Mahmout's Mules

EGA last week said that it would spend $657,000 to finance the purchase of 7,500 U.S. mules. From New Orleans, the mules will be shipped in lots of about 900 to Greece, to aid the recovery of that nation's ravaged agriculture. This quiet announcement was the final settlement of an international war which had raged for a year among some of the world's shrewdest mule skinners.

In Turkey, where close trading is a centuries-old art imbibed with mother's milk, the No. 1 mule trader is squat, swarthy Mahmout Safyurtlu. Last year, when Mahmout heard that EGA would pay for several thousand mules for Greece, he perked up his ears. Mahmout scurried to Athens, where he learned that the mules must be small, strong, good at climbing hills, not less than three years old, not more than nine, and 80% of them younger than seven.

Mahmout offered to deliver the mules to Athens at $325 a head. Two U.S. traders offered bids of $320 and $328. The Greek government rejected all three bids as too high.

After that the bidding went on & on until Greece finally accepted canny Mahmout's price of $250.50 a mule. The Turk boarded a plane for Washington to collect his dollars. But he had underestimated the resourcefulness of U.S. mule skinners, such as Kansas City's Ferd Owen, biggest trader in the U.S. (TIME, July 14, 1947), and Texas' big dealer, Parker Jameson Horse & Mule Co.

Annoyed by Mahmout's low bidding and troubled by a dull market in U.S. mules, the U.S. traders raised such a ruckus that EGA took a closer look at the deal. It finally told Mahmout he could sell the mules, provided he bought them through established U.S. mule dealers. To make matters worse for him, EGA refused to pay his profit in dollars. He wotfld have to take that in Athens, in Greek drachmas. As for the mules, Ferd Owen got half the order (3,750) and Parker Jameson got the other half.

Mahmout, far from considering himself the world's smartest mule trader, last week was beginning to wonder what he was doing in the deal. EGA estimated that he would still gross about 153,765 drachmas ($15.25) a mule, but Mahmout, who had been doing a lot of traveling, thought the profit figure would be pared sharply by his expenses. Missouri's Ferd Owen agreed. Said he: "It was a pretty close deal. I don't expect to make much on it, but I think the Turk will make even less."

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