Bargains: The Great Souvenir Sale

Where can a bargain hunter buy three live elk for $500 each, a small-scale Mississippi paddle-wheeler for $7,500, or a connoisseur’s collection of African voodoo drums and five-foot spears? Answer: at the New York World’s Fair, where the greatest sale of surplus goods since the big postwar auctions of military gear is about to take place. As the Oct. 17 closing date approaches, the selloff by the Fair’s 300 exhibitors is beginning in earnest.

American Machine & Foundry has several bidders for its seven-train mono rail, which cost $5,500,000 to erect but will go for about $1,000,000. For $5,000 each, Greyhound has already sold all 62 of its 54-passenger glider trains to 29 buyers, including Mack Trucks, the University of Connecticut, several amusement parks and the city of Stamford, Conn. Borden Co. will pay about $35,000 to the Wisconsin pavilion for the world’s largest cheese 34,591-lb., 14½-ft.-long cheddar, which the company plans to haul in a refrigerated “cheesemobile” and display around the U.S. To their employees, Ford will sell most of its cars, Du Pont its furniture and RCA its color TV sets —at substantial markdowns.

Sari to Go. Most of the exhibitors would like to sell just about everything, intend to offer their goods either at auction or for a fixed or negotiated price. There are so many possibilities for the general public that a New York City adman, George E. Porcell, 25, has put together an 80-page catalogue of merchandise, already has orders for 8,000 copies at $2 each. For art collectors, the Spanish pavilion has listed a 47-inch, 16th century painted wood sculpture of the Virgin for $11,590, and the Philippine pavilion is offering to the highest bidder twelve hand-carved acacia-wood panels that depict Philippine history and took 30 workmen more than a year to make. The Philippines also want to dispose of a 70-ft.-high Oriental-style restaurant, and Guinea wants to get rid of its voodoo tom-toms, native spears and a 40-ton air conditioner (all for the best offers).

Pakistan is offering saris for $15 to $45 and 17 tall cedars (for the best offer). Israel is marketing fur coats, and Ireland is selling lace and sweaters (highest bids). Thailand wants to sell its temple-like pavilion. Montana wants to sell a 300-ft.-long boardwalk, a 56-ft.-long public lavatory, and its live elk. Florida is asking $50,000 for Smokey, a porpoise trained to spit out fires and play basketball. Dozens of companies are selling computers, typewriters, video tape recorders and other equipment.

Some of the goodies will be given away. Equitable Life will donate its furniture to a school for crippled children, and Coca-Cola will send its electronically croaking bullfrog to Caroline Kennedy, who said she wanted it. Many of the buildings have been offered free to anyone willing to take them apart and put them together again. The Cockaigne Ski Center near Jamestown N.Y., paid a token $3,000 for Austria’s handsome Alpine-style pavilion, but will have to spend about $190,000 to transport and reassemble it. The Christian Science pavilion will be shipped 4,650 miles via the Panama Canal to Poway, Calif., where it will become a church. Cost: $79,000.

Journey to Disneyland. Many of the most popular displays will be used elsewhere by their owners. Though wreckers will get the Johnson’s Wax pavilion, the company intends to continue showing its splendid film, To Be Alive, perhaps at its Racine headquarters. Walt Disney will take back his electronic, talking Abe Lincoln from the Illinois pavilion, his moving cavemen from Ford, and his thousands of gay puppets from Pepsi-Cola’s lively “Small World”; all will probably appear in Disneyland.’ Though the Fair’s wax museum has optioned its four mop-topped Beatles to a Cleveland customer for $6,000, it will simply shift some other figures to Broadway. There Charles de Gaulle will show up in the permanent display at Ripley’s Believe It or Not.