[PSUBS-MAILIST] Silly Putty

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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