Question about Harborside Terminal

I'm starting from almost complete ignorance here, so this is just muttering and hoping something make sense.

Am assuming that Harborside Terminal Warehouse was not owned or operated by Crescent - meaning pretty hefty bills if the goods stayed any length of time - and that this potentially ate into any advantage from not paying duty until the goods were sent to the final destination. 

I did have a very quick look at how these warehouses work, and got the impression that the vast majority do any minor modifications on site. In fact, I found no examples of sending them elsewhere for this. But I also got the impression that you would need to be the owner/operator of the warehouse to do that work on site.

I'm guessing that this arrangement of sending them to Rupp was beneficial not only for the modications, but that Rupp's bill would be offset to some extent by savings in storage costs. The whole purpose of bonded warehouses was to fix the problem of importers being hit with the levy upon delivery of the goods - often a massive impost to fork out before avtually making any sales.

If as you say, sending goods for modification is within the rules on deferred duty, then the arrangement is sound business.

Not aware of any work done on this form to any kind of depth - and chances are, you probably would need to verify it anyway, by doing the digging all over again. Another guess: the advance section pertains to insurance, loans or indemnity of goods being shifted to another site - in this case, Rupp's (perhaps against advanced sales?). Can't read the form clearly enough to offer anything else, and I have anythng right here anyway you probably already knew it.

I was thinking that too about the advances being loans because I read that some bonded warehouses do that kind of thing, issue loans against liability of the goods, basically using the warehouse balance as collateral, which would make sense with the language in the document. I got curious though because of how the document is set up, each advance is associated with a removal balance that supposedly doesn’t happen until several months later, and I found that provision in the customs manual allowing for manipulation of goods outside the bonded warehouse. I also think it’s weird that Crescent would remove such large quantities of rifles at one time and have to pay customs duties before Rupp refurbished them.

Basically I’m trying to figure out if there’s any way a rifle from the lot of 520 could be associated with the 6/18/62 shipment to Klein’s. Whether C2766 or N2766 was included in that shipment is a different story, but the shipment definitely happened. We know from Fred Rupp’s handwritten shipping book, assuming it’s at least a somewhat credible document, that he had other cartons in his possession and mixed them in with shipments containing cartons from the lot of 520, but we have no idea where these cartons came from. The book also shows that from December ‘62 through February ‘63 Rupp was only shipping about 20-30 cartons per month, so unless Rupp is Superman with his refurbishment-repackaging operation and had a VERY busy month of November, he was maintaining a sizable inventory for months. Why would Crescent “remove” hundreds of unrefurbished cartons in October and pay duties unless they were already guaranteed for sale, or, as per my advances theory, some were literally already sold? It’s certainly possible that Crescent received a bunch of advance or recurring sales orders, but if I were Louis Feldsott I wouldn’t even touch the bonded warehouse unless I knew the goods would sell QUICKLY, to minimize the gap between revenue and duty payment in case an order was cancelled. If there was a mechanism in place allowing for Rupp to refurbish the rifles outside of the warehouse without breaking the bond I would certainly take advantage of it, and if there was a way to sell the rifles for consumption directly from Rupp without having to return them to the warehouse, and only inform Harborside of the official “removal” when revenue was either obtained or guaranteed, I’d be all over it.

I might poke around online and look for importer forums or something like that and see if anyone wants to interpret the “advances” thing.

Of note;
January 9, 1959
"The Pennsylvania Railroad has sold its Harborside Terminal Warehouse at 34 Exchange Place, Jersey City, to the Harborside Terminal Company of New York. The sale, which eventually will include the railroad's adjoining Piers D and F, is subject to approval by the New Jersey Public Utility Commission."

Then comes a shipment of 5200 rifles in Oct 1960 for Cresent Arms.
The space rent accumulated for two years on the rifles.
Fred Rupp orders 1700 rifles from the bonded warehouse to be sent to Rupp.
Adam Consolidated is billed for storage.
Rupp starts repairing and shipping the 1700 rifles.
Then 90-70-64-40
Leaving in May(?) 1963 a total of 860 rifles at the bonded warehouse still accumulating space rent.

In all of the paperwork there is no unbroken trail of C2766 rifle although its likely a rifle 2766 was included. (Be it C or N or no Prefix.)

So to answer the question:
"... if there’s any way a rifle from the lot of 520 could be associated with the 6/18/62 shipment to Klein’s,"

NO.
That date is not related.
The documentation says Klein's orders 400.
And are shipped by Rupp to Klein's
From a stockpile of 1700 carcano rifles model 91 T (91 E)





"The FBI discovers from a gun dealer in Dallas that Italian surplus WW2 rifles were being distributed by Crescent Firearms in New York City. This leads the FBI to Klein's in Chicago after finding out that Crescent had sold the "C2766" rifle to Klein's.
YES, THE FBI FOUND OUT IT WAS SOLD ON 6/18/62. WHY THEN DID THE FBI LATER REPORT THAT CRESCENT SOLD C2766 TO KLEINS IN JANUARY, 1963?"

So the importer sold rifle # 2766 twice... nah.

"Adams/Crescent purchase 500,000 Mannlicher-Carcano's"

"In 1958, Adams Consolidated, in conjunction with their sister company Crescent Firearms, purchased a half-million rifles from the Italian government and opened an office at Via Sirte 62, in Rome. Adams paid an average cost of $1.10 for unserviceable 6.5 mm rifles, $2.70 for serviceable 6.5 mm rifles.
a company in Storo, Italy, owned by Luciano Riva, to recondition, process, pack and ship the rifles at a cost of $1.72 each. Riva reconditioned and shipped 44,490 of the guns from his factory in Storo through the Italian ports of Milan, Naples, and Genoa to New York. One of the shipments, in September, 1960, contained 5200 (520 cartons) Model 91 and Model 38 Mannlicher-Carcano's.
As Klein's sold out of their 41 1/2 inch rifles, they placed an order in January, 1962, with Crescent Firearms for Model 91TS rifles-a 36 inch Mannlicher-Carcano."

"NOTE: Neither the FBI nor the Warren Commission determined if Crescent Firearms was Klein's only supplier of Mannlicher-Carcano's from 1958 thru January, 1962."

The final 12 shipments of Mannlicher-Carcano's left the Storo plant in September, 1960, on a truck bound for Genoa. On September 28 1960, Adams Consolidated/Crescent Firearm's shipment of 520 cartons of rifles was assigned lot number 91594, on Bill of Lading #18, and loaded aboard the steamer Elettra Fassio.
The shipment, which included 170 numbered cartons of Model 38, 6.5 mm rifles 

Of note:
These could be 36 inch or 40.2 inch rifles... no measurements included for the rifles
But 1700 or 170 cases are equal to the 170 cases or 1700  rifles initially trucked to Rupp.
Initial 400 are order by Klein's in Jan 62(?) is for their 91TS w/scope sale.
But how many 40 inch vs 36 inch rifles are sent or received in the 5200
I might be inclined to say 1700 carbine 36"
VS the other separately stored cases ie 40 inch rifles.
If all else doesn't matter except sales price then that might go out the window
I've combined the docs here for ease of viewing;


Of note is the billing for the space taken up by the cartons or cases/crates of rifles in Harborside Terminal Co bonded warehouse.
How much area or square foot did 5200 rifles in cases of 10 occupy?

Or alternatively how much space does 86 cartons or 860 rifles occupy?

The billing to Adam Consolidated is for a space described as 3/5 * 1/2* /11

To me this is:
3 feet 5 inches by 1 foot 2 inches by 11 inches.
Or roughly 41 inches tall by 14 inches deep and 11 inches wide!

I can't imagine a single carton this small holding 5 rifles or requisite 10 rifles (5 up 5 down)...let alone 86 remaining cartons of 10 rifles or 860 carcano of indeterminate length
Any ideas on this space time continuity issue?

I also imagine the keeping of a photo (supposedly from microfiche??) of an envelope and an order form and the existence of an unprocessed money order (no FRB stamps) mean to me the 'company' was holding everything.
As in sending it back,,, or had problems fulfilling an order.
Waiting to hear from a buyer as to a substitute.
Would mail to AJ make it into LHO's PO box?
Probably, it's most likely as clerks just shuffle that stuff into boxes at post office's by address.

What mail was still in LEE'S PO BOX when he was... arrested/murdered?
Were the employees of Klein's sometimes evasive



As to the ADVANCES
as described by the sheet there are areas for services such as Coopering,  Cartage, Weighing, Misc'L Advances, and Bond.
After BOND is the bond number thus completing that section.
Had there been Miscellaneous Lading (money) Advances there should be an amount there
(Example from another warehouse form)




Above this section is the billing for the storage area based on an agreement "PER 22 ea"
So how does that per 22 each addendum relate to the space taken or billed?


Hope this helps!
Cheers, Ed

Thanks for the reply Ed. This is all great info for this thread. I am familiar with all of these documents but not the other warehouse example. This clarifies a lot, so thank you. I guess the "Weighing" and "Miscellaneous Advances" are just services performed in the warehouse, and not even associated with the spreadsheet. 

I feel like this actually lends credence to my theory though. Why is there a separate date and invoice number associated in a row with each of Rupp's removals? I still haven't found any explanation for this part of the document and maybe you can help.  

Using the 170 91I rifles as an example, what if Rupp actually removed them for refurbishment in January '62, and processed a blanket "delivery order" only after the entire quantity had been sold, refurbished, or some other metric? The August delivery order would then just be a mechanism for Crescent to shorten the gap between paying customs duties and revenue. 

As far as what Louis Feldsott gave the FBI on 11/22-23 it's not exactly straightforward. I'll try an ultra-brief summary of my understanding, but I'm sure I'll do a more detailed post on this at some point. Of course his affidavit says it was C2766 being sold to Klein's on 6/18/62 but the affidavit was prewritten and sent to Feldsott by the Warren Commission. The 11/22 10:41pm New York teletype says that N2766 was shipped 6/18/62, then there's the Joseph Chapman memo referencing the Chicago teletype saying records at Klein's showed N2766 was received from Crescent. The problem is that the Chicago teletype says no such thing. The first section is a verbatim transcription of the New York teletype prefaced by "New York tel advised". There are two paragraph breaks before the section regarding N2766, so it's pretty clear and I believe pretty much indisputable that Chapman made a mistake. The only evidence suggesting the rifle was actually N2766 is a single teletype from New York. 

The only other source (available online) saying that Feldsott advised 11/22 that C2766 was shipped on 6/18/62 is the 11/30 Gemberling report. The 10:41 New York tel was sent by Paul Brana. Brana sent another teletype, at least to Dallas, at 12:32am (11:32pm Dallas time). As far as I know this teletype isn't available online, at least on the Mary Ferrell database, though neither is the 10:41 teletype except transcribed in the Chicago tel. Basically I'm wondering if there was an update on the Crescent records. Another curious detail is the teletype that was obviously the source document for the second half of Gemberling's 11/30 section on Crescent Firearms, where it says something like "received from Italy and as above was subsequently shipped to Klein's" (3:39am 11/24, Gemberling basically copied it verbatim) is not included in the 12/1 report of agent names who sent teletypes from New York to Dallas... but other random New York teletypes were left out too. 

Ultimately the question comes down to whether or not Feldsott would sign a bogus affidavit. Oddly enough, the HSCA actually looked into this, and found another FBI report on Feldsott from 4/7/63, which was around the time other rifle witness were interviewed regarding the original documents allegedly turned over to the FBI for the Warren Commission in March. 4/7/63 is the same date Hoover sent a memo telling agent O'Neil to revise Feldsott's 11/27 302 report. Hoover only mentions harmless errors, but John Armstrong found the original 302 and O'Neil actually removed major content, most notably any mention of a date Feldsott said C2766 was shipped to Klein's ('original' has 2/7/63 date). The 4/7 report was still classified when Armstrong put together his rifle document collection in the 90's but was supposedly released in full toward the end of the ARRB in 1998. I requested the report from NARA but I guess everything is f***'ed still due to COVID. If anyone has seen this or knows anyone who has I'd love to get a copy of 180-10120-10337. There's an HSCA face sheet from one guy who read the report and apparently it says something about Feldsott finding and turning over a sales record on 11/22. I'm wondering if Feldsott really did find what he said in his affidavit and the affidavit was sent to him to appease him, get him on the record, and keep him quiet... but then we have to wonder where the N2766 business from Brana came from.

This brings us to the question of, IF C2766 was shipped from Crescent to Klein's on 6/18/62 why would the FBI want to switch the order to Feb '63, and I think you are right in that it probably would have something to do with 36" vs. 40" rifles. I also think it relates to Klein's and Crescent/Rupp operations and inventory practices, and is pretty friggin complicated to put together a coherent theory to articulate why it was done, and how it was covered up. This gets us into the whole issue of carton #3376, which brings us back to the point of my original post about this Harborside document showing invoices in a row with Rupp's August and October removals dated January and March '62. David Joseph's work on the rifle is extremely valuable, but if you've noticed from my first post on Waldman 4 and the points I've made here I disagree with a lot of what he's written. IF C2766 was in carton #3376, which has no possible route from Harborside until OCTOBER '62, how does C2766 get to Klein's in June unless there's a duplicate serial number rifle, C2766 was never actually in that carton, OR carton #3376 was actually removed from Harborside BEFORE October '62? Josephs' theory is basically that Klein's never had the rifle at all, and I disagree with that. I side with you and John Armstrong in that I think that Feldsott's affidavit is credible. I believe there's a reason the 10 carton shipment from February was piggybacked on, but properly impeaching Rupp's shipping book and Waldman Exhibit 4 is not exactly a walk in the park. I'll save a deep dive into my take on this question, document analysis, etc. for another time, unless you want to get into it here.  

I'll end by addressing another one of your points, Ed, that mail from Hidell would probably make its way to Oswald's box. The Warren Commission's whole deal thanks to Harry Holmes lying about postal regulations was that Oswald could still pick up mail from A. Hidell even if Hidell wasn't listed on the disappeared section of the box application. The thing is, thanks to Holmes himself, we know that Oswald was NOT the only one authorized to receive mail at box 2915. There's an 11/22 teletype sent from Dallas at 10:29pm I haven't seen much discussion of that says Holmes found several change of address forms for Mrs. Lee Oswald regarding box 2915. We know Marina used the box since we have mail from her to the Russian Embassy for example, but I don't see much discussion on the fact that "Mrs. Lee Oswald, or Marina, etc. was clearly listed on the missing section of the box application as being authorized to receive mail there. There are also several FBI reports and memos regarding the box from 11/23 that say the box was in the name of Mrs. Lee Oswald who was "believed to be Oswald's mother". Shockingly(not) no documentation for Mrs. Lee Oswald and box 2915 ever made it to the FBI lab for handwriting analysis, even though plenty of Marina's handwriting samples were sent to the lab. The only documents sent on the 23rd were the change of address form for Mr. Lee Oswald, which was only one of I believe 4 mentioned in the 11/22 10:29 Dallas teletype (the others referenced Mrs. Oswald), and the alleged box application signed by Lee. Once the box application shows up, for which I haven't seen much contemporaneous reporting besides inclusion in a longer summary from Dallas, any mention of Mrs. Oswald being associated with the box vanishes. I'm wondering if the reason why the FBI thought Mrs. Oswald was Lee's mother is that the change of address forms were clearly NOT in Marina's handwriting. Could there be a reason the Klein's documents say A. Hidell and not "Alek"? What if Holmes wasn't quite as full of it as we think and standard practice in Dallas was to allow people to pick up mail addressed to someone not on the application...but would they turn over mail in a women's name to a man? What if someone, Ruth Paine, etc. made a fake ID for "Alana Hidell" or something, and presented herself as Mrs. Lee Oswald? That's enough speculation for one night.

Much obliged.

quick couple thoughts,
Fred Rupp uses a 8/22/62(?) Letter from Cresent(?)
for the 8/29/62 order or removal of 170 cases of rifles
Rupp uses LTR 8/22 as the Purchase Order or customer number to get rifles from Harborside
AND as this is based on an agreement about space it is adjusted accordingly, as this space is changed, and reduced.... or is it.
.. the last column of charges seems to tick up and seems related to the circled dates descending the form
As Jan is 7k, then Feb is 8k March 9k
So the charges keep going 'up' as it were...??
SO ARE CHARGES GOING UP MEANING THE RENT ETC ARE OWED AND THUSLY KEEP GOING UP
The customs duties are not explained other than whats shown on one document in one sentence claiming the customs broker cleared the 5200 rifles.... when? As a whole? Or at once out of 44,000 rifles shipped from Italy out of a half million.
The rent of space seems set at 1k per month.
That's if there is a decimal point not represented in the running charges listings...
Or charges increase by 10k monthly if no decimal.
Not saying 10 thousand dollars as we have no idea what the charges listed actually represented.
DOLLARS? DOLLARS AND CENTS?
are we to divide by 22 per or some agreed factor.
IdK.

The odds of several 2766 rifles with or without C Prefix goes up every step closer we get to those half million carcano.

TO ANSWER YOUR MAIN QUESTION:
"Why is there a separate date and invoice number associated in a row with each of Rupp's removals? I still haven't found any explanation for this part of the document"

Separate Date and Invoice No on the Rupp orders (removals)
I imagine those are Invoice No's of which are sent by Harborside to Cresent for monthly payments, accounts receivable, type stuff.
The circled months follow along with Invoicing as best they could except from May to October 63 there is a gap then in Nov 63 Harborside is like hey come get these murder weapons... okay maybe not that at all, but the gap is interesting
Invoicing number goes up in a 1k per month incremental too fwiw.
It appears the remaining rifle sit.
Klein’s pulls their stock of carcano after assassination and I guess no other retailer was interested in selling a murder weapon either and the rifles continued accumulating charges.
Is this making sense, historically and warehousing wise?

Yes enough for one day.
Cheers, Ed

This is definitely helpful thanks again. I’m still a bit confused as to how/why that section of the spreadsheet with the other dates has no relation at all to the previous six columns in the same row. Maybe spreadsheeting in the 60s was a little weirder but what prompted my inquiry is that such a set up is odd for a functional document. There is no heading identifying those last three columns as an unrelated section, so you would think the “charges” and invoice numbers have some relation to the balance remaining in the warehouse, which allegedly doesn’t change until August ‘62.

The customs duties would not have been paid by Adams Consolidated/Crescent until the dates on the Rupp removals from the bonded warehouse, and only for the removed balances…so does that go directly from Crescent through the Custom’s broker, or is Harborside involved?  That’s a good point that we have never seen any of those documents.

I noticed that about the incremental invoice numbers,  but haven’t looked very closely at the charges. If the explosion of invoices around Nov. 63 is  related to removals though, then wouldn’t the invoice in Jan ‘62 for example have some connection to the removal of 170 cartons?  See what I’m getting at? Also why would you need a dozen invoices spread out over months for 86 cartons? This gets at another point I hinted at in my original post. Rupp’s shipping book shows he had cartons in his possession NOT from the lot of 520 which were mixed in for shipments to customers. Where’d he get them? We have no supporting documentation for anything besides the lot of 520.

EDIT: I looked at the charges and noticed both the invoice numbers and "charges" reset in cycles of 12, but the charges are a little weird in that they first go from 12 back to 1 in July and then 11 to 1 the following June, and have the first number as invoice number (month of year) + 6, except for the 11 to 1 business. So maybe charges were incurred 6 months after invoice, with their own associated document number? Basically I don't think the charges refer to actual dollar amounts. 


As stated in original post, I think the invoice number penciled in with a starting number of 2 in January is one invoice covering both Jan. and Feb., since all the remaining invoice numbers have the first number associated with month of the year. 

Also on taking a second look, I'm still not sure why is '63 only penciled in on the first invoice numbers for April and May. Did nothing happen at all from March '62 to Apr. 63!? The Rupp D/O number dates only have day and month, so I would assume the "Jan" on our questioned section refers to 1962 also... 

I think we are making progress in reverse engineering this document and I really appreciate the replies.

All good questions!

Had the sheet been filled in for Rupp's removals starting on the August line of this form, it may mean something different than starting from the top line,.. and that's where charges are running from Jan till form runs out of lines.



I imagine it's first usage was as a billing form (also noted atop form 'billing') and thus running from Jan to June of the next year. 1 year Six months.

And then Rupp showed up in the middle, removing cartons and Harborside kept track of removals, on that sheet, likely starting at top line to give room for multiple removals, and dates are separate at left side of form anyway, so seems that's how this particular form was used in a general fashion for the job it sorta was intended for.
Or it was used exactly as intended to show both itemized removals and a running bill of charges to Adam Consolidated.
This form would be used by accounting to generate a billing invoice which accounting dept. could pull charges per month vs any payments and or removals(reduced space rent?)

"If the explosion of invoices around Nov. 63 is related to removals though, then wouldn’t the invoice in Jan ‘62 for example have some connection to the removal of 170 cartons?"

No as there is only a tenuous pattern, Harborside could of gotten a lot more clients during such a period and then will be showing same pattern again afterwards.
Normal number, then more, back to normal number.
The point is the pattern of increments not any direct evidence of anything else.
It's only related to monthly billings.

OKAY I see you looked at it and see they are patterns of 12 generally.

Yes six months is part of the story for billing,
As is the measurement and the 22 per.
Since the rental portion says Rifle Cartons and the measurement would be a carton size, though ten rifles is tight fit. Though that's what document reads. Perhaps 22 "cartons" fill a floor area of a room 22x3/5 by 22×1/2 by 22×/11
= 75'2" × 23'8" × 20'
Now that is a storage space!
Does this make more sense?

I can speculate the 63 beside circled months but no idea when it was done.
Was it concurrent with the invoice and charges or with Rupp's removals.
I'd be inclined against Removals only due to the circled months and invoice' patterns...
Was it due to payments or some other accounting.
Needs more study to be conclusive, perhaps another fresh set can peek at the forms patterns.

I see the circled months as related to invoice
It seems the circled months with 63 after are there to denote this is Jan 63 to June 64 as the accounting dept checks bill is paid or some accounting function. Imo.

No worries on asking questions as only stupid people think they have all the answers!. Helps when you have a thought out hypothesis as such.
Cheers,
Ed

This is progressively making more sense, I think. I admittedly kinda looked over the whole storage thing in your first reply, just because I thought that if the numbers in the righthand columns were storage charges, that just raised the question of why Harborside would log future removals in the same rows used for storage charges based on space dependent on the carton balance left in the warehouse. There are two separate columns for date, but one is blank and the other has months, so I’d think specific dates of removal would be logged in their corresponding months.  

I took a closer look at the storage business,  and like you said the 3/5, 0/11, 1/2 seems tight for the the measurement of a 10-rifle carton, and that the base storage rate which I assume is determined based on some unit of floor space or volume is getting billed per 22 cartons. I’m not really following your calculation though. If it’s billing for square footage and we’re stacking the cartons 41”x11”, 22 cartons comes out to:

[(41/12)*(11/12)]*22 = 68.9 ft^2

23 cartons bumps us over 70 square feet, so maybe they are billing for 70 square foot section S, of Unit 3, Room 2? At 520 cartons you’d have 24 14” layers, so 28 feet high, or if we flip it and stack 41x14, that’s 87.69 square feet (one more carton takes us over 90) so a 90sqft section S, stacked 22 feet high. The second option seems to make a little more sense, 10x9x22 vs. 10x7x28, or something like that.

However, why is the billing rate then listed at per 22 EACH? Maybe the reason the full dimensions of the carton are listed is that Harborside is actually billing per unit volume. 22 cartons comes out to about 80.3 cubic feet, which seems pretty arbitrary. What if we still have our 90 sqft section S though, and Harborside charges for each completely filled vertical foot of space in the section, so 22 cartons, in an 11inch high layer, are the quantity of cartons corresponding to the section S volume measurement? If this is the case, and our questioned columns of invoices and charges represent storage, then we’re back to it being odd that removal balances would not be listed in their corresponding months.

Obviously this is all max-level speculative, and it still doesn’t really explain why some months have invoice numbers, some do not, but all have “charges”, plus the apparently 6 month offset in how the numbers for invoices and charges reset. I’m clearly missing something here. More eyes are always helpful.

Another thing I noticed is the second number after the “month” in the charges increases incrementally. First we have 70, 80, etc. up to 120, then 12, 22, 32 etc up to 112, then to 13…. What happened to the 1s? There’s something similar going on with the invoice numbers but it seems to jump from 3 in Jan, to 2 in March, back to 3 from Apr-May, then 0 in Nov-Dec.

Thanks again for contributing, this isn’t exactly as exciting as evaluating witnesses or something but it’s a topic I’ve never seen any discussion of anywhere, and even if it’s a mundane explanation which is pretty much guaranteed, I think there’s value in trying to figure out any unknown detail related to the case.

even if it’s a mundane explanation which is pretty much guaranteed, I think there’s value in trying to figure out any unknown detail related to the case.

Yes! That is a part of what we are striving for - understanding what should stay on the table and what should be taken off. 

Certainly not as sexy as chasing CIA spooks down manholes,  or evil doctors kidnapping bodies for post-mortem surgery... but someone has to do it. 

With whatever is left on the table, the big picture should become clearer...

I’ve been making some progress. I think I’m getting close to how they billed for storage and stacked the cartons. If section S is 8x10, which makes sense for standard 48x40 pallets (room for 3 x 2 pallets)  you can fit 2 cartons (41 in) long with a remainder of exactly 14 inches, and 10 cartons (11in) wide with a remainder of 10in. Then you are left with a 14 in wide section 10 feet long, enough space to stack 2 more cartons pointing the opposite direction, for exactly 22 cartons flat on the floor space and still within the boundaries of 8x10 section. I think this supports harborside billing per unit volume, with the flat rate billed per 22 EACH, as in it’s not a flat rate for floor space of the section, but for unit volume equivalent to each vertical layer, which will be 14 in high. As calculated in my last post the area of 22 cartons arranged in 11 inch dimension is about 68.9 sqft, so even though that’s all you can fit flat within the section, you still have about 11.1 open sqft of floor space. It so happens that each 14inch layer is equivalent to the also previously calculated 80.38 cubic feet, which is pretty damn close to 80, the unit volume if you increase the height of section S by one foot. I think this is moving past max-level speculation to a plausible theory as how the packing/billing worked at Harborside. Also Rupp’s October removals of 264 cartons just happens to be exactly 12 multiples of 22. I’m not sure where I’m going with this but progress is progress.

EDIT: If there's any merit to this, I can't help but come back to my original hypothesis. If the cartons are just stacked carton on carton, who does the palleting and lifting for Rupp to "personally truck" the cartons to Perkaskie PA? These things are not light, one carton weighs 55-75 lbs. Supposedly Rupp moved 170 of these things in one day. The 8/29/62 removal sheet is stamped 8:41am...is that when he showed up, or after he had moved, packed and drove off with over 10,000 lbs worth of rifles? Would there be any Harborside manpower involved, and would it be "invoiced" to Crescent? What kind of truck did Rupp have, or rent, if he has the ability to move over that kind of weight? Maybe I'm stretching a bit, but when you add these kind of questions to the whole functional document issue (if Harborside is really billing per unit volume), am I crazy in thinking something seems a little fishy with the "invoices" and "charges"?

EDIT2: Last thought for the night: If Rupp can move 170 cartons of 36" rifles (it's not even 100% clear the 170 were 36" but we'll go with it), and we ignore packaging that's ~9350lbs. The most alleged 40" rifles he moves at one time are 90, which would be 6750 lbs. He then takes the four hour round trip from Perkaskie PA to Harborside three more times in TWO WEEKS in a massive truck for loads of 5250, 4800, and 3000lbs. What's wrong with this picture?

Thanks for that,
Yes same idea different approaches.

41"×14"'×11" =6314" carton cubic inches
=3.6453935 cubic feet x 22 = 80 cubic or square feet if foot high (11")
Pallet 48x40 is 13.3 sqft.
80 / 13.3 = 6 pallet spaces
6 pallets and 520 cartons..... perhaps!
As they were separated by rifle type, 1700 of one type, etc. this is a within reason.
Rupp takes all 1700 rifles on two pallets to fill 36" carbine orders, ...August 63.
Leaving 350 cartons segregated among 4 pallets

4 x22 = 88 one level high
176 two levels
264 three levels high. (4th level+88=352, nearly perfection of 350)

Cheers, Ed

Good stuff Ed. I was thinking the same kind of thing last night with pallets vs. stacked. It certainly makes sense that the rifles would be palletized in the warehouse, but the “per 22 EA” on the document seems to imply someone did the calculation on what would fit in a single layer within an 8x10 space. So how would you stack the 48x40 pallets for the “per 22 EA” to still be meaningful? I was working with the assumption of zero leeway within the section, but if you aren’t as strict you can fit 11 cartons wide, on pallets. Each 40” pallet width can squeeze four 11” cartons, then you have the last pallet stacked 3 wide. So you got two three-pallet rows stacked one rifle long and 4, 4, 3 rifles wide, 22 cartons per layer. If your pallets are stacked four boxes high in "cubes" there’s your 88 cartons spread over 6 pallets, and you have to stack them six levels high to cover the whole 520, which with the pallets is gonna be over 30 feet. Rupps removal sheets show the “checkers tally” counting in groups of 16, usually with one group of 10 left over, so it does make sense the cartons were packed 16 to a pallet, at least for transport by Rupp, but there’s no evidence they were also in groups of 12. I can’t figure out a 16 + 10 arrangement that would still make the “per 22 EA” statement meaningful. I also can’t think of a good way to plop 22 cartons on a single stackable standard pallet.

Also, in reality with the pallets you are going to have more overlap in the section than just half an inch on each side if you go with the 4, 4, 3 arrangement. The tightest you could squeeze it would look something like:

[                                   120in                              ][6in]
[2in][40in pallet][2in][2in][40in pallet][2in]
                                                                 [40in pallet]

so why not allow literally another 6 inches and just have two rows of pallets stacked 4x4?

Basically if we palletize the cartons instead of just stack them it’s not as straightforward as to why the “per 22 EA” is important for billing. Are pallets not included in the volume calculation? Why does one layer of cartons in a six-pallet stacked arrangement determine storage rates, and if you remove pallets, why require calculating how the quantity removed relates to a single layer?  

Basically I think there’s a decent case here that the rifles just came off the shipping container (standard size about 8x20x8, so we need two containers for 520 cartons) and got stacked box on box in the warehouse.

We are definitely making headway, and I think getting more insight into the invoices and charges. Thanks so much again Ed for being down to bounce ideas around with me. I’m fairly new to the case…well, I’ve been obsessively reading assassination books for years, and following the Ed Forum, K&K, etc. but just started seriously digging into FBI files fairly recently, and haven’t participated in a JFK forum until now. So far this place is phenomenal, and I certainly didn’t expect this thread to turn into such a productive discussion.

We are definitely making headway, thanks again.

I would not stack pallets, just the cartons, layer of 22 cartons.
Cartons aren't reaching 80 feet high, they cover 80ish Sq ft one foot high.(one layer) as noted if you have 4 layers you need about 20sqft ( 6 pallets times 3.645 sqft each is 21.67 sqft)

and Rupp takes 170 cartons which were separated and required two pallets
350 cartons on the remaining 4 pallets of 48x40 or 3.645sqft = 14.58 sqft
350carton/22 per layer =15.9 layers / 4pallets =3.9 layers per pallet.
Was load on six pallets with a few more or less on each one depending the model rifle.
The 6 pallets would fit a room nicely.
or,


This calculator shows 6 pallets w 10 layers nine feet tall
Or 10 pallets 6 feet tall.
I'd be leaning towards the 10 pallets.
But....
I believe the billing issues would require further testimony by Harborside employees or further documentation, those agreements etc.
Seeing several pallets worth of rifles removed and charges still accumulating incrementally says it wasn't floor space, but a room rate the charges were based on, then wouldn’t the 22 per apply as an area calculation based on the measurement provided of a carton vs pallets.



.... Unless there were 24 pallets with 22 cartons ea...
13.333 sqft pallet x 24ea =320sqft area of floor taken up by such amount of pallets. (Unstacked.)
A 8 foot wide shipping container at 40 foot length is 320 feet of floor area.
Problem Solved!

But as far as billing for it goes........
It's going to take a leap of logic or information to reverse formulate it.
I'll keep eyes out for anything that could help.

As it stands your theory is intact just smooth out the edges with what is "known" now. Limit assumptions.

Cheers!
Ed

That would work, the unstacked 24 pallets of 22. 1x4x5 + 2 on top in an 8x40 space, but then why is Rupp repalletting them as 1x4x4 before loading them? I think the Rupp removal sheets are pretty solid evidence of an even 16 per pallet arrangement, but then you run into the trouble I outlined in my last comment about keeping the 22ea meaningful for storage billing.

The first scenario is basically same as mine just with a pallet base on the floor. Mine is an 8x10 space, which you can fit 22 cartons in arrangement I described without going over boundary, no pallets. I do like the pallet base idea for separation, but it seems like there’s some sort of space limitation, cause as stated in last comment allow another 6 inches and you have even pallets of 16 and layers of 24 instead of 22.

Both of these scenarios run into the question I posed two comments ago:
How on earth does Rupp lift, pack and load 5 tons worth of rifles without Harborside help before 9am, and who pays for warehouse labor? Would it be invoiced to Crescent? What still really stands out is you have invoices covering all the rows of Rupps removals, with different dates, then all of a sudden no removal, no invoice, until November (63?), though October looks like it’s there but smudged out. Invoice for warehouse labor plus storage “charges”?

I don’t think our questioned document really shows the “charges” increasing incrementally as actual dollar amounts, the initial designator resets to 1, first at 12, then at 11, and the second number increases with each reset, from 0 to 2 then to 3. I looked at the remaining numbers and they do end up being lower as you move forward, but not in any noticeable pattern. Curiously though the biggest drop off is from March to April, where it goes from 1810 to 0926. If you consider Rupps hypothetical unreported early removals, the invoice number designator of 2 I’d say would show the 170 and 90 were removed in February, so we’d expect a full charge for storage in March, then all of a sudden the bill is way cheaper in April. Maybe the “63” notation in April and May is actually a correction to the two invoice numbers instead of a year, actually reflecting that the invoice was processed in June, since the two designators are “43” and “53”. It would be the same kind of thing as the “23” designator in January covering invoices for both Jan and Feb, but then we are likely starting in Jan. ‘62, and our explosion of activity around November is 1962…This is all a stretch, but I’ll try to get back into the spreadsheet tonight and see if our progress on storage/billing can give any new ideas.

And yes, headway indeed.

Cheers,
Tom

Excellent, let's cut to the chase.
Rupp has the warehousemen use a forklift and they load a few pallets on his truck.
Rupp isn't charged labor, no labor is necessary, this is just pulling an order, that's what warehousemen do.

Again the space and area works out for the 520 cartons in a shipping container and on requisite pallets.
No sense making it convoluted.

A company orders a container load.
A company rents a space for it.

If you have a rifle left on one pallet the charges accrue....especially as it's in a warehouse bonded room.
Seems a quarterly or semi annual payment is made and the charges 'reset.'
Again, their are increments to the charges.
Don't get hung up on the parts that aren't going to be provable without any meaningful evidence.
Do billing or accounting practices really make or break the theory?
If you like, I believe Frederick is alive... I could try calling. He could shed light on the matter._

THAT THEORY AS ORIGINALLY STATED:
*"theory is basically that the “official” Rupp removals represent when each quantity previously removed for refurbishment had been sold to customers, so it’s possible that rifles from the 520 cartons were sold throughout 1962. Essentially what I’m saying is that Crescent Firearms used the bonded warehouse in the most logical way, to be able to defer customs duties until the rifles were actually sold. Does anyone know anything about this, or have you seen any sort of discussion of the “advances” section of the attached document?."*

I would say Crescent sells rifles they have orders for.
I would say the dates say they were not pulled from warehouse till 63.
If you are saying these 520 cases are to replace already sold rifles then you need to show other evidence of this to support it.
I do believe Crescent uses the bonded warehouse effectively to reduce costs.
Advances as speculated has been eliminated.

Carry on,
Cheers, Ed

Billing and accounting practice does not make or break the theory, but might give some insight into the numbers in our spreadsheet columns. Same thing with the storage arrangement. Yes a lot of the minutiae are  unprovable but if we come up with a logical scenario or scenarios that explain the evidence we do have, depending on how good the data fits our model there’s a chance we find some reasonable doubt against Rupp’s removal sheets, and that’s pretty big. We’ve already put together this kind of model with the storage arrangement, all based on “per 22 EA” and standard storage spaces, and have a couple scenarios that fit warehousing practice well enough that we can be pretty confident we’re at least close to reality. We certainly aren’t there yet with the topic of our inquiry, the invoices and charges, but I think we have enough to keep thinking about it based on :

1. The different date invoices-charges in the same row with Rupp removals.

2. The invoices stopping with Rupp’s removals, and a big gap of any invoices until what appears to be November, possibly ‘63.

3. Storage very likely being billed either per unit volume, or per pallet of 22 cartons, per our scenarios above, so that “charges”, assuming they relate in some way to storage, should be dependent on balance left in the warehouse, and removals should be reasonably be written in for the exact date in the corresponding month they occur.


Plus we still have some leads to follow. I’m going to throw the charges into Excel or something and see if there’s any logical formula that can generate the changes we see in the last 4 digits. We still don’t understand the offset and resets in the early digits to invoice-charges numbers, so any other information on standard bonded warehousing practice and billing (I’ll go back through the Customs manual), or warehousing in general, could let us put together a theory of what the invoice-charges numbers might refer to.

You might have the biggest lead of all by an enormous margin if there’s a way to ask Peterson himself. I would totally support this, to see if he could just look at the document and explain invoices and charges and the date discrepancy.

I totally agree that the most elegant solution for packing/billing is just pallets packed 22 per in a 8x40 space, and I’d be fully on board were it not for Rupps removal sheets indicating a 16 per pallet arrangement.

The word “advances” having any meaning here has definitely been eliminated, but I think it’s still an open question as to whether the months refer to ‘62 or ‘63, and what the two “63” notations actually mean. Are you saying that you are leaning towards the Rupp removal sheets being bogus, and that the invoices in same row refer to some activity related to removal of the cartons, which were logged with a “delivery order” by Rupp months earlier?  I’m all for it, either way undermines the entire chain of custody of the murder weapon.

I didn’t have the time tonight to really dig into anything, but I will tomorrow.

Thanks again Ed,
Tom

I took another look at Rupp's removal sheets and found something, uh, interesting I hadn't noticed before. The removals of 170 and 90, our first two, are the only ones showing an actual tally, with groups of 16 and 10. These are the same two removals hypothesized to be associated with the first invoice on our master sheet. However, they are signed by two different people. The same guy signs the removals of 170, 70, 64, and 40:








Then we have our removal of 90. Tell me this signature doesn't say what I think it says...



OSWALD?! Does that say Oswald? Or am I losing it? 
That's a hell of a coincidence if the guy checking the removal with the highest probability of containing C2766 was named, of all names, OSWALD.

EDIT: it almost looks like Lee's handwriting for f***'s sake.

EDIT2: Also this might be a stretch but if you remove the squiggle before the dark line on the first name, it looks a hell of a lot like “Lee”. Either way though, is this not a little weird?

Is it V Mac Donald?



At least that's what I'm seeing Tom.
Cheers!
Ed

Ah I figured I was hallucinating. I see that now too:lol!:    thanks Ed. I'm really terrible at reading cursive on some of these old documents, and the D looks really similar to a lot of O's I've seen. There's a few other cursive words/signatures on some documents I've wanted to figure out that I might post at some point. As for Harborside I haven't really done much on this since I've been digging into other stuff but I'll get around to it soon.

Harborside is interesting territory!
Appreciate the opportunity to explore it further.

Only photo I could find of the facilities name In ink.



Cheers
Ed

A good start here with Joseph's time-line. We can adjust it as necessary.

https://kennedysandking.com/images/pdf/JosephsMOTimeline.pdf

Cheers,
Ed

Ed, 

I've seen this timeline and I think we can revise a few things but I don't have time at the moment to really go into a ton of detail. I've been working on trying to nail down the chain of custody of the Klein's microfilm and think I'm getting pretty close to where I can post something interesting on ROKC. 

Maybe you can answer something about the money order though. Josephs has the FBI obtaining the Klein's First National Bank deposit slip from Waldman at 9:00 AM EST, and I do not know of any source for this information. The only reference I can find to the 11/23 Waldman interview with Chicago SAS Gale Johnson, James Hanlon and Phillip Wanerus is the 302 report, which was written on the 26th and does not mention the time:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10408#relPageId=198&search=rupp

Dallas doesn't report on the deposit slips until 10:46 PM EST and as far as I can tell this is the only document that was actually written on the 23rd that mentions those slips. The Secret Service reports were both written days later. 

Josephs also has Harry Homes finding the postal money order stub between 10 AM-12 PM EST, stating that this is when the "search begins". It appears that Josephs got this information from Holmes' testimony, which isn't exactly crystal clear on the issue, and mentions nothing about informing the FBI. However this same 10:46 PM EST Dallas teletype is the first communication regarding the stub being found by Holmes, and is the first direction to the Washington and New York Field Offices to begin their investigation into the postal and American Express money orders, respectively. 

I actually transcribed the 10:46 PM EST Dallas teletype a while ago to make it less of a pain to read:

RE: Chicago telephone call to Dallas, today.

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=62262#relPageId=51

But anyway the question is: do you know of a source for the 9:00 AM EST time for the Waldman FBI interview about the money order, and/or an earlier communication than 10:46 PM EST regarding the deposit slips and Holmes finding the money order stub? The only thing I can think of is the referenced Chicago to Dallas phone call in the Dallas teletype, but why would Dallas wait until almost 11PM to inform New York and Washington if the call was about the money order number? If the Postal Inspectors were really in overdrive since noon, why would FBI informant Holmes wait so long to inform the FBI?


If we are going to get away from Harborside and into the microfilm, money order, etc. it might be worth starting a separate post. I have a few different things I'm working on but I don't want to flood ROKC with a bunch of posts from me haha. I am planning to do one on the microfilm fairly soon though.

Tom