PTr? " ' W, jru-t i " , ' ' I '( 'VV'I' w"'J'.' ' 75-wHx i (' EVENING PUBLIC LEDGER PHILADELPHIA, FKIDAY, JULY 25, 1919 The Wanamaker Store Will Be Closed All Day Tomo rrow w(gg"V ytrx cr" That Will Bear Every Test and Comparison Will Open Next Week G 3 TO ALL OUR CUSTOMERS AND FRIENDS, NEAR AND FAR The Opening of the August Furniture Sale is at hand; and if you are, as ready as we are you can verify for yourself, promptly on Monday morning next, our statement that if you want furniture, we have the furniture you want; and that if you want to see a wonderful display of furniture, no furniture can be more wonderful than this, in either quantity of quality. With as much frankness as if we were face to face with you, , we will tell you that if we could not hold a wonderful Furniture Sale we would not hold any. There are plenty of furniture sales which, in this difficult year above all years, will offer the public less-than-Wanamake standards and values, but when found they'll be found outside, never inside of Wanamaker's. F OR over half a year we have been quietly preparing, not for a great show, but for a great instrument of service. Now the furniture is here, and still more coming: 16,000 pieces on display, shown on the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Floors, no two pieces alike (except twin beds or chairs belonging to the same suit) ; warehouses filled from roof to basement with splen did reserve stocks; cars, even trains, fast speeding this way, loaded with new offerings for the famous August Sale: A furniture stock unparalleled in its size and its variety; and of the soundest description known in the cabinet-making busi ness. What a feat in merchandising it was to secure it, under the present forbidding conditions of the market for furniture labor or furniture material, we'll never take up time telling you. The unpretentious American soldier whose goaheadive ness and sticktoitiveness made fame for himself and Elbert Hubbard wasn't looking for fame, but for the most direct way to deliver a message to Garcia. HkUR August Furniture Sales have grown to be great and - famous institutions, in the same way that a man grows to a great career not by aiming for notoriety, but by trying to measure up to the duties of the occasion, and not backing away from a big thing because it was a hard thing to do. This August Sale is no exception. We knew fully a half year ago that high prices and low production in furniture were coming. But we knew also that our commanders the people were waiting for us to deliver to them housefuls of worthy furniture at reasonable prices, and we went and got it: Over a million dollars' worth of such furniture as only a Wanamaker order can secure; handsome furniture, honestly constructed, the kind that will be a delight and a satisfaction for years. W Living-room furniture; bedroom furniture; dining-room furniture; furniture for the hall and for odd corners. Wherever placed, it can bear every test and every compari son you can apply to it. The test of price the vital one in any sort of sale will show, not merely that the same kind of goods cannot be ob tained elsewhere without paying more money, but that the same . kind of goods in the same fullness of choice cannot be obtained elsewhere. E have not been in the furniture-selling business for all these years without learning what the people want. We are giving it to them in this Sale. It includes large quantity and variety of exquisite furni ture, superb examples of the cabinetmakers' art, furniture that connoisseurs are in eager quest of. But its sturdy backbone is the quantity, variety and the fine quality to be found in the suits such as ninety per cent of the good homes want: those at $250, at $350, at $375, and there about. Straight through, without favor, whim or any of those mys tic sums often done on sale-tags, in which subtraction is preceded by multiplication, prices have been honestly lowered 10 per cent to 50 per cent below regular selling figures; And bear in mind that this does not mean the up-to-the-minute selling figures, but the far lower price-scale prevailing when these goods were ordered, months ago. TIT HEN guests enter a house, one of the first things they do is to instinctively notice the furniture. Thafs one reason why the furniture in the house is next in importance to the people in the house. When the doors of this great house of business open next Monday for the hospitable reception of the public, we know that thousands of keen, appraising eyes will notice our furniture and compare it with other furniture they've seen at other sales. We don't mean sales held under other roofs than this one. That would be too simple a standard of comparison; too much like the case of Jack. In a burst of confidence, he told John, his college chum: "The woman whom I marry must be my mental superior." "Gee," said John, pensively, "I wish I could get a wife as easily as you can." "As easily as others can" isn't our way. With this sale we have done something that only a Wanamaker Furniture Sale can do reach the standard, reach beyond the standard, of Wanamaker Furniture Sales that have gone before it And say openly and in plain words and in perfectly good print that we have done so. 11 M 114 j U mX If You Like Wallace Nutting pictures, with their dainty old-time atmosphere and their glimpses of exquisite Colonial interiors Antique furnishings, or the quaint and beautiful i?i general Anybody (not necessarily an antique) who is about to be married and would appreciate a wedding gift that's "so unusual, and yet so useful, you dear thing!" then you are one who will particularly enjoy a visit to the series of seven handsome salons on the Fifth Floor (Chestnut), which have been arranged and furnished as A New Departure in connection with the opening of the August Furniture Sale. In brief, it is an assemblage of the rare, the elegant, the historic and the picturesque in home furnishings, such as could scarcely be seen save in this Store. The wonderful taste and skill of our own famous decorators, working on these things, which are them selves so beautiful, have produced such artistic yet natural effects that instead of merely viewing a display of handsome furniture in appropriate grouping, it seems Like Walking Through Some Stately Home Some of the furniture is old, very old for instance, a Queen Anne lowboy; or one of the English oaken chests, centuries old, curiously carved, marvelously mel lowed in hue. Some of it is new, very new, but has been taken for very old ; in other words, is among the skillful reproduc tions of antique effects with touches of modern comfort which many people prefer to the genuine antique, for the very practical reason that it costs so much less! Some of it, like the wonderful Empire bedroom suit in superbly decorated enamel, is there just because it is so beautiful and unusual. The most interesting feature in the display espe cially to those who treasure Wallace Nutting's pictures is a number of fine old Colonial pieces, gathered by Mr. Nutting from ancient 'New England homesteads to use as models in his reproductions of interiors. These you will know by their yellow tickets, some of which tell their antecedents as far as we know them ; and into your memory there will float bits of poetry from "Snow-Bound" or "The Old Clock on the Stairs," or visions of the interior of Washington's home at Mount Vernon, or the Longfellow birthplace at Portland, Maine, as you pass around among these treasures, which include: Windsor chairs; poster beds; a superb set of teak wood dining-room chairs, with lyre-shaped backs; a red mahogany chest of drawers from the Wentworth Gardiner home at Portsmouth, that's a real chest of drawers, not a fancy piece; a very unusual mahogany table, date of 1760, with a swivel-top that's a hexagon when opened, and a triangle when the leaves are dropped; a time-darkened gate-legged dining table, probably im ported when old England was Mother-Country instead of Cousin-Country and so on. Everything you'll find in the Salons, except the salesmen, is for sale, and prices are reduced in accord ance with the general principle of ihe August Sale. Of Course Nobody Forgets That J Tomorrow the Store will be closed all day. I Next Monday, July 28th, will be the first of four Courtesy Days in connection with the August Fur niture Sale. CJ The furniture will be on display and may not only be viewed but selections may be made, all trans actions to date from August 1st. $ Other Courtesy Days are Tuesday, July 29th; Wednesday, July 30th, and Thursday, July 31st. ($ Friday, August 1st, will witness the formal opening of The Great August Sale of Furniture (Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Uoora) V JOHN WANAMAKER B v i rs 4, T -, . ?' .la. ' IV '" ' si " 9 ll 1r h'' JC . T - C u.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers