Monday, March 19, 2012


"52 Success Talks on the Logic of Business and Philosophy of Life", Roderick G. Stevens, Series A, Stevens-Davis Co., Chicago, 1921, motivational sales publication tailored to individual businesses, 13 string-bound cardboard pages separated by onion skins watermarked with a spiderweb design, each cardboard page contains 4 hand-glued printed cards.


Celebrating aphorisms no longed held in esteem, the book was presented to an employee with one card. Each pay period a new card to be glued into the book arrived with each individual pay check.

The book and these 4 representatives of the 52 cards within was found at a rummage sale in a Cincinnati, Ohio suburb.
Images: private collection

7 comments:

  1. how many of these books were made and is it worth somthing?

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    1. Did anyone discover the value of this book? I have one that is in mint condition.

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    2. Did anyone discover the value of this book? I have one that is in mint condition.

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  2. While a search engine would return several hits for the title "52 Success Talks..." there were no images of this publication on the web prior to this post. Since this posting on March 19th I've been surprised by the number of hits the page has received. Since assembly of the complete book required the actions of the employee, even in a perfect world I'd guess most newly discovered copies would not be as complete as this one but one never knows...I've no idea about value but I do not imagine too many of these 80+ year old books exist.

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  3. I have the complete book. Series A, copyright 1924. Amazing the quality of printing used on the cover and the use of onion skin. Cool book. My Dad was a printer, so I'm guessing that is how i acquired it.

    I has a total of 7 heavy stock pages (14 front and back). Also has an introduction page which is cool how they stacked the 2 pages.

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  4. I have had a copy of this since 2011, that my Aunt gave me. I am just now checking to see what it's worth. Apparently, nobody knows.

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