26. The 1970s Were Probably the Only Decade When This Idea Might Have Worked
The pet rock idea seemed stupid, but Gary Dahl believed in its feasibility. So he proceeded to collect smooth rocks from Rosarito Beach in Mexico, which cost him about a penny each. Then he wrote a humorous and gag filled 32-page owner’s manual, titled “The Care and Training of Your Pet Rock“, with instructions on how to raise and care for one’s Pet Rock. That was accompanied by birth certificates and documentation that attested to the rock’s lineage and purity of breed. Dahl then stuffed everything in a straw lined box that represented his biggest expense, and sold his Pet Rocks for $3.95 each. They sold like hotcakes. As he put it later: “I was the only one sold on my idea. My wife thought I was crazy. A lot of my friends thought I was crazy. And… it worked. But I was the only one who thought it would“.
It is hard to imagine that such an idea would have worked in any decade other than the 1970s. The craze lasted only a few months, but it made Dahl rich. He sold about one and a half million Pet Rocks in two and a half months. Before they went out of style, five million Pet Rocks had been sold, and Dahl had become a millionaire. He ploughed his proceeds into a bar, and tried his hand at other gag products, such as “Red China Dirt” – an attempt to smuggle mainland China into the US, one cubic inch at a time. With Pet Rocks, Dahl had captured lightning in a bottle – a feat few people ever get to pull even once. He would not pull it off twice, and none of his other novelty items met with anything like the success of the Pet Rocks.
