The Plastic Polish Story

1995

A true story

Written 4/4/2015* 1,143 Words

#140 By Howard Yasgar

It was 1995 when my company CME Arma Inc. was engaged in buying and selling government surplus.

The buying of Government surplus had become a major part of our business.

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

When we bid on items it was always possible for you to inspect the items, but usually the items we bid on were too far away to economically do any kind of inspection.

Selling surplus material was the Government’s way of disposing of excess and out-of-date items.

They could simply auction them off, and there was always someone out there to bid and buy it.

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

Also, many items the government auctions off have a shelf life, that means the government has deemed the material too old to use.

We knew all of this, but that didn’t stop us and others from buying out of date military surplus.

One day there was a bid for several pallet loads of plastic polish, it sounded like a good deal, everyone uses plastic polish, so we bid 10 cents a can and we were awarded the entire lot.

In the end, after adding up all our costs, we realized we had quite a bit of money invested in several thousand cans of plastic polish.

We found it to be six pallets containing sixty cartons each, and each carton contained eighteen 10-ounce cans of polish.

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

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

The moment I saw what we had bought, I had misgivings, who the heck would want to buy out of date plastic polish that comes in a military metal olive drab colored can, and was used for F14 fighter jets, that were originally only used in Iran.

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

One day, my wife and I were invited by a friend to attend a flea market that was being held in Zolfo Springs, Florida. Our friend 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 so we pulled in.

The store was small, but it did have a big sign that said Government Surplus.

There appeared to be lots of Jeep parts laying around, and various pieces of other army trucks.

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

Inside the store we met the two owners, they were a couple of the nicest guys that you ever wanted to meet.

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

Once hearing this I told them what we did in Miami.

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.

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

Just as we were leaving the store, one of the owners said, “I bet we could sell some of that 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.

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, and 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 plastic polish”.

When we returned to Miami, I loaded up the entire shipment of plastic polish which was still packed on the original six tall pallets, five of the pallets were even 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 June of 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, trying to use as many of the rural back roads in Florida as we could

As we drove down a rural road, 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 in to say hello.

We met the owner 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 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 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.

There inside the building was all 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 sold one can. He asked me if I wanted to buy it back.