Harold Schafer - Gold Seal Company

Gold Seal Company

In 1942, Harold started packaging and selling a product he called Gold Seal Floor Wax. He personally typed the labels by hand and taped them onto old cans in his basement and, thus, Gold Seal Company was born. Virtually no one noticed. In the spring of 1943, Harold resigned his job at Fargo Glass and Paint to pursue his new dream, only to discover that the few hundred dollars that he had expected to have available for the purpose of starting the company did not materialize. At that point Harold had three small children, no job and no money, and his new company had no assets.

In 1943, his Gold Seal Company made a profit of $901.02, and Harold borrowed money from friends to keep going. The company grew modestly at first but, in 1945, Harold introduced a new product called Glass Wax. Sales increased dramatically and then suddenly boomed when, in 1948, Glass Wax "went national." The astonishing rise of this small North Dakota company, Harold's sometimes flamboyant management style, and his incredible enthusiasm for hard work propelled Harold into the national limelight. The success of Glass Wax was repeated again in the 1950s with Snowy Bleach and in the 1960s with Mr. Bubble. Each of these became the number one selling product in the world in their respective categories, and the Gold Seal Company continued to produce increasing sales and profits until it was sold to Airwick Industries in 1986.