A Visit to Mouse Surplus,

A Visit to Mouse Surplus
Page 2 of 3

The first step was a move to a newly acquired warehouse that is approximately fifteen minutes from Walt Disney World’s front gates, a substantial drive in the opposite direction from the previous warehouse near the Orlando International Airport. Looking more like a set from “The Hills Have Eyes�? than from “Enchanted�?, the Haines City headquarters lacks curb appeal, to be certain. But Schoenith and his crew were hard at work to get things in order, while web sales director Marc Pianko gets ready to re-launch MouseSurplus online with a bevy of tantalizing eBay auctions.

When it comes to buyers, Schoenith has his eye on people who are looking for something unique, and something that with a little bit of imagination they can “repurpose�? in their home. What he’s loath to do is just become part of the food chain in dismantling the Disney dream. For instance, he’s reluctant to part with the sleek chrome toppings bar stations by selling them off to a scrap metal company. He’s willing to wait to find someone who sees their intrinsic value as a well designed part of the Disney magic - like the resort guest his assistant Sunny Sedlacek overheard on a flight from Orlando back to Detroit. “They were talking about having seen the units sitting backstage�? remarked Sedlacek, standing close by her boss, “And they remarked on how cool they looked.�? That’s the ideal MouseSurplus customer, someone with an eye and the proper checking account balance to wrangle one of the puppies from Florida to their patio. MouseSurplus is happy to help. But buyer beware, getting the bargain home can be as much or more than the cost of the item itself if you’re not careful.

Schoenith recalls his first big purchase, “A kiosk from the parking lot of Disneyland, which I bought at auction for what I thought was a very good price, considering; just fifteen hundred dollars. When Disney arranged to have it shipped to Detroit I was floored to find out the cost was six thousand dollars! When Disney builds a crate, they BUILD a crate! I thought ‘these things have been out in the elements, in a parking lot in Anaheim, for years. Why can’t they just ship them as they are?’�? And even if fifteen hundred dollars sounds way out of your average collector’s league, there’s no arguing that the number of collectors willing to pay prices this high and higher is in plentiful supply. Just attend the live auction segment of any Disney event and you’ll be wondering where these folks were on adoption day.

MouseSurplus, however, is mindful of the cost of getting that Monorail to Montana or that Toad mobile back to Berkley, and they make an effort to keep shipping as safe and economical as possible. And the offerings range from t-shirts to ride vehicles and almost everything in-between, so there’s plenty of more affordable magic to go around. Out of necessity, part of that inventory includes furnishings such as bedspreads, armoires, and other ephemera from the hotels (remember those Polynesian Resort pillows?) The company can’t pick and choose what they purchase from Disney, and frequently have to take the job of tearing out room after room of furnishings for that one opportunity to snag an Epcot ride-car or an X-Wing fighter from Disney MGM. Disney, in turn, is even more cautious about not releasing things that they’d prefer not resurface in somebody’s used car lot, such as the giant Jessica Rabbit that was destroyed, rather than go astray somewhere west of the Mississippi in hopes of luring someone in to buy an old Honda Accord. But even the bits and pieces of All Star Resort and the Cruiselines can come together to make new Disney magic, as the MouseSurplus showroom bears witness in this clip:

Video Clip: Low BandwidthHigh Bandwidth

If anybody can make this project work, and turn a deserted warehouse in the middle of almost nowhere to a well manicured house of dreams, it’s probably Michael Schoenith. And while it’s not his purpose, it’s still part of the plan to turn some of that pixie dust into dollars. Otherwise, this is a very expensive storage facility for his own personal collection of mouse ephemera.