City in Sound; Post Office Auction

This is Jack Angel with City in Sound. These are stories out of Chicago, City of All Things, a post office auction for example. It is true that neither snow, rain or heat nor gloom of night stays the male man from the swift completion of his appointed round. But it is also true that not all of the male gets through. And the account of what happens to that is of equal glory to the United States Postal Service. There are a lot of things on the third floor of the post office building among them the auction room. Mr. Fred Haas, a superintendent of claims and inquiry here and as such is the boss of the auction. Would you describe to us just what this auction room is? Well, we've got

this auction room in here and we've got display stands and we take particular pains in making up these lots. You will notice there that the soft goods like pillowcases, slips, we even have electric blankets. They're encased in plastic bags so you can see. We have a fine catalog that gives a full description of the articles. And you have marines from all the clothing I see there, the tools and hard goods and sporting goods and all kinds of metal equipment and what else would you have? Well, we have sporting goods of course, jewelry and we have especially tools. Now some of the lots are made up so that the man who is handy could come in and buy these and we have a good index in our catalog here that groups all of these in categories and we go start at number one and continue right through the auction. We have about usually 1200 lots

and start auctioning about quarter to nine in the morning and finish about three in the afternoon. How about the paddle routine that I see here? We have to have an easy identification of the buyers so we have a paddle. It's about two inches wide and about eight or ten inches long and has a number on it and each of the customers will make it a positive ten dollars or more in order to get in on the bidding. And then when they have a bid to register what they hold up the paddle if they're no longer interested in the price, they pull down their paddle. One paddle remaining is a purchaser. It eliminates a lot of shouting. Oh it does. It's a very orderly auction and anybody can bid at an auction and save a person from the post office. That is right and we cargyly invite everybody to call. We have display day on a Monday and our auctions are usually on Tuesday. So you have ample time to browse around

to see what you want to buy. Unless you're opposed to them. Unless you're opposed to us first. Well I'm Mr. Haas, all this merchandise has to come in somewhere so let's go down and take a look at what is your receiving room. Yes, that's the receiving room. Well we received from the main post office building merchandise that is found loose and we have Luke Lickley who does the initial sorting. He will sort it into iron, soft goods, printed matter, books and so forth. And then after he has done that, he'll take it to the boys or handling that specific category. Well look they tell me that you're a clerk in the loose and unaddressed unit here at the post office. That is right sir. What does that work in tail? Well that parcel that I've lost for identification and it's sent over here and then this is known as a primary breakdown and then I break it down in a category known as printed matter books, magazine, iron, insured, meter mail, toys, film,

jewelry, out of town meter, out of town postmark and merchandise, soft goods. Just all kinds of things I can see. You have a kind of a large warehouse here. No, I have to say. You can see a guitar handle sticking up over there. That's right. I've got all kinds of merchandise. Mufflers, toys, carefully labeled and separated. This is the first step of the breakdown then when you get the unaddressed mail you separate it here. That is correct. What kind of accumulation would this be here? We're standing in a large room with, oh I should say maybe a hundred bins with merchandise in it. What type or how long would this merchandise have been accumulating here? Well this is taken about a week. Well I didn't hear it tell. And a week's merchandise here improperly addressed fills this room. That's correct. Fine, look I didn't get your last name. Nicely. Nicely. Well you've got a big job here and I'll bet you you keep mighty busy. That's I am, sir. Well as Mr. Edward Tetroff here who's known

as an iron man not necessarily for his endurance but because of his classification here would you explain that a little bit, sir? Well actually we have everything from Santa diamonds in the two line, in the machinery line and in some of the mechanical household lines. Then along with that we have the farm implements. We have the electronic deviation which includes radio, radio tubes and of course all the electronic devices are coming out on a modern day missiles, fuse tapes. We have the rubber category and plastic types of category that are used for industrial purposes, then also the nuts and bolts and a few pieces of hardware line that happen to come and loose off the mail. And like everything else in the department you have them because they're improperly addressed and can't be immediately delivered. Well in iron again it's a little more different sometime because a shaft can break out of a package of it due to improper packing a lot easier than clothing can. And most of our stuff comes

in without actually a wrapper around it or as you would say it was loose on a belt. In other words it broke out the package, fell out and then when it was thrown to us you only have to identify it, place in the proper bins and then hold them until we get the cause for them. There's a lot of effort to trace each piece. Well we should practically go all out for that. How about weapons? I see a couple of things. Well we have guns that were illegally in the mails, we also have guns that are going back in to bona fide orders but either the address fell off or the wrapper was destroyed. Of course with a bona fide dealer or going back to a bona fide repair order we shift them out underneath the insurance number, I mean rather a registry number. I didn't think you could send firearms in the mail. A bona fide dealers are back to a bona fide representative of the repair department, yes. They have a special permit. They have a special permit and it's usually on the wrapper. Listed either by number or by code. What do you do

with the vendor? Are they auctioned? No they're not auctioned. We have to write to Washington for permission to destroy him and we also have to take the serial numbers on the sides of caliber and the make of the gun, write that all in Washington and then we get disposal orders on those. Buck you're here among the books here. What's your last name sir? My name is Rogers and I've been around here for about four or five years on these books now. I see when you're strictly Buck Rogers in the 20th century here I can see with enough to keep you busy for about a hundred years, I would you? Yeah we get about everything in here, about anything in name we come in. You certainly do. I see sets of encyclopedias, instruction books, paperback novels, telephone books. How do you get telephone books in here? Well a lot of those books are sent, some of these firms, they sent them to the other firms and the wrapper comes off so we hold them see if we get trace on them. You try to trace them all in. Oh yeah we do everything possible. You've got kind of a book kid over there of what a medallion

with Abraham Lincoln, what is that? Well that, what is that that says it's an old ribbon. Well that's this ribbon I think was there was a society there from the Civil War days and that A of P I think is Army of the Potomac and it was apparently for a reception committee for Lincoln there at that time. That was being sent through the mail by somebody that hasn't been here since 1860. Oh no that's only been here a couple weeks and you hope to provide ownership for it. Certainly it must be of great value to whoever lost it. No address. No address on this no. That's certainly be very grateful if somebody who were listening could come in and claim this because it's a beautiful piece of memorabilia ribbon with Mr. Lincoln's picture etched on it and that's a doubt only one of the Civil War relics of some kind. The box these boxes too that in the winter when they have tape on them this paper tape in the cold weather that

tape contracts there and it's a whole lot better if the people use strong twine or in a real heavy box wire tie. I see when you're packing a lot of books oh yes that's that's a lot better but a tied package is preferable to a tape one oh yes oh yes good strong string or cord and if folks would do that you wouldn't have all this collection of books would you and if they'd put two labels on instead just one label sometimes the label comes off. About what percentage of these books will be auction would you say just roughly. Well we find maybe 30 % or so it's a hard telling the rest you can trace. Yes it takes a lot of work and it does that are a very special kind of a librarian. Yeah well I enjoy the work too lots of it yeah. Mr. Howard McLaughlin is a valuable man for no other reason then he just works among the valuables here and from the looks of it works pretty hard among it what are some of these things here in your vault.

Well we get all types of jewelry, silverware, films and this vault we keep the more valuable watches and rings, necklaces or pearls whatever they might be. Well no that must not be too difficult to trace. Well a lot of it is if they can't give a good description. How's it possible to lose a valuable gem in the mail anyway? Well a very carefully package. Whether it's carefully packaged, the main trouble I imagine is because they are small packages and a small package they have a hard time addressing it sometimes they're so tiny some of them that any address becomes obliterated or they put on a label and the label pulls off. Why that's how it gets lost. Well what would you recommend in packaging jewelry? Well I recommend in

packaging anything to attach your name and address directly on the article itself inside of the package. If you do that we can get it back to you. Well you would not only find that people can do almost impossible things in losing packages say film in mailers. How can you trace so exposed film these slides and pictures of that nature? I see you have been all the slides we slides are easy to check in this way they can give you a description of a slide what the pictures are and when I receive them sort them out I go through them with a viewer and put a through a few of the well the outstanding ones on the slip that I attached to the top of that. Then if I get a tracer I kind of remember what I have but I'll look through there and if they can give me something maybe a car number or

some hotel if they stayed at her out in front of the name of the hotel beyond there is something like that and we trace a lot of those. That's easy to check in. Well you have to be fairly good detective in here to work here. Yes you do. Let me ask you this if you do decide the auction of piece if there is absolutely no hope of reclaiming or tracing it. Do you have an appraiser come in if it's a valuable piece of jewelry? A valuable jewelry we take over and have a customs inspector give us a value audit. So we know what it's about what it shouldn't be worth. Thank you. Well, Mr. Haas has said that everything that's made turns up here eventually is that true. Every day we have something new anything that comes out on the market we're bound to receive it very shortly. It must be rather interesting. It's very interesting for the boys. It takes a lot of ingenuity to figure out just what these things are sometimes. I can't to

name every article that they receive but they do know to what it belongs whether it's electronics whether it's farm implements or machine parts and so forth. Have to be kind of a specialist in all fields don't you? Yes they certainly do and they're constantly looking over new merchandise and catalogues so that they become acquainted with it. I noticed too that they put them together and if not actual sets at least approximate sets according to the same type of merchandise. Yes, they do. In our bins where we store them pending possible trace and recovery they have them stacked away by machine parts, auto parts, radio parts, household articles and that way. Well of course it's not very difficult to spot opinion gear or something like that but what are some of the unusual items that you found in your experience? Well one of the unusual things that doesn't happen too often is shipments of bees

through the mail is permissible and once in a while do possibly to improper packing it will break open. It happened some weeks ago. We had a boy who knew something about bees but he found out after all that he didn't know everything because he got stung. Even my bee. By the bee. He did. What do you do just release him out the window if you can't find their proper ownership? Oh no no no the it has happened and that the address is still on there. How about other animals? Well we get live small turtles of course we get plenty of chicks but those small baby animals that are maleable are shipped. If it swims you have it. Almost. Well Al Radke over here one of the assistance superintendents and undoubtedly can think of a lot of unusual things that he's handled. Al who shops up here mostly just people or retailers, wholesalers, merchandise, professionals, chiefly wholesalers if you call the small shop owner as a wholesaler.

Many people from along the Haustead Street and Jefferson Street, Maxwell Street and other places such as that are our steady customers. Others we try to encourage booksellers to come in here and purchase our bid on our booklets and whenever we have a particular brand of merchandise such as toys we invite various posts of the Legion and try to encourage them to purchase items for their doings as well as for orphanages and places such as that. Well they were just about anybody. Just about anybody except postal employees. Well is Mr. Anten Prohaska who never has been on what's my line but might well be because he is an auctioneer in a post office. Isn't that a rather unusual and odd occupation? Yes but very interesting. I like it. Are you a

professional auctioneer? No, I never auctioned before. You just got into it through postal works. How did that come about? Well I guess I had a good loud mouth. Somebody suggested that I auctioned itself. Well I understand that you're one of the best. Well I wouldn't say that. Maybe an amateur but I couldn't compare with a professional. And how often do you have these auctions? About every month. Every month. Yeah we try to. In that month you can accumulate all this merchandise and send it up. Well according to rules whenever we have enough for about 800 lots we have enough. Is this a pretty happy life do you ever run into any special problems? Yes we do a lot of them such as because we sell by paddle and it's harder to do that than it is by voice. Sometimes at the instance we sell it. Another paddle shoots up. Of course we do have a little trouble now and then but all in all we do fairly

well I'd say. Now by paddle you mean these sticks, these two inch boards with numbers on it. People hold up to identify themselves. Excuse me. Yeah that's what they use instead of a name. That's their name. What's the theory behind that and not bidding by actual voice? Well because you have to keep swinging your head. Sometimes they're off to one side and your mind and eyes are concentrated in one place and you forget and sometimes you miss them all though we do caution them too. That is we caution them in the respect that if we overlook the paddle we don't do it intentionally and they just have to go along with us that's all. How long you've been doing this? About 12 years. Well I reckon you're about ready to do it again here. Well I'll try. I'll do the best I can. We're here in the auction room we've tendered our deposit at $10 we're about ready to actually participate in a post office auction as at least a theoretical buyer. I have a catalog here with me which contains just a whole thousands of

items literally from notions and linens right down through music photographic equipment clocks jewelry and whatnot and we'll sort of follow the auction as it goes along with Mr. Anton Prohaska the auctioneer and Mr. Bill Barr calling out the lots and they're ready to go now. Number two is been some rotary button holders and some metal embroidery who's in the linen section. All right that number. Number 49 paddle has gone

up and gets 400 yard schemes of white crochet cotton and a lot of embroidery cotton here. All right paddle number 49 gets this one that's a lot of bias tape in a large large box. This is a lot of zippers here should be very valuable for $14. What do you say to a 500 here? $6 .7, $7, $8, $8, $9, $10, $11, $15, $11, $11, $14, $13, $11, $13,

$13, $13 and this course will go on all day item after item after item we've just about to sell a damaged sewing machine now. The claim of course has been paid on it by the post office department. On September 9th the housewives and the small merchants the old regulars the curious and the passers -by will again assemble for the next post -all auction. The sound you have just heard will be heard there. The auction is a kind of last resort after all other means of location have failed or after damaged value has been restored by claim. The system is always detection first auction last. It makes surprisingly few mistakes on the great many mistakes of us senders. This is Jack Angel with Conley Holcomb an engineer whose

recordings here have impritted city in sound.