WSJ -- adults who like 50 pounds of Silly Putty.
September 10, 2002
Some Grown-Ups Go Silly For Buying Putty in Bulk
By SUSAN WARREN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Among the usual paperclips and pencils cluttering the desk of textile-plant
engineer Jeff Kivert is a new necessity: 50 pounds of Silly Putty.
The allure of such a wad is difficult for Mr. Kivert, of Whitehall, Pa., to
explain. "To hold a pound of it in your hand, it's unbelievable," he says. A
pound is about the size of a softball. Ten pounds is bigger than your head.
Silly Putty has found a growing
niche among adults who get a
nostalgic kick out of the stretchy,
bouncy, rubbery stuff that has been
a perennial childhood favorite since
the 1950s. But the skimpy portion
found in the classic plastic-egg
container -- less than half an ounce
-- isn't nearly enough for grown-up
appetites.
So adults wanting their putty by the
pound are banding together in "putty
pools" to buy industrial quantities
directly from the manufacturer, Dow
Corning Corp. A Dow Corning scientist, Earl Warrick, now 91 years old,
accidentally invented the nontoxic substance while searching for a
silicone-based rubber substitute during World War II.
Dow Corning, in Midland, Mich., which no longer has a patent on the
stuff, sells its generic putty, called 3179 Dilatant Compound, in 50-pound
boxes through its 800-customer-service line. At $7.41 a pound, 100 pounds
must be ordered to meet the company's $500 minimum purchase. After
shipping and handling, it works out to about $10 a pound.
Putty devotees say a nice, chunky handful, massaged and stretched and
squeezed, is the perfect workplace stress-reliever. Some say ricocheting it
off their office walls helps them think. Others spend hours sculpting
characters, shapes and animals.
"It's comforting, on a real lizard-brain kind of level," says putty-pool
veteran Dorothy Nelson, a 39-year-old computer programmer from San
Jose, Calif.
For heavy users, big quantities are essential. Well-used putty turns nasty
quickly, as it gets contaminated with skin oils, newspaper ink, hair and
other debris. Having pounds of it around provides a mother lode for fresh
supplies as the old stuff gets retired.
Vern Hart, a 30-year-old computer-systems administrator in Boise, Idaho,
was invited by a friend to join a putty-buying pool about seven years ago and got hooked on his first
five-pound block. After taking his putty to his office, he quickly recruited enough co-workers to put in another
100-pound order. He kept a large supply in a filing cabinet in his cubicle, along with a scale and plastic baggies.
"People would come by my cubicle, hand me $20, and I would bring them over to the cabinet and measure out
their dose," he says. "It felt very much like I was pushing something illegal."
To update pool members on delivery, Mr. Hart created a Web site (www.hart.com/putty) where he also
posted instructions on how to order putty in bulk from Dow Corning. Shortly thereafter, the company became
puzzled by a sudden uptick in orders from individuals, says Kathy Moulton, who handles technical support for
Dow Corning products. Inside the company, however, the idea that the putty would appeal to a broad audience
was no surprise. "Everybody at Dow Corning has at least two pounds of it sitting around," says Ms. Moulton.
But the company ordinarily has just a handful of regular customers for the putty. It sells most of its
100,000-pound annual production to Crayola maker Binney & Smith Inc., in Easton, Pa., which processes it
and sells it under its Silly Putty brand. Other customers include electronics manufacturers, which use the putty
as a kind of sealant for circuit boards.
The mystery was explained when callers began mentioning Mr. Hart's Web site. The putty pool orders aren't
entirely welcome, since the smaller, one-time orders aren't worth the paperwork involved, says Ms. Moulton.
Clerks on the company's toll-free order line now try to steer single orders to a distributor, where buyers can
purchase as little as 50 pounds but at a markup of about 30%.
The rising demand for bulk putty soon had Binney & Smith, a unit of Hallmark Cards Inc., in Kansas City,
Mo., hustling to keep up. For years, Binney & Smith sold five-pound blocks of putty through its direct-sales
department to various customers. A dental office used it for dental molds; Florida police used it to lift
fingerprints; a Utah candy store used it to simulate a taffy pull for a window display.
As bulk orders picked up, the company two years ago launched an official Silly Putty Web site
(sillyputty.com) offering five-pound blobs in six different colors for $59.99, or $12 a pound. This year, the
Web site began featuring 100-egg "bulk packs" ($1.33 to $1.73 an egg) aimed at the corporate giveaway
market.
But many bulk buyers still prefer getting their putty direct from Dow Corning and its distributors, where it is
not only cheaper, but also available in white, so customers can color it themselves with exotic pigments.
Mr. Kivert, 42, remembers the awe he inspired among
co-workers when his first 150-pound putty order was delivered
to his Pennsylvania office a year and a half ago. He had stumbled
across Mr. Hart's bulk ordering instructions when, on a whim, he
typed "Silly Putty" into an Internet search engine. Since then, Mr.
Kivert has organized five of his own putty pools. To recruit enough people, he uses a mailing list started by
Mr. Hart, which regularly has at least 100 members.
Lately, Mr. Kivert has begun organizing "powder pools," too, for bulk purchases of color pigment, such as a
recent 70-ounce order of glow-in-the-dark blue from Pete's Luminous Creations in Singapore, at $5 an ounce.
Large quantities of putty helped David Warden, 41, a radiologist in Idaho Falls, Idaho, keep his sanity while
working for a difficult boss when he was in the Army. "I'd just sit there and squeeze it and it would keep my
hands away from my boss's neck," he says.
Dr. Warden found the instructions for ordering in bulk while searching the Internet for a Silly Putty recipe for
his children, who were inspired by a school science project. He has since joined several putty pools, putting his
pounds to different uses. Watching a half-pound ball of it slowly ooze on the dashboard of his car gives him
something to do in traffic. A few times, he has covered his steering wheel in a layer of putty for his commute
to work. "It gives you a better grip," he says. "Except, it makes it really sticky."
A father of three boys and a girl between the ages of 11 and 17, he built a putty fort and had a putty war with
his kids one afternoon. The toy soldiers "had putty draining out of their body like blood," he says. He jealously
guards his putty stash at home, though he'll occasionally sell some to his kids at cost.
Aaron Muderick, 26, of suburban Philadelphia, found out about bulk putty-buying from a friend where he used
to work at an Internet-consulting company and soon began organizing his own pools. Now, he has started his
own business on the Web (www.puttyworld.com) selling adults custom-colored "thinking putty" by the
pound.
Mr. Muderick believes putty-by-the-pound addresses a long-sublimated childhood yearning. He remembers that
as a kid he begged his parents for more after the tiny egg portions were lost or ruined. "It seemed like there
was never enough," he says.
Handing a pound of putty to an adult can yield psychological insights: Uptight people "want nothing to do with
it," says Mr. Muderick. But a lot of his former consulting clients spend hours in meetings keeping their putty in
perfect cubes.
David Morgan, a 25-year-old software programmer in Phoenix, likes to experiment with his putty. He has
microwaved it into a puddle, dissolved it in rubbing alcohol, and shattered it with the whack of a hammer.
But, he warns, you have to be careful when you handle putty by the pound. Recently he dropped a 10-pound
ball in his office, and it bounced. "It banged into a door and shook a few windows," he says.
Write to Susan Warren at susan.warren@wsj.com
Updated September 10, 2002
Copyright © 2002 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. |
