Re: [MV] Wall Street Journal report

From: m35products (m35prod@optonline.net)
Date: Tue May 13 2003 - 13:12:39 PDT


I'd be fond of any "12-wheel" 2.5-ton trucks, too, if I could find any!
What's your secret, David?

A P Bloom

----- Original Message -----
From: "Employee@MilVeh.com" <milveh@sbcglobal.net>
To: "Military Vehicles Mailing List" <mil-veh@mil-veh.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2003 12:52 PM
Subject: Re: [MV] Wall Street Journal report

> By ANNE MARIE SQUEO
> Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
>
>
> David Doyle likes 2-1/2-ton military trucks more than
> most people do. The 41-year-old parks eight of these
> 12-wheeled vehicles, dating back to the Korean and
> Vietnam wars, along the gravel driveway of his yellow,
> five-bedroom house half an hour outside Memphis, Tenn.
>
> "I have a tolerant wife and neighbors," he says,
> noting the trucks predate his marriage. He takes them
> apart, sandblasts the salvageable parts, replaces
> rotted ones and drives the trucks in the mud with
> dozens of friends who share his passion.
>
> Lately, Mr. Doyle has been buying his trucks in one of
> retailing's most unusual corners: the Pentagon's
> online Web site for military surplus items. There, at
> govliquidation.com, collectors bid for tugboats, steel
> swords, big-screen televisions, diesel engines,
> heavy-duty cranes, pool tables and other things the
> military doesn't want.
>
> For years, a little-known arm of the Pentagon called
> the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service, or
> DRMS, handled public surplus sales. Buyers complained
> that auctions were disorganized, used inconsistent
> procedures and frequently required bidders to travel
> hundreds of miles to raise a paddle in person.
>
> In 2001, the Defense Department tapped a closely held
> Washington company, Government Liquidation LLC, to
> handle surplus sales at 200 military installations, as
> part of a broader effort to operate more like a
> private business. As part of a contract that lasts
> until 2008, the Pentagon receives 80% of sale
> proceeds, after Government Liquidation deducts its
> costs. Government Liquidation gets the rest. The
> government received about $18 million in 2002 as its
> cut, up 50% from the previous year's proceeds when the
> online auction system was getting started.
>
> WHOA!
>
> Recent sale items on Govliquidation.com
>
> . 21 assorted valves for machinery: $3,709.99
>
> . 50 pairs of black combat boots: $489.00
>
> . Ford F-7000 utility truck with crane: On sale now
>
> . Sundance and Joe, former U.S. Cavalry horses: $900
>
> More than 10,000 items end up on the online auction
> block each week, and about 3,000 new buyers sign up
> monthly, says Bill Angrick, the company's president.
> In recent auctions, a ship propeller 9-1/2 feet in
> diameter sold in March for $1,520. A 15-foot one
> snagged $6,210. The buyers had to be U.S. citizens and
> send in a form saying what they planned to do with the
> former Navy equipment.
>
> A Consew sewing machine with old-fashioned foot pedals
> ended up selling for $510 after the bidding began at
> $35, as it does for most items. Four electric autopsy
> bone-cutting saws fetched a total of $685 on March 4.
>
> Two weeks ago, an aircraft hangar equipped with a
> noise-suppression system, dubbed a "Hush House," sold
> for $6,157 to Adams Electronics of Belton, Texas. The
> hangar, which covered 5,318 square feet of ground, had
> 8-foot-thick filament walls and had been used by the
> Kansas Air National Guard.
>
> Users say the bidding can get contentious and last
> long after previously set cutoff times. In November,
> Mr. Doyle squared off against two dozen rivals over a
> military truck located at the Aberdeen Proving Ground
> in Maryland. Bidding opened at $35, a floor set by
> Government Liquidation, at 6:20 a.m. on Nov. 13. By
> the next morning, 15 auction-goers had bid up the
> vehicle to $585. By the following afternoon, $1,650
> was the price to beat. In the last two hours of
> bidding, it was down to three people, including Mr.
> Doyle, and the price had risen to $2,047. One person
> dropped out and the remaining two pushed the final
> price up to $2,410, with Mr. Doyle adding the truck to
> his front-yard collection.
>
> Most of Government Liquidation's regular customers are
> small-business men such as Shawn Coleman. The owner of
> a military-surplus store in Millersburg, Pa., about 25
> miles north of Harrisburg, Mr. Coleman also has a
> mail-order business and a Web site and conducts about
> 200 eBay auctions a week to sell his wares. He once
> made 30 trips a year to attend auctions, but now he's
> down to three or four because he does most of his
> bidding online these days.
>
> What he buys ranges from restaurant equipment that
> comes from old mess halls to cold-weather gear such as
> boots and snowshoes. Mr. Coleman, 37, does a brisk
> business selling military tents, as well as military
> clothing. He recently bought 108 U.S. Army gray-hooded
> sweatshirts online, for $261. He sells them on his Web
> site for $14.95 each.
>
> He has also found an interesting niche for some of his
> stuff: the military itself. A big buyer of parts for
> older aircraft, tanks and ships, he reckons he sells
> something back to a military facility about once a
> month. "I don't think they expect to need an item and
> then something changes, so it's cheaper for them to
> buy it back from people like me than to start
> manufacturing it again," he explains. He recently
> bought some bearings for a C-130 military transport
> plane for $50 each, and sold some back to the
> government for $60. The military is increasingly using
> equipment far longer than originally planned, as it
> diverts spending to newer aircraft, ships and vehicles
> not yet in the field.
>
> DRMS officials point out that warehousing racks of
> spare parts costs money, too. Mr. Coleman, for
> example, says he has a few hundred thousand parts in
> his possession. So while he gets to mark up the price
> to the government for something it sold in the first
> place, Tom Legeret, deputy of business operations at
> DRMS, points out: "There's an awful lot these folks
> buy that we never want back."
>
> Included in that category would be aging cavalry
> horses. Last June, Marion Smith paid $900 for a pair
> of 21-year-old quarter horses called Sundance and Joe.
> While the U.S. eliminated cavalries in the 1940s, the
> 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas, remains
> active, though its job these days centers on
> presidential inaugurations, Rose Bowl parades and the
> like. But the horses held sentimental value for Mr.
> Smith, who has purchased military equipment over the
> years and often donated it to local charities.
>
> Mr. Smith, 57, an audio-visual engineer, is a softie
> for sick animals. At his farm in Murfreesboro, Tenn.,
> about 30 miles south of Nashville, he already has two
> blind cows, a horse with a broken ankle and some
> llamas. Sundance, who is blind in the left eye, and
> Joe, who has arthritis, fit in well. Mr. Smith's
> 13-year-old daughter, who wants to be a veterinarian,
> cares for the menagerie.
>
> But Mr. Smith's main motivation was his 86-year-old
> dad. "My father was in the cavalry in 1942 when they
> discharged all the horses, taking them to Nevada and
> turning them loose," he recalls. So he bought the
> horses as a surprise and arranged for the truck
> delivering them from Texas to stop by his dad's house
> on the way. "He cried," says Mr. Smith. "It just
> thrilled him to tears."
>
>
>
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