It Figures

Into a glittering trophy shop in Dallas recently came a man who could scarcely hide his embarrassed and expectant smile. "Look," he said, "you probably don't have what I want, but make it up especially for me. My wife and I have been trying to have a baby for ten years now, and she just told me she's pregnant. I want to get her a trophy--she deserves it." It was no trouble at all. Bruce Robbins, owner of a four-store chain called Trophies, Inc., fixed the customer up with a sedate plaque attesting that the man and his wife were proven "producers."

The trophy business, which in the past thrived almost wholly on orders from schools and sports organizations, nowadays gets lots of orders for kooky conversation pieces. It has broken through the specialty barrier into the gimmick field so well that Bruce Robbins' stores alone gross more than a million dollars a year. All told, trophy manufacturing runs to about $28 million annually, and dealers' income equals that. A big part of the business comes from the general growth of such activities as golf and bowling, whose adherents require standing symbols of victory over one another; Manhattan's Tiffany & Co., for example, sells a sterling-silver-headed putter ($140) as a "presentation piece." But a sizable chunk of new orders for cups, plaques and statuettes is pure whim--and sometimes pure, if harmless, bunk. One man ordered a dog-show trophy, which he donated as an award for a rare breed; his dog won it only because the dog was the only rare breed in the show. In San Diego, a girl bought a beauty contest trophy at a Robbins branch store and awarded it to herself. "She said she hadn't won the contest," says Robbins, "but she'd be damned if she'd let anybody know it."

More legitimate is the use of trophies by business firms, which have discovered that there is nothing like an engraved prize for the mantelpiece to urge a slow-moving salesman out of his atrophy. "Cash," says Robbins, "is getting to be passe for rewarding efforts. A lot of people want something they can see--and show off to other people." And then there are those who send trophies instead of poison-pen letters. One Marine officer, eager to express his opinion of a football referee, ordered a "Biggest Bonehead of the Year" trophy, and even supplied the bonehead: a souvenir Japanese skull, which Robbins gold-plated and suitably engraved. Another football referee, who was castigated for an outrageous yardage measurement, received a statuette of a referee with no hands.

Since some customers have no special skills, Robbins sells a "Martini Trophy" that practically anybody can own. Made of jeweler's bronze, it is a cup and spigot that dispenses drinks, costs only $35.

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