Snake America Forty One
Snake is a bi-weekly electric newspaper covering things worth more or less than they are. This week, the contents of a shuttered Chattanooga, Tenn. candy factory, and Eddie Bauer snow pants. If you're reading online, subscribe.
Auction: Surplus equipment from the ongoing operations of Ferrara Candy Company: Rare auction in which the Ferrara Candy Company, Inc., out of Lake Forest, Ill., the makers of candys listed on their website as: "Lemonhead, Now & Later and Brach’s. Trolli Sour Brite Crawlers, Sour Watermelon Sharks and Black Forest Triple Layer fruit snacks.[sic]" are selling some extra stuff laying around their Chattanooga factory. Formerly Ferrara Pan Candy, which merged with the company that owned the factory, Farley's & Sathers, in 2012. Farley's & Sathers make those clear-bag candys at the bodega with the sticky paper pinch-top, off-brand gummies mostly. They also have a hand in Trolli. That factory opened in 1906, survived the depression, paid folks in pennies, etc. It was shut down in 2013. Schneider Industries, a surplus-solutions company(1), is doing the buy-sell. It's a massive lot, online bidding on bidspotter.com, and Schneider lists as follows its FEATURES:
(3) Dumoulin Chocolate Coating Process, McCarter Steel Chocolate Tanks 45,000-50,000lb Capacity, Aluminum Silos (3) 200,000lb (2) 300,000lb Capacity, Fallas Case Packers, Cherry Burrell SS Tanks/Kettles, Hayssen Baggers, Hayssen/Yamato Rotary Data Weigh Scales, Barclay Dexter Metal Check Weighers, Groan [sic] SS Rotary Pans , Farr GS-16 Dust Collectors, Crown Electric Fork Lifts/Jacks, Mixer Agitators, Motors & Pumps, Lab Equipment & Much More!!
Lot 840, the final lot, is a 2004 Chevy Tahoe with 46,188 miles. I am not sure what any of the lot items are outside the aluminum silos. One wonders who might buy just a single silo, and if the auctions are rigged like the old Dust Bowl farm bankruptcy sales where the townspeople intimidated would-be buyers from bidding. And would even go so far as to lend small--but not to them--sums of money to the foreclosed, their friend, who'd be able to then buy back their farm from the city/bank for ... $1. I'm not sure it's like that. There's a recommended rigging company. I'm wondering how many items here--e.g. Groen rotary pans (Lots 337-9, 343-62)--translate to non-candy-manufacturing activity. I'd think plenty--who's going to take a mortgage on a chocolate-only catwalk? It sounds like Ferrara Pan bought Farley's & Sathers for its factory assets. I bet the scene at this auction will be something. There's an image in the John McPhee oranges book (USA 1966)(2) where he talks about the orange auction and how serious it is:
All fresh fruit of any kind that is shipped to New York City for auction is sold at Pier 28. The pier's interior is like the inside of an aircraft hangar, and fruits from everywhere are stacked in lots in long, close rows.... Over at one side, separated by a wide area from all the other crates and boxes, is th fruit of the Indian River. A man from the Indian River is always tere to look after it, and he has no counterpart elsewhere on the pier. Buyers walk around making notes, then they go upstairs into a room that could have been built as the auditorium of a nineteenth-century school. The walls are made of tongue-and-groove boards and the wooden seats are set on frameworks of cast iron, which are bolted to the floor. The room seems to contain about ninety men and ninety lighted cigars. ...
Auctions for the contents of shuttered candy silos must be even more funereal. I remember when Self Edge (SF) bought a second Union Special Bulldog loom to loopwheel-stitch jeans in early 2011. There was a post on Superfuture, the denim message board their owner frequented, about how difficult it was to get that machine and how there aren't any around, etc. I don't remember if he wrote that or a respondent did. I think a respondent since the store wasn't and isn't prone to schvitzing. But it didn't seem that rare. How could it be rare? It's a giant machine. Whenever someone says something is hard to find it's time to stop believing them. I asked my friend Clark, a shoe designer, if he knew of anyone with any and he tracked one down from his sewing-machine dealer that day. There was also one on eBay if I remember right. There are a few regularly listed now. The business practice of buying industrial machinery on a whim and out of spite are doubtlessly practiced to better effect in the candy racket. Farley's & Sathers gave up its name after merging with Ferrara Pan in 2012, despite outselling them by a quarter billion dollars the year before, $670 to $420 million. (Ferrara's real numbers that year were about $100 million lower.) Lots of money changes hands to get a 25c pack of Lemonheads into my line of sight. One wonders if we can't do better.
eBay: Kara Koram snowpants, active: Necessary pants that would look good with a T-shirt (bright colors only) or the matching parka. Shouldn't be worn with other winter layering gear, though. These are the ultimate pants to wear with Jordans. Leather pants are also fine to wear with Air Jordans. I would never ask anyone for anything but if anyone has an extra pair of these or similar, let me know and I can give you one of the matching parkas I have for you the weekend after that. Otherwise I'm buying them Monday as I need a pair for next weekend. Interesting trades considered. Recommended.
Thanks for reading.
Snake
Last Snake: Duck camo Vietnam boonie hat, JFK sweatshirt (still for sale; still for sale)
Snake Before That: Tall lucite cube lamp, original Beatles sweatshirt (still for sale; still for sale)
(1) They clear out your stuff, e.g., old jets, bad Knoll furniture, etc.
(2) One of the finest works of journalism in American history. There is a great chapter about a guy called Snake Man, who picks oranges, about a third of the way in.