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Posted by Sherman in Idaho [72.47.9.37] on Wednesday, November 28, 2012 at 15:26:35 :
In Reply to: Re: O.T. Jeep in a crate? posted by Paul(in NY) [12.64.158.170] on Wednesday, November 28, 2012 at 15:02:29 :
I remember the $50 jeep ads. Once you got into it, it was really an ad to sell you a list of government auctions at which you might theoretically be able to buy a jeep for $50. The older $50 jeep in a crate scam, as recollected by some old-timers was some guy would make the pitch to farmers that he had a line on war surplus jeeps "still in the crate". The only catch was they didn't have any wheels. "Typical government", the farmers would think, and "I'm sure I can find some wheels somewhere." For $50, how could you go wrong. So the swindler would take the $50 from all the farmers, promising to go buy some jeeps at the next auction. Of course they'd never see him, the jeeps, or their $50 again.
But it was true there was lots of good surplus after WWII. Not like today where everything of any value is "demilled" (i.e. crushed). When I was a kid, we'd always go by the Bomber Gas station in Oregon City, where the roof over the pumps was a war surplus B17. This was significant to my dad, because he flew as navigator on B17s during the war. He claimed that when the war ended, they sold new B17s for $1000 and most of them just ended up scrapped. Could be.
The story of the gas station has it that the owner went to an auction (in Arizona?), bought the plane, had never flown one before but faked it well enough to start taxiing around the base getting familiar with the controls. Nonetheless he managed to wreck it. The guy running the sale told him to go pick out another one and he'd write off the first as "wind damage". He had better luck with the second one, took off, had to stop once for fuel (Palm Springs?) which he paid for with a bad check, and flew on up to Portland. I'm not sure how he got the plane to the gas station. Once he made some money, he made good on the bounced check.
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