The Platinum Sparkplug Story

1957*

A true story 2,669 Words

#143 By Howard Yasgar

It was in 1957 and I was eighteen years old.

I was trying to earn a living buying and selling anything that I could.

At the time I drove a 1950 Plymouth car and the cars floor was full of all kinds of samples, they were samples that I picked up while visiting dealers in surplus property.

While I was driving, I was trying to think of how I could sell something.

Every Night I would go to sleep dreaming of the next big deal that was sure to happen.

I always managed to make enough money to buy gas and food to eat but the big deals that I was waiting for never seemed to happen.

One day I was visiting a surplus dealer on Boston Post Road in New Haven.

I was sitting across the desk from the owner who had all types of samples on his desk in front of me.

As I picked up each item, while looking for something I could sell, I noticed an odd-looking spark plug.

The spark plug didn't look like anything I had ever seen before.

I was familiar with automotive spark plugs with their porcelain body and one electrode. But this spark plug had a solid metal body and two electrodes that looked like shiny metal wire.

I asked the dealer what it was and he told me it was a platinum aircraft spark plug, and it was very expensive.

He only had one, and he said the platinum could be removed and sold for scrap.

So, hearing that, I gently stood the sparkplug back up on a wood ledge that was on my left.

It wasn’t until 1963 that I married and moved to Florida.

I had come to Florida to assist my friend Lou Gladstein in running his auto wrecking yard on NW 46th Street.

First, my wife and I stayed in a trailer park located on 79th Street.

Eventually Lou closed the wrecking yard and I bought into a company called API.

While I was working at API (Automotive parts Industries) My wife and I decided to move into an apartment closer to the company, so we rented an apartment near the Hialeah racetrack for $125.00 a month.

Located in our neighborhood were several young couples just like ourselves.

One evening while talking to a neighbor, he mentioned that he worked at the airport and had access to several airplane repair facilities.

That’s when I remembered the platinum sparkplug I had seen back in 1957 in the surplus dealer’s office.

So, I asked my neighbor if he knew what a platinum spark plug was.

He said he didn't, so I told him what I knew, which was not a whole lot.

I said we could make some money if he could find platinum spark plugs that were possibly thrown in the trash.

A few days later he reported that he spoke to a mechanic and he had 50-60 used platinum spark plugs and the mechanic wanted to know how much we would pay for them.

I had absolutely no idea what a spark plug was worth, and I had no Idea how much Platinum was in them, or what I could do with the spark plugs if I had them.

I just remembered that the dealer in Connecticut said they were worth a lot of money.

I didn't have a clue as to what to do next.

But I did know that if I didn't buy the platinum plugs and study the situation, I would never be able to answer any of the questions.

I had about $300.00 to $400.00 in the bank and I really didn't want to waste any money buying something I knew nothing about.

I gave it a lot of thought and I told my friend to offer the mechanic .25 cents each. I had no idea what would happen. Was I offering too little and ruining our chances of buying the spark plugs.

Or was I paying too much and I was going to lose some money.

The next evening my neighbor showed up with a paper bag containing 52 used spark plugs.

It was very exciting, as the spark plugs were dirty and the electrodes were not shiny like the sample I had seen back in 1957.

The spark plugs were also smaller and the platinum electrodes were also smaller.

We owed the mechanic $13.00, so I invited my neighbor into my apartment where I wrote a check from an old business checking account that I had.

Now that I had some spark plugs, I had the opportunity to study them and I could see the electrodes were welded solidly into the steel rim of the spark plug.

So, I made a trip to the library to check phone books of the major industrial cities looking under the heading of Platinum Refiners.

I found an ad in the Chicago phone book for Simmonds Refining Company.

I called them, and the person said yes, we purchased platinum spark plugs.

I learned that there were many types of platinum sparkplugs and the prices varied, and yes, they would send me a price list of what they paid.

A few days later I received in the mail a copy of a long list of sparkplug part numbers and how much they paid for each.

The first thing I did was check the list against the part number of the spark plugs that I had.

The sparkplugs I had were part number AC83P and it was on Simmonds list for .68 cents ea.

It was exciting thinking of the potential for this new business.

Then, I started thinking, if I figured a way to remove the platinum from the spark plug, the cost of postage to ship to Chicago was little or nothing. Also, possibly Simmonds would pay more for the Platinum.

I really didn't know much about how Simmonds Refining worked but the salesman seemed anxious to make a new customer.

That weekend I went to the shop at API where we had all kinds of tools to hold the spark plugs while I tried to remove the platinum electrodes.

That night I counted the electrode pieces. had 149 pieces, 7 had been lost to my being too anxious.

I placed the 149 pieces of electrode in a small plastic pill container with a screw on lid. I placed the bottle in cotton type padding and put it in a cardboard box with additional padding to take up any space. And off it went

to Simmonds Refining in Chicago.

Every day I anxiously went to the Post Office to see if the check from Simmonds had arrived.

After 2 weeks, it finally arrived, it was a very official looking envelope from Simmonds Refining.

I tore it open, expecting a hefty profit. Inside was a settlement check, it was for $8.75.

I read the statement and it stated in the last column $8.75. I thought it must be a mistake.

I had paid $13.00 for the plugs, and Simmons would have paid $35.36 if I sent them the whole sparkplug.

I called Simmons and got the salesman on the phone.

After going over all the figures with him I could detect a bit of double talk, and the conversation ended with him saying he would check into it.

I called back the next day, and he told me the package was received damaged with the plastic bottle broken thus there was only $8.75 worth of platinum left at the present market prices.

I asked why there was no note on the statement saying the package was received damaged. It was obvious he was lying and there was little I could do about it.

I gave the whole situation a lot of thought, and it appeared that in the refining business, if the seller was unsophisticated like I was, the refiner just stole most of the metals.

After all, if you didn’t know exactly what you had, how could you argue with them.

An experienced metals dealer would know exactly what he was shipping, and exactly how much it weighed, and they would know the commodity price on the date of sale etc.

If I had this knowledge the refiner had to pay the correct price and it was harder for them to steal anything.

I knew nothing, so it was easy for them to work me over, but I was determined to beat them.

I started to visit old bookstores and finally I found a book that had exactly all the information I wanted "How to Refine Platinum" in more or less layman's terms.

Next, I located a local chemical supply company and I started buying various acids to experiment with.

My neighbor then brought me more sparkplugs for me to experiment with, which I paid for.

One day I was checking my post office box and there was a letter from my bank.

In the letter was a pink slip "Account Overdrawn"

How was that possible, I always had $300 to $400.00 in the account.

I drove over to the bank, and I sat down with an officer who read the letter.

He then came back with 3 checks. 2 were for $100.00 ea. and one was for $175.00 which had been cashed.

They had another check that they would not cash as my account didn't have funds. The checks were all from

the back page of my old NEARCO checkbook.

Each check had "PAYROLL ROOM" typed on the bottom and none had my signature on them

When I went home I looked at my business checkbook and 2 pages were missing from the back of the book.

My friend, my neighbor and spark plug partner had stolen the checks and cashed 3 of them.

The bank informed me that they were replacing the money in the account and I gave them the name of the neighbor.

I always called him a neighbor but I really didn't know where he lived. I never saw him again and the bank never said anything to me.

I still had a quantity of sparkplugs to keep experimenting with, and I was still learning the different combinations of acids.

I couldn't wait for weekends. So, I started mixing acids and cooking them behind our apartment.

Then I would hide in my apartment because the stink from the acids would smell up the whole neighborhood.

I did this for several weeks, and I can't imagine what the neighbors thought.

I went to visit the two fellows that I had gotten to know in the Junk Business (see the aluminum piston story).

Their names were Norton Blum and Arthur Pepper.

They were slightly older than me and running one of the bigger scrap metal yards in Miami, located on NW North River Drive, their business was called Metro Iron and metal.

Norton appeared to be a good businessman and very aggressive and a fast talker. Arthur Pepper was softer and less aggressive. His father was also a scrap dealer with a large scrapyard yard up the street.

I wanted to set up to process more sparkplugs and I needed a location, and a source of money to buy the plugs, and I felt these guys could supply all that.

The idea of having a building to use, and partners with connections and money was appealing to me.

I set up a fixture to remove platinum electrodes by hand in our apartment.

The fixture had a small round hole in it, and a sparkplug fit perfectly into the hole with the Platinum

electrodes facing up.

I had made special long and heavy chisel with the head ground perfectly so I could strike the platinum electrodes with chisel removing the platinum electrodes with a little bit of steel still attached.

I then used muriatic acid to remove the small amount of steel that was remaining.

I had now started sending clean Platinum electrodes in small quantities to both Martin Metals in Calif and Simmons Refining in Chicago.

With my new scale, I knew exactly what I was shipping and how much I was shipping.

At my meeting with Lionel Simmons of Simmons Refining, he invited me to lunch.

He was an older man, perhaps mid 60's and he was interested in what I was doing.

He explained how his Company worked and invited me to come to Chicago and tour his facility.

It appeared that he certainly didn't need anything from me, but he wanted to steer me in the proper direction.

He suggested that since the electrodes from the sparkplugs were 94 % platinum, that I never ship less than enough to make a complete contract of 50 oz troy. His brokers could then trade my platinum on the Chicago Commodity Exchange.

Lionel provided me with technical information to move me up the ladder to become a precious metal dealer.

I was still chopping the Platinum in our apartment by hand, but now I had purchased another house in Hialeah with 3 bedrooms.

Until my daughter was born.one bedroom was used as the sparkplug room.

I had started advertising for sparkplugs in "Trade A Plane" a yellow monthly that was read by most everyone in the aircraft business.

I now called my company "NEARCO REFINING" however I never registered the Company name and no one ever said anything.

Norton and Arthur made some connections for me to buy sparkplugs and I started advertising in

all kinds of aviation magazines.

Every weekend I would cut and clean platinum Sparkplugs.

I had an employee named Miguel Marques.

He had escaped from Cuba around 1963 and came to work for me shortly after arriving in Miami.

Miguel agreed to work for me on weekends cutting sparkplugs plugs, I paid him $30.00 for working the weekends.

He was ecstatic.

We were making shipments of 50 plus Troy ounces of platinum.

One day I made a very large purchase of several thousand new sparkplugs.

I had been making the shipments up to this time by Parcel Post with Insurance and I never had a problem.

Suddenly, Arthur Pepper said he wanted to handle the shipment by fed ex or air freight express.

I didn't like him getting involved and I didn't like changing the system but he and Norton insisted.

I packed up 2 boxes with about 55 ounces of platinum in each box.

The total was about $17000.00.

Arthur took them to the airport to use air express.

The next day he reported that the 2 packages were put into a special leather pouch and sealed.

Because of the high value it received a special armed guard.

After 3 days I called Simmons Refining to find out that no packages had arrived.

Fortunately, the packages were insured.

Arther claimed he received a visit from the FBI. He said that they intimated that Arthur had some type of disappearing packages.

Eventually the insurance paid off, but because I was not really involved with the shipment I never got 100% of the story.

I was not happy about the situation.

Shortly after this affair Norton approached me to borrow $3500.00 for some pressing problem.

I wasn't concerned about them paying me back, but it bothered me that the guys that I was counting on for financing me had to borrow from me.

I recovered all my money from the next platinum shipment, but I concluded that my arrangement with Norton and Arthur was not what I had anticipated and I needed to extract myself from them.

On a bright Sunday morning I drove up to the Norton and Arthurs buildings with my grandfather.

We carefully loaded my share of silver bricks into the car. I left 50% of the silver for Norton and Arthur on the desk in the office with a note telling them that it was their share of the profits.

I never heard a word from them about it.

I have visited them many times over the years and they were always friendly.