The Pentagon has gone eBay. Sort of. From Pentagon Turns to Auctions On Internet to Clear Out Attic:
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.
I love the list of items sold at auction:
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.
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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.