I am looking into emergency blankets. Emergency Essentials has some at ~$13 each or $10 if you buy 12 or more. My local surplus store carries “genuine” Army blankets for $24. Then I found a government auction site that has lots of blankets (and other stuff) up for auction. The smallest lot I’ve found so far is 16 blankets with an opening bid of $50. I figure even if it goes up to $100, that’s still only $6.25 each.

My question is:

Has anyone here ever bought government surplus on auction?

If I end up with 50 wool blankets, are there people here who
would like to share in the bounty?

Is it even appropriate to talk about buying and selling here?

If it’s not, I’m sorry for mentioning it.

If it is, perhaps we could get a group together to order larger (wholesale) quantities of various goods and share the savings.

I’m thinking something like a co-op for emergency preparedness stuff.

Any thoughts?

Logistics seem daunting, otherwise I am interested.

If there were a number of people in a general area, then a big shared order might make sense. But shipping costs may cut into the savings if you try to do it with people that are spread out.

I suspect shipping charges will limit the deal to ETS members living near you.

Maybe you could sell the extra blankets to a local army surplus store or donate them to shelter (human or animal) for a tax write-off (or good karma). How about the local Boy Scout troops, historical reenactors, emergency responders or search & rescue teams? Maybe they'd be interested in buying cheap wool blankets? Another possiblity might be a local consignment shop.

-Blast

Check the Gov't auction rules. You may have to go and pick them up, and it may not be close.

Sure, sorry I didn't post the links with the original message.

http://www.govliquidation.com/

http://www.publicsurplus.com/

http://www.liquidation.com/

There are also government sellers on Ebay. The user names I know are:

ga-surplus
kysurplus
oregontrail2000
pastatesurplus
texasstatesurplus
washington-state-surplus

Most of what I've found on Ebay is unclaimed or seized fright. There is also some of the airport confiscations.

Thanks for the feedback.
Michael

The Ebay surplus is where you can find lots of multitools (1-30) and SAK (10-75 of real and/or knock-offs). I've bid on a few but I really don't need 60 multitools. I have yet to win one of their auctions, but it seems like multitools end up going for around $15 each and SAKs go for under $10.
Happy bidding.
Michael

If you're really thinking of getting something like 50 of them, try to find out how much one weighs, then ask your local post office how much it would cost to ship to the farthestmost point in the U.S. from you. Be sure to include container weight.

That will give people here an idea how much the actual cost would be.

I've seen some of those 80% wool army blankets at military surplus stores, and they seem kind of thin/light. If I'm needing a blanket, I will need one with some meat on it. So to speak.

Sue

I'm usually too picky to order stuff like that over the internet. I want to see it and examine it. Once I like something, or if it's name brand (or product like a book/DVD), I will order it over the net. Guess I'm too old-fashioned