From December 3, 1988
The U.S. Postal Service’s Lost Mail Auction is part social event and part bargain hunter heaven. Junk and jewels find a home at the Southeast’s most unusual flea market.
By Rob. Walton
BULK: From brand new microwave ovens to disposable cameras and even a praying hands piggy bank, the P.O. has the goods. | Photo: Joel David Godbey
The crowd was as diverse as, say, the Varsity’s on a Sunday afternoon. Resale merchants mingled with consumers. Scruffy bargain-hunters sporting windbreakers and baseball caps rubbed shoulders with cellular phone-toting professionals in Kuppenheimer suits last Wednesday in the U.S. Postal Service’s final auction of undeliverable mails for 1988.
Rain, snow, sleet, or hail may not prevent the delivery of mail, but a faulty address can. “Undeliverable mail” is defined as any parcel with an incorrect delivery address and no return address. These mails are held for 90 days and, if still unclaimed, are opened, sorted into “lots” and eventually auctioned off in what is best described as a large-scale postal flea market.
Up for bid was a panoply of goods ranging from used clothing to brand new microwave ovens. For two hours on the day of a sale, all merchandise is on display and available for inspection at the Great Southwest Parkway warehouse. During this time, patrons may scrutinize a variety of merchandise ranging from books and toiletries to jewelry, tools and electronic equipment.
Carol Oxenrider of Cedartown, Ga., describes the thrill of the auction. “It’s like buying yourself a present and you don’t know what it is until you get home.” One gift that Oxenrider bought herself last year was a videocassette recorder. When she got home she learned her first lesson about VCRs: VHS tapes do not fit into Beta machines. Lesson number two: Beta tapes are hard to come by in Cedartown. Undaunted by her uninformed purchase, Oxenrider is back in the bidding.
BOOK LOOK: The lost mail auction resembles a library.
Dieter Mueller of Atlanta also was doing some Christmas shopping at the Post Office. “There’s always a jewel hidden at government auctions that people are looking for.”
At the last auction, 42 of the 350 lots up for bid were books. Each separate bin contained thousands of books, mostly new, separated into categories such as hardback, softback, children’s, religious, educational, self-help and cookbooks. These were bought primarily by book dealers. A note to the indolent student: The educational books, which went for a reasonable $55, consisted largely of teacher’s edition text books, complete with all the answers.
Although conventional items sell at bargain prices (note an heirloom silverware set that sold for $65), much of the auction’s appeal comes from its more unusual ware.
The catch-all category Curios and Oddities is an attention-grabbing euphemism for “junk.” These bibelots and notions, perhaps lost freight from television’s home shopping channel, are displayed on metal shelving behind makeshift chicken wire fencing. A chatty postal employee informed me that the chicken wire is a precaution against “lot mixing” whereby dishonest buyers try to swap items from different lots. It is difficult to imagine the furor that might ensue should a macramé and seashell bouquet be swapped for a praying hands piggy bank.
Noteworthy items in this category included a family of lanky art deco cats of black porcelain, a vintage hobo clown figurine, Lucite unicorns, miniature totem poles molded out of wood-look plastic and countless teeny-weeny picture frames. Disappointingly, there were no glow-in-the-dark dashboard Saviors to be found.
The Used Clothing category consisted of a wide variety of garments ranging from an haute couture Benetton sweatshirt, worn maybe once, to a pink terrycloth bathrobe that had clearly been around the trailer park a few times.
For the art connoisseur, there is a Pictures and Frames division boasting a plethora of Fabulous ’50s artwork. Two chefs-d’oeuvres up for grabs were an aesthetically displeasing rendering of a bullfight and a pastel watercolor collage depicting international ports of call. There were, however, no velvet Elvises. This lot went for $20.
A crate of VCR tapes characterized by such blockbusters as “Oliver North – Fight for Freedom” and “Richard Simmons – Sweatin’ to the Oldies” (featuring such appropriate diehard exercise favorites as “Wipe Out,” “He’s a Rebel” and “Great Balls of Fire”) coaxed $450, presumably from a weight-conscious rightwinger.
My find for the day was perched atop a pile of office supplies like a cherry on an ice cream sundae. There, amidst the calculator tape, printer ribbon and cash boxes, sat a plastic bank shuttle — you know, one of those plastic tubes that are sucked from your car window, underground, to the teller at the drive-through window. (Lollipops and deposit slips were not included.)
Lot 29, household items, included a talking scale and an unsettlingly large quantity of globes. Lot 98 consisted exclusively of thousands of American Express 1989 appointment books. Lot 220 was a score of disposable 35 mm cameras.
One lot described simply as Dental Items consisted entirely of toothbrushes, countless tubes of toothpaste and a “sonic denture cleaner.” A feverish search through the boxes dashed my momentary hopes of unearthing a set of false teeth. The dental items and a carton of deodorant book-ended a bin of (unused) panty hose, whimsically described as “hosiery.”
The day’s highest bid was a hefty $910 for a box of prerecorded cassette tapes, mostly heavy metal, still in their shrink wrap. When I questioned the buyer about his lofty bid, he replied that he had to hurry back inside and didn’t have time to screw with me. We’ll presume he misunderstood the question.
Patrons tended to be suspicious of my questions. Competitive bidders, suspecting that I was a rival buyer posing as a reporter in order to foil their bidding strategies, hesitated to talk about items of interest.
Mr. and Mrs. Ed Alspach used to frequent the mail auction in St. Louis until they relocated to Tampa Bay, Fla. Now they faithfully make the 450-mile jaunt to Atlanta, the location of the nearest undeliverable parcel unit, where they look for items of interest and oddities. In the past, they have purchased such interesting items as soap and such oddities as an apiary (beekeeper’s) suit (which, they confess, has since been sold).
“I come with a strange attitude. Once I bought a box of keys and keychains,” says Daniel Barrett, an area importer. He boasts about the time he snatched a box of swords for $45 which promptly resold for $500. On another occasion he earned $250 apiece for race car wheels he initially purchased for $35.
For some, the undeliverable mails auction is a regular social event. Susan Rudd, who has been attending faithfully for over a year, zestfully points out some familiar faces. Among the characters she distinguishes is a corpulent, elderly gentleman with a cane nicknamed “the Judge” who comes to buy cosmetics, particularly soaps, for his wife. The Judge, always found in the front row, brings cookies to share with his fellow bidders before each auction.
Some old-timers complain that in recent months the auctions have become increasingly popular, and prices have been driven up as a result. One gentleman, unhappy about the additional publicity a story might lend the auction, refused to divulge his name, but volunteered, “Stuff that used to go for $30 or $40 brings in $150 to $160 now.”
Mary Adamson, an Atlanta book dealer who has been attending regularly for 10 years, disagreed. “It fluctuates. They’re a nice group of people,” she added.
One can never be too careful when organizing such an event as the lost mail auction. As S.C. Batchelor, the Superintendent of Claims, Inquiry and Undeliverable Mail, cautions, “There is no guarantee as to quantity, operability, repairability or usability of any item to be sold. All articles are sold as is. We do not guarantee any items. No refunds will be made.” Regardless, televisions were bid on in lots of five (which sold for approximately $220) or individually at around $120 apiece. New VCRs, computer printers, microwaves and stereo equipment were also sold at a fraction of their retail cost.
Proceeds from the auction go into a fund to offset monies the Postal Service pays out in claims for damaged mails. The last auction took in about $40,000, a mere pittance considering the mint of merchandise sold.
Not every unclaimed parcel is eligible for auction, though. For example, controlled substances and firearms are immediately turned over to Postal Inspection, the Post Office’s police force. Officials caution that it is also unlawful to send alcohol in the mail. Any liquor discovered by postal, authorities is reportedly poured out. Sources are unwilling to disclose the time or place of the pouring. Rest assured, letters and personal correspondences are not auctioned (or posted on employee bulletin boards). Undeliverable letters are destroyed.
The unclaimed mail auctions, which are held once every few months, attract anywhere from 225 to 350 buyers. The last auction on Nov. 16 drew about 300 customers from all over the Southeast. The Undeliverable Parcel Unit in Atlanta is the only one in the entire Southeast region (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas). A quick scan of the parking lot confirmed my suspicions that I would discover license plates from all 10 of these states.
Unfortunately, the Post Office’s twilight zone shopping experience is no longer an option for holiday gift seekers. But there’s always 1989. The next auction for unclaimed lost mail is tentatively scheduled for Jan. 11. Call the Undeliverable Mails Office at 344-1625.
