AUGUSTA, Maine - After moving her late husband's remains from a cemetery plot to a
mausoleum drawer, Emilenne Auger wanted to sell his grave marker.
But there were complications. The marker had the family name on it. And, Mrs. Auger
points out, Mr. Auger "had used the monument for a couple of years."
So Mrs. Auger did what any penny-wise Mainer might do. She placed an ad in a magazine
called Uncle Henry's Swap or Sell It: "Cemetery monument, big, bronze marker, the name
Auger is engraved on it. The asking price is $250.
Hard-to-Find Items
You can get anything you want in Uncle Henry's Looking for that hard-to-find "Mummy of Temple Priest,"
circa 1050 B.C.? Caveat emptor: It "needs minor body work." Want a "factory-made guillotine," a $1,500
"cucumber sizer" or a "1914 railroad-car diner?" You've come to the right place.
If you desire something animate, how about a "red tail boa, six-feet, good temperament?" The snake comes
with "rats, assorted sizes, $2.50 each." If a more versatile species happens to suit you, another seller
offers "six rabbits, good for meat or as pets." And here's one that does tricks: "African Horn Frog" that
is "well-mannered" and "will fetch sticks up to three inches."
The 28-year-old weekly magazine, which costs $1.50 and offers everyone who buys it one free 30-word ad, is
heir to a long tradition of New England frugality. Its 55,000 copies, each with about 9,000 classified ads,
create an enormous market in Yankee detritus.
Advertisers in Uncle Henry's tell about their lives as well as about the stuff they are selling. "She said No,
now the ring has to go." reads a diamond ad. Another in that genre says: "Diamond engagement ring, trade for snowmobile."
Excellent nonelectric composting toilet," says another, "reason selling, we now have water!" A fellow is trying to sell a bar
game because "the wife wants it out of the house." And what mayhem occasioned this? "Three pairs of skis, two
pairs of ski boots, three pairs of crutches and walker, real cheap."
For some Mainers this isn't just bargain hunting. "It's a sport, like going hunting," says Robert Skoglund, an Uncle Henry's
reader who has a cable-television show called "The Humble Farmer." He adds: "You buy things you don't even want just because it's a good deal."
Warren Sylvester, proprietor of Warren's Wood Stoves in Warren, Maine, knows all about that. He spends a whole day going through each issue of
Uncle Henry's, and he swaps stoves he repairs for the miscellany that fills his shop: bayonets, swords, a
powder musket, a coat of arms. He points to a stove in his shop that he has traded back and forth three times.
"You got to keep things moving around," he says.
Early Birds
In Bath, Maine, the manager of Ernie Buck's newsstand has arranged to call at the back door of the post office at 5:30 Thursday mornings to get
his supply of Uncle Henry's early. His customers start lining up at dawn to buy their copies and then read
them in their trucks. "This is Maine's answer to the Wall Street Journal," says Mary Arsenault, who works at
the newsstand.
The frugality of his readers "is something I thought I could capitalize on," says Joe Sutton, for 14 years the owner of
Uncle Henry's. He spends his summers in Maine, but otherwise raises ostriches in Texas. His two sons, Justin and Jason,
run the magazine.
U-Haul Specials
Perhaps Uncle Henry's most popular feature is its "Free for the Taking" section, in which Mainers persuade people to haul off stuff they don't
want, such as "My old rotting firewood pile" or free "light yellow" asbestos siding. "Cow manure, bring your own
buckets," says one of many ads of the sort. Mike Dunn, a guidance counselor from Pownal, Maine, added a sweetener
to make the fertilizer move faster: "Horse manure and two couches."
"It's and addiction," Mr. Dunn says of the magazine, which he has bought every Thursday for 10 years. "I've got to get Uncle Henry's even if I'm not
looking for anything. If you don't look through it, you might miss something."
Even Wal-Mart can't match this selection, which had included "bloodworm digging forks" and "Greyhound bus seats, damaged. $10." The "used fryolator
grease in 35 lb. plastic jugs, ask for Butch," might be a steal; so too, a "new hardcover: 'Pig Ailments: Recognition/Treatments?.
Many illnesses covered in photographic details (color).
A Real Bargain
Though most ads are legitimate, Uncle Henry's has drawn its share of pranks, including a bogus ad for a Navy warship from Bath Iron Works, listing the
company's phone number. Mr. Sutton tells of a woman whose husband ran off to Florida with a girlfriend, leaving instructions
to sell his Mercedes and send him the proceeds. She unloaded it in Uncle Henry's for $1, Mr. Sutton insists.
Although all three Sutton men, oddly, have the middle name "Henry," the publication's namesake is Henry C. Faller, who sold out to the Suttons and now,
at 69, lives in retirement in a log cabin in St. George, Maine. He started the magazine as an offshoot
of his print-shop business and based it on the belief that "it's easier to save a dollar than it is to make
a dollar." On the table where he sits is a mug inscribed: "Everything I own I found in Uncle Henry's."
Wall Street Journal ~ July 7, 1997 |
