IOS.CAL LUMBER COMPANY

Wholesqle SUGAR P|NE Dist ributors

1958 Deoler Exposition Looks Like Sellout With Opening Six Xlonths Awoy

In its first three weeks of sales activity, the 1958 Building Products Exposition was off to a running start, according to Phil Creden, merchandising manager of the Edward Hines Lumber Company and general chairman of the 1958 NRLDA Exposition, following a report to officers and directors of the National Retail Lumber Dealers Association.

"We are even a little surprised ourselves with the fine initial response we have had in view of the generally softened conditions prevailing throughout the economy today," Chairman Creden revealed. "Three weeks after the release of our first brochure and prospectus, and three days after the opening of space assignments, we have confirmed twothirds of our available space."

Exposition Director Martin C. Dwyer disclosed that about 78/o of the early response had come from "steady customers" who this year will participate for the third time in the five-year-old Building Products Exposition. Eighteen new exhibitors are listed among firgt space assignments for the 1958 show, NRLDA's second to be staged in Chicago.

Virtually all categories of building materials are represented in the first NRLDA assignments, Dwyer stated. The list includes suppliers of lumber, millwork, metal specialties, power tools, builder's hardware ; roofing, siding and insulation materials; electrical and gas appliances, paint, wall coverings, floors, bath room fixtures, air conditioning, display, storage and materials handling equipment, and a wide range of modern, light-weight metal building products.

- Although budget-paring has afrected the extent of. exhibit participation in many trade shows, Dwyer be- lieves that suppliers in the building materials industry generally, recognizing the optimism of their distributors as to sales possibilities in the period ahead, are joining in the efforts to improve and accelerate aggressive merchandising programs.

"Exhibitors will soend hundreds of thousands of dollars this year putting salis-building and cost-cutting know-how into their NRLDA exhibits," Chairman Creden pointed out. "It will be a selling education for a dealer to open his mind and walk objectively through the 1958 Exposition Hall, talking with exhibitors and asking questions. Without this he will miss one of his finest opportunities to improve his own merchandising performance. The need today for more building material sales, across the board and all the way down the distribution line, will in itself force us to produce next November the biggest NRLDA Exposition we have ever staged."

[umber Firm Fined for R.oil Rebotes

Oakland, Calif.-An East Oakland firm, the Eastshore Lumber & Mill Co., was fined $30,000 in Federal court, April 8, on a plea of nolo contendere to 15 separate counts of violating interstate railroad laws. The owner and operator, H. A. Tildesley, could have been fined $300,000, reported The S. F. Examiner. The firm was accused of receiving $3,974 in fraudulent rebates from the Southern Pacific R. R. between September 1954 and April 1956, and was specifically charged with soliciting and receiving rebates which gave it a lower rate for shipping lumber to the east coast than it was entitled to receive under federal tariff laws. In a prior civil suit, it was brought out that the lumber company received and paid back $32,132 to the railroad in total rebates.

(Tell them Aou sau it in The California. Lumber Merchant)