"A.J. Hidell" orders rifle from Klein's, April 29, 1965

[Gil Jesus]

"A.J. Hidell" with a Florida address of 6404 Pelican Drive South, St. Petersburg, orders an Enfield "sporter" 30.06 with a scope from a Klein's magazine ad.

Pays with a money order.

Sound familiar ?

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=60399#relPageId=90

The claim was there was a newsman who was "testing" Klein's for some reason or another.

$33.28 in 1965 in today's dollars is $ 313.02.

That's a lot of money to risk losing on a prank.

https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1965?amount=33.28

Edited August 13, 2022 by Gil Jesus

[Tom Gram]

Interesting part about this incident is that when William Waldman got the order, he did not immediately call the FBI. He first contacted a so-called “source” of his in Florida, and that’s how he figured out it was Lowell Brandle who lived at that address and that he was a reporter for the St. Petersburg Times:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=62239#relPageId=26

It seems like fairly odd behavior for the manager of a Sporting Goods store. I was actually going to post this in one of the other threads as one of the several reasons to be suspicious of Waldman. 

I agree it seems like a lot of money, but he did get a refund, and the evidence suggests that it really was just Brandle testing the scrutiny of Klein’s, and in a way a sort of prank IMO. Brandle’s letter to Waldman is freaking hilarious - lavishing sarcastic praise on Klein’s for not shipping a rifle to a pseudonym, and asking Waldman for a description of the procedures they use to prevent shipping a rifle to the wrong person. Trolling in the pre-internet days at its finest:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=92601#relPageId=4

Edited August 13, 2022 by Tom Gram

[Gil Jesus]

I'm willing to bet his "source" was in the post office.

[David Von Pein]

14 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

Brandle’s letter to Waldman is freaking hilarious - lavishing sarcastic praise on Klein’s for not shipping a rifle to a pseudonym, and asking Waldman for a description of the procedures they use to prevent shipping a rifle to the wrong person. Trolling in the pre-internet days at its finest.

What makes you think Brandle's letter was "hilarious" and "sarcastic" and an example of "trolling"?

I don't see any of those traits residing in this letter at all.

What parts of the (incomplete)* letter presented on that Ferrell page do you think are so "freaking hilarious".  (Just curious.)

* Edit --- I now see that the letter from Brandle is not incomplete. The pages are merely out of order on the Ferrell website. Page 2 is shown before page 1 for some reason.

 

Edited August 14, 2022 by David Von Pein

[Tom Gram]

30 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

What makes you think Brandle's letter was "hilarious" and "sarcastic" and an example of "trolling"?

I don't see any of those traits residing in this letter at all.

What parts of the (incomplete) letter presented on that Ferrell page do you think are so "freaking hilarious".  (Just curious.)

 

Brandle is praising Klein’s for not shipping a rifle to someone using a pseudonym, and saying how embarrassing it must be for Klein’s for there to be irresponsible firms out there that would do such a terrible thing - and asking Klein’s about the measures they take to prevent such things from happening. 

Brandle is saying this after ordering a rifle in the name of A.J. Hidell, the pseudonym Oswald allegedly used to order the murder weapon of JFK from Klein’s, that Klein’s shipped out without question. 

You don’t see the sarcasm? 

[David Von Pein]

1 hour ago, Tom Gram said:

You don’t see the sarcasm? 

Not really, no.

[Tom Gram]

10 hours ago, David Von Pein said:

Not really, no.

Don’t know what to tell you then David. Brandle is, quite clearly, disparaging and insulting the hell out of Waldman for shipping out the JFK murder weapon to an alias, while saying the exact opposite in the friendliest language imaginable. It’s pretty clever. 

Edited August 14, 2022 by Tom Gram

[David Von Pein]

9 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

Don’t know what to tell you then David. Brandle is, quite clearly, disparaging and insulting the hell out of Waldman for shipping out the JFK murder weapon to an alias, while saying the exact opposite in the friendliest language imaginable. It’s pretty clever. 

You could be right, Tom. But if you are, I'd agree that Brandle was "pretty clever" by disguising his insults to make them look like compliments. But, being the newspaperman that he was, perhaps Brandle was accustomed to employing such "disguises".  🙂

Edited August 15, 2022 by David Von Pein