The Plastic Polish Story

                                        The Plastic Polish Story

                                                             1995

                                                       A true story

                                 Written 4/4/2015 and Re-written 05/23/2016  

                                                       Howard Yasgar

     In the mid 1990’s my company  was CME Arma and we were located in Miami Florida.

     A major part of the business was the buying and selling of  military surplus.

     Every day the U.S. government auctions off tons of excess material that they want to dispose of, and anyone can bid on it to buy it.

      In 1995 buying government surplus was easy, because you could now do the bidding by computer on the internet.

     The way the bidding goes, it was possible for you  to inspect the items that you are bidding on, but usually it is so far away  that it is not practical.

     It is the Government’s intention, that to dispose of excess and out of date items, they  simply auctioned them off, and there was always someone out there stupid enough to buy it.

     Consequently many companies just like ours, bought government surplus items, hoping to sell it  into the commercial market.

     Unfortunately many of the items the government auctions off has no actual civilian applications, they are items made for use by the government only.

    Also many items the government auctions off have what they call a shelf life, That means the government has deemed the material too old and will never buy it back

    We knew all of this, but that didn’t stop us and lots of other people from bidding and buying out of date military surplus.

     Over the years I have observed many people bidding to buy government surplus for no reason other than the fact that they are buying  it cheap, and once they realize that whatever they bought, can’t be sold, it ends up in the dump, and that happens to be the nature of being in the government surplus business.

     I found that there were always lots of people like farmers or small trucking companies that bid on stuff with very good intentions, some honestly think that they can utilize the material they were bidding on, or they think that they can sell it for a lot of money, but in the end it all usually all ends up in a dump somewhere.

    When I first went into the surplus business, there was a joke circulating around, it was

regarding a large lot of government surplus canned tuna fish that was sold to a surplus dealer.

    After WW2, the dealer with the tuna fish passed away, and the surplus canned tuna fish was sold another surplus dealer.

    Eventually that dealer died and the canned tuna was sold it to another surplus dealer.

    This selling of that lot of surplus tuna fish went on for many years.

    Finally one of the surplus dealers opened up a can of the tuna fish for lunch, and he  found it was all mushy and inedible.

     The point of the story was that the tuna fish should have never be eaten by anyone, it was for selling as surplus until it ended up in as dump somewhere.

     One day there was a bid for several pallet loads of plastic polish.

     It sounded like a good deal, I knew that everyone uses plastic polish.

     We bid 10 cents a can on it and we were awarded the entire lot.

     We paid our bid price, plus a ten percent fee to the auctioneer.

     Then we paid the freight to bring all the plastic polish from Columbus Ohio to Miami Florida.

     In the end, after adding up all the costs we had quite a bit of money invested in the  load of plastic polish.

     When we received the shipment, we found it to be six pallets containing sixty cartons

each, and each carton contained eighteen 10 ounce cans of plastic polish.

     The metal cans were painted military olive drab color, with the government’s part number  clearly printed in black letters on each can.

     We found out the plastic polish was used only by the military, to clean the plastic cockpit canopy on F14 fighter jets.

     The moment I saw what we had bought, I had misgivings, because who the heck would  buy out of date plastic polish that comes in a military metal olive drab colored can, and was for  F14 fighter jets, that were in Iran.

      For over two years, I tried selling the plastic polish, but it never sold, so eventually I started giving cans away for free.

     One day, my wife and I were invited to attend a flea market that was being held in Zolfo Springs Florida, a friend of ours was setting up his booth there, and he wanted us to come see him.

     My wife and I thought it would be a fun trip driving to Zolfo Springs, so we headed up there by way of Lake Okeechobee.

     As we reached Lake Okeechobee, it started to rain, and we had forgotten to bring raincoats.

     That’s when I spotted what appeared to be a small store selling government surplus.

     We pulled in, and I saw that the store was small but it did have a big sign that said Government Surplus.

     We could see that there  appeared to be lots of Jeep parts laying around, and pieces of other  army trucks.

      Behind the small building was a giant open sided shed with a fiberglass roof and what appeared to be crates full of military surplus.

     We made a dash for the stores door, and went inside.

      Inside the store we met the two owners, it turns out they were a couple of the nicest

guys that you ever want to meet.

     They said that they specialized in buying government surplus that could be used by local farmers and hunters.

     Once hearing this I started talking to them, and told them what we did in Miami.

      In the course of our conversation I mentioned that we had a large quantity of government surplus plastic polish that was taking up a lot of room in our warehouse.

    Did they have any idea as to what we could do with the stuff.

      It took a few minutes, as they were thinking about it.

      I was sure they were wondering if they could trust us city folk.

      But eventually the two fellows determined that even though we were city folk from Miami, we were not there to take advantage of them.

     The rain was letting up, so we bought a couple of yellow plastic ponchos from them.

     Just as we were leaving the store, one of the owners said, “I bet we could sell some of that there plastic polish you have.”

     I was stunned, here I had tried to sell the stuff for over two years and never had anyone interested in it.

     So I thought for a moment and then I said, tell you what, you fellows look like honest guys to me, so if you pay the freight from Miami, I will ship a load of government surplus plastic polish up to you and we can split the profit after you sell it.

     Well, it took a minute for the fellows to digest what I had told them, and then they both happily shook their head in agreement, after all, here I was practically offering them the plastic polish for free, all they needed to do was pay the freight.

     One of the partners came over and shook my hand. “Yes sir he said, we are as honest as the day is long and we can sure sell that polish”.

     When we returned to Miami, we loaded up the entire shipment of plastic polish which was still on the original six tall pallets, five of the pallets were still covered in the original government plastic wrap.

     We sent the entire shipment up to the Lake Okeechobee surplus dealers, freight collect.

     I know that they received and accepted the shipment, because I never heard another word from them ever again.

     Now, five years later, in the year 2000, my wife and I were again on another road trip, and we were driving back to Miami from Savanna Georgia.

    We were returning to  Miami, using as many of the Florida  rural back roads that we could

     As we drove down a rural road in upstate Florida, it was lined with live oak trees and lots of Spanish moss hanging from them.

     All of a sudden we noticed on the side of the road there was a small concrete building with several used army trucks parked in front, so we stopped.

     We met the owner who was working under the hood of a car, and we introduced ourselves to him.

     Then we had a nice conversation with him, and we told him we were in the surplus business in Miami.

     He then told us that the trucks he had actually belonged to another government surplus dealer in Georgia named Jessie who we happened to know very well.

     The fellow said he was recently retired and because he owned several acres, he had recently gotten involved in buying some government surplus.

     He said that the first thing he did was buy out another surplus dealer who was located near Lake Okeechobee. We knew exactly who he was talking about.

     He walked us over to his building and I looked inside. The building was perhaps forty feet wide and sixty feet long with a roll up door.

     There inside the building was our plastic polish, and most all the pallets were still in the original plastic wrap, just as we had shipped it many years ago to the dealer near lake okeechobee.

       I casually mentioned that we had once owned that plastic polish. He told us that he had it for several years, and has never even sold one can. He asked me if I wanted to buy it back.