The ordnance salvers were not content to swallow this loss. The Salvage Board obtained $20,000 with which to experiment with the silk. An expert silk maker in the Sales Branch then tried boiling out the gum and oil and otherwise processing the fabric, after which he bleached, dyed, printed, and napped it. The result was a beautiful fabric, suitable for outer garments for both men and women, and for millinery, drapery, and upholstery. Beautiful color effects were obtained with it by certain silk-finishing companies. With this demonstration before the trade, the Salvage Board again asked for bids, and this time received a number of them, offering prices ranging from thirty-one cents a yard to forty. This still was not enough for the salvage salesmen, who went out and negotiated a contract with two companies--the Bush Terminal Company of New York and the McLane Silk Company of Turners Falls, Massachusetts--which netted the Government eighty-five and a half cents a yard, plus half the profits received from the sale of the fabric. A considerable quantity of the silk was sold under this arrangement. The expenses of the Ordnance Salvage Board were less than 6 per cent of the money received from sales and transfers. This sales cost compares favorably with similar costs in the mercantile world. The fact that a large part of the money spent by the Air Service during the war was represented after the armistice by finished airplanes and airplane engines precluded any considerable recoupment of the war expenditures from sales of surplus materials afterwards, since, at present, planes and engines have small commercial utility. Aviation engines are too light and too powerful for ordinary tasks, and no real market for airplanes has yet existed in the United States. Consequently, the sales of air service surplus were virtually limited to commodities having commercial use, such as tires, photographic equipment, linen fabric, fur used in making aviators’ clothing, and the like. Some of these surplus commodities, however, went at good prices. One New York concern bought 372,500 Chinese dogskins for approximately $700,000. Nearly 5,000,000 board feet of surplus mahogany, used in making propellers, sold for $150 a thousand feet. Great quantities of small tools from the airplane factories, millions of yards of cotton fabric, and nearly 4,000,000 pounds of long-staple cotton sold at good prices. The Government realized $700,000 from the sale of 20,000,000 feet of spruce, fir, and other soft woods used in the manufacture of airplanes. One large sale of airplanes and engines was recorded. For $380,000 the Nebraska Aircraft Corporation of Lincoln, Nebraska, bought 280 Standard J-1 training planes without engines and 280 Hispano-Suiza engines to drive them.