Marchant Sales Talk

Audio Recording of 1967 Sales Talk for Marchant Adding Machines

This is a new article which was not originally in 'The International Calculator Collector'.

The need to sell more Marchant adding machines

Neil Kesterson found an audio tape at an estate sale which turned out to be a recording of a sales talk from 1967 urging the salesmen of SCM (Smith-Corona Marchant) to sell more Marchant adding machines. This was an interesting time in the calculator business since electronic calculators were beginning to oust mechanical machines.

The recording starts by outlining how Marchant was investing heavily in electronic calculators. However, they still had a large adding machine (often called add-listers) inventory which they wanted to move and this talk describes ways to sell more adding machines and the sales initiatives to achieve this. Although the actual model of adding machine is not mentioned it is believed to be similar to the mechanical adding machine with listing print-out in the bottom left of the advertisement below, with mechanical and electronic calculators, from 1967. It is stressed that these adding machines are heavy-duty machines with metal cases, but admit that they are noisy and expensive though present arguments to overcome resistance to these.

To listen to the talk click here Marchant adding machine sales 1967 (35 MBytes, mp3 format).

Grateful thanks to Neil Kesterson for making this recording available.

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