A Story (Before Machineco)

Well known Beatles' song, "The Long & Winding Road" surely sums up the many twists and turns along our road to today, since the founding of this business by two partners, and brothers, almost 30 years ago.   For trying to wrest a small profit simultaneously with a good life, from the so called "pre-owned" industrial machinery business has been filled with so many adventures that we could now write TWO books. Indeed the partners have been approached by both movie producer / directors and other media types to do just that.

The story to be told here, shall not be but a dull history full of monthly sales reports, or annual sales predictions filled with fatuous "forward looking statements".  Definitely not.  For dull reading and your resulting detachment, dear reader would prevail. Rather we thought you would prefer to be entertained.  When writing, did we assume that you might prefer to read about tales of derring-do and the defying of death etc.?
Well now you can breath a sigh of relief, for "Yes", that is exactly what you'll hear.

True stories of general interest to the layman as well as the machine buying public fortunately abound in our relatively short history.  There are,- and continue to be many human stories, stories of charity and benevolence, indeed, but also those more gripping ones of human tragedy, and how our on-the-surface simple business, that tries to follow the age old dictum of all commercial business,- "Buy low, sell high" in reality has encountered much, much more than its fair share of snarly problems.  There were several spectacularly profitable deals, yet also,- some terribly failing ones.  Too many bankruptcies went against us, but some great success stories also found us.

And en-route throughout, it has never been boring !  ( Matter of fact, many times we could have used some "boring")    Machineco and its fore-runners has put us in touch with scam artists, serious artists, and artsy dwellers, for we discovered along the way, that many folks buying or selling machines are also involved with leaving or entering new buildings.  This led us into a side line of industrial real estate, a branch of that business that makes the housing market look anemic.  And now we're developing lofts, the hot new market that has opened up so much that our new sister WebSite www.canallachine.com received more hits in less than half the time than www.machineco.com our mainline machinery WebSite existed!

Our little business has opened up many alternative avenues of endeavour, and recently, these now extend around the globe.  This in turn has led to connections, agents and contacts on all five continents.  We deal daily with people from around the world, often by E-mail, though fax is still
king in the back waters of  the third world.

Adventures that we have enjoyed or endured, include fires, floods, thefts and burglaries and accidents a-plenty.  We also have probably saved lives, and also unfortunately, lost acquaintances along the way, many through natural causes, but some with whom we dealt met tragic ends, even
to suicide and murder!   We have also encountered, not just from the machinery business but also from the real estate end, death threats, and bike gang threats but also through police intervention, goods have been recovered, or even better, fully paid for, by doing the utmost to conduct our own litigation.  But the stories of our steep learning curve in D I Y trips through the courts are also so adventurous, filled with traiterous liars, and really decent people, yes INCLUDING lawyers, that it
should be the topic of yet another book.

Like action, do you?  Well let me tell you, court action can have all the nail biting edge of the former "reality" shows on TV.  Dealing with someone  ripping you off for 50+ big ones, can really put an edge to anybody's day!  There is ample room in that field alone, with it's occasional retributional "legal skullduggery" necessarily practiced to recover a bit of what we were owed, that we could write another book all by itself, entitled "Sue the B _ _ _ _ _ _ S",- for Fun & Profit" :-).

We conducted synchronized military-precision legal attacks, "Seizures before Judgment"
and several "Examinations under Discovery" as woe-begone defendants covered themselves
in calumny and ashes, lying under oath, etc..  And that's when they didn't disappear entirely
only to be ferreted out by sympathetic judges.

This led to the discovery of "Sport Suits".   No, not a loud-mounted, check-coated cigar chomping "Have I got a great machine for you!" salesman, but a series of lawsuits in which we have worked out a mechanism to easily use the courts for what they were intended,- to bring justice to the deprived (us) rather than mostly cash to the lawyers (them).  Works for us!   Someday I'll write another book,......... so it can work for you too. Sorry, but we can't divulge right now;  the Bar Association might start proceedings !

But let's leave the discussion of disappearing machines, fraud, embezzlement, and even death and destruction that also tragically happened to several of those with whom we coincidentally made business.  Let us move ahead to the first chapter describing how we started by saying as Charles Dickens lead-in to the Machineco story,-  "I was born..."

Chapter 1

On a slightly graying Saturday, full of promise in 1971, Rod and I entered the premises of a tiny shop on St. Lawrence Boulevard, conscious that I was the only native-born Canadian, on the block, nad everyone else was surviving.  Here we were amongst the refugees of what was then the cold war, Polish, Portuguese, the Russian candy and handy shop on the one side, the Orthodox Jewish schmata related business just north of us.  And in full bloom of attendant expectations, friend and partner, Rod Ramsey turned the #9 Dominion brass key in the lock, and taking a deep breath of fresh air, readied our selves to set up the new, still musty shop.

For I had just purchased the whole inventory, lock stock and barrel (or so I thought) of a small business whose name you may fathom from this inscription from the Christmas tree glitter sign over the entry way as " 'Universal Rebuilt Car Parts' - We Rebuilt"  !   It's owner had proclaimed he was returning to his native land and wanted out.  Well that WAS the story.  I'd foolishly rounded up all the scroungable funds from 5, (up,- count 'em, FIVE) friends.  Then we'd duly registered ourselves as
the newly minted Universal Tools and Equipment  Company, since the word  U N I V E R S A L was the largest  name on the existing sign, then paid the grand sum of $650 to one Haim Stern, owner
of what could be best described today as a "junk business".

........ and there, peeking out from a common red brick carefully placed two strides inside, upon
the front stained coco-matting strip inside the front door, lay a yellow folded paper.  Very curious,
as we'd had the keys to ourselves, we thought for at least 3 days, I bent over and unfolded it
to its full legal  length, only to be astonished at its contents ! For it was a ........

                                                                                        to be continued   - jd