: Bait Window Advertising Scheme, Free Permanent Wave Scheme, Smuggled Goods Scheme, Bait Advertising Scheme, Business Opportunity Scheme, the Re-load Scheme, A Switch and Sell Scheme, Bucket Shop Scheme, Tipster Sheet Scheme, Sewing Machine Scheme, Memorial Park Cemetery Scheme, Heir Scheme, Bait Advertising Scheme, Song Writing Scheme, Is It Bait? Bait Scheme, Action Sale Scheme, Stuffed Plate Scheme, Stuffed Flats (Furs) Scheme, Buy Wholesale Scheme, Insurance Association Scheme, Partner-Wanted Scheme, Long Distance Tailoring Scheme, Bait Advertising (T.C. System) Scheme, Free Lot Scheme, Home Work Scheme, Furniture Club Lottery Scheme, Charity Merchandise Scheme, Suit Club Scheme, Picture Enlargement Scheme, Puff Sheet Scheme, Territorial Rights Scheme, Obesity Cure Scheme, Territorial Rights Scheme, Cash Bond Scheme, Unordered Merchandise Scheme. Schemes enough for one and all, and all with a flavor of Mony Python’s Spam routine.