Monday, September 24, 2012

Neil Diamond - Hot August Night - the other album cover


Thought this is not one of them - I still have a few records in my collection that were originally purchased at a department store near where I grew up.  It was called Korvette's.  Or - EJ Korvette's.  Upstairs at Korvette's was their huge record department.  I have a couple of records that still have the Korvette's price tag on them.  Korvette's employed a very strange and confusing record pricing system.  The price tag would show just a bolc block letter, D for instance.  The scale was A through G I think.  You'd see a record, check the letter on the price tag, and then you'd have to look on the wall display for the price conversion chart:  D = $3.99, etc.  Very odd.  I think that this was their attempt to prevent sticker shock and get you to buy the record.  Maybe that's why they went under.  They was always some urban legend about the name, like it stood for Eleven Jewish Korean Veterans.  Not the case.  Here is what I read about them.  E. J. Korvette, also known as Korvette's, was an American chain of discount department stores, founded in 1948 in New York City. It is notable as one of the first department stores to challenge the suggested retail price provisions of anti-discountingstatutes. Founded by World War II veteran Eugene Ferkauf and his friend, Joe Zwillenberg, E.J. Korvette did much to define the idea of a discount department store. It displaced earlier five and dime retailers and preceded later discount stores, like Wal-Mart, and warehouse clubs such as Costco.  The company failed to properly manage its business success which led to decline and its 1980 bankruptcy and closure.

1 comment:

  1. We would ask our dad, "Who was E. J. Korvette"? He would jokingly reply, "It stands for 'Eight Jewish Korean Veterans'". We were young and dumb,and we believed him!
    Spencer

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