I used to have a tape of an old Fred Allan radio show where Titus Moody, the Yankee cheapskate, said that on weekends he’d go to the A&P (Supermarket) and buy dozens of eggs, go out to the front of his farm, and dress up like a rube - put a piece of straw in his mouth and start whittling, next to a sign that said “Farm Fresh Eggs”, and sell them to New York tourists.
When Allen asked him how business was, he said he could only sell 60 eggs an hour — ‘cause there was one born every minute.
That was the late 1940s.
Titus Moody was played by Parker Fennelly, who later became the “Pep’ridge Fahm Remembahs” guy.
True story.
An old farmer on Kent Island in MD sold eggs on his front porch in beat up old egg cartons, on the honor system, with a jar for the $2 a dozen he charged, and the promise of returned egg cartons.
He maintained a small flock of free range chickens that hung around his porch to give credence to the freshness of the eggs. He even kept a dirty chicken-shit stained rag to wipe the eggs before boxing them.
The eggs, you might have guessed, were bought for 50 cents a dozen from the local grocer. His little scam netted him about $25K a year. That’s 250 dozen eggs a week, about 35 dozen a day.
His early morning run to the market took about an hour. Eventually he stopped repackaging the eggs, satisfied that his customers would not question the ACME brand on the cartons.
Some customers would drive for an hour to buy his farm fresh eggs. They never noticed the eggs were never fertilized by the big rooster that threatened their walk to the porch.