National Affairs: Brass’s Brass

One day last week, officials at the Wilkins Air Force Depot in Shelby,Ohio set about the routine business of auctioning off $8,000,000 insurplus property. Included in the lot: 67 tons of obsolete marksmanshipmedals and parachutists’ insignia listed by the Air Force brass as”brass.” Bidding started at 5¢ a lb., and suddenly began to rise. Wordwas circulating through the crowd: instead of being brass, the medalswere silver. In a flash, bids rose to $1.90 a lb., later soared to $4.*Next day, the Air Materiel Command blushingly admitted an”administrative error,” canceled the silver sales under a regulationprohibiting the Air Force from selling gold or silver as surplusproperty.

*Current Treasury price for fine silver: $10.86 a lb.