Talk:cheapjack
Latest comment: 3 years ago by Equinox in topic Inverse auction method
Inverse auction method[edit]
John Camden Hotten's Slang Dictionary (1873) describes a particular "inverse auctioning" technique apparently used by cheapjacks:
- Cheap Jacks, or JOHNS, oratorical hucksters and patterers of hardware, who put an article up at a high price, and then cheapen it by degrees, indulging all the time in volleys of coarse wit, until it becomes to all appearance a bargain, and as such it is bought by one of the crowd. The popular idea is that the inverse method of auctioneering saves them paying for the auction licence.