longevity

LONGEVITY

Last week I published a testimonial from a former 10^th group soldier who has been using my Ultima Thule since it was issued to him 31 years ago while stationed in Germany.

Yesterday a local fellow who was special forces several years ago who had purchased numerous Super Light sleep systems from me came in with two friends from out of town to see the factory.

One was from northern Minnesota who has numerous items from sleeping bags to mittens and socks to name a few. The other fellow was a retired SEAL. He told me he went through the training in Alaska with the Super Light system he was issued about 1997 and is still using it today.

Over the years I have had SEAL’s no longer active buying bags for their family members as well as calls from people who know SEAL’s also not active telling them about Wiggy’s.

Advertising like that can’t be bought.

The point here is longevity of product. There are no other products of this type that I call no sleep sleeping bags that have been used continuous for so many years and doing what they were designed to do keep you warm.

These companies function on the basis of the product wearing out and being replaced. You can see this when you note that these companies are exhibiting a new bag each year, hoping it will work [?] or do they care, probably not.

As for the SEAL’s using the issue no sleep sleeping bags now would they be using them in twenty years, NO. Why because they will trash them because as well as not performing, they will deteriorate.

The materials used for shell and lining materials that these companies have chosen for the most part is polyester which does not have the strength of nylon and chopped staple polyester which flattens out in the bag.

The company that called me about a -40 degree bag for the SEAL’s has never called back as I expected because they wanted the western mountaineering $600.00 down bag. I am not disappointed or phased by it. Had the fellow who came in yesterday not been here I would never have thought about it.

I have had a few more calls from gsa companies asking for a model not made by any other company but never an order. Truthfully, I do not encourage these gsa companies anyway.

Back to longevity, I was once told 35 years ago by a friend [?] that my bags were so good people would only by one. I told him that was okay because if they were so good the word would get out and we have 300,000,000 people in the country and if I sold 1,000,000 of them. I would be enormously wealthy and I could build lots of factories to supply my sleeping bags to millions more people.

While I have only sold thousands, I am happy because those I have sold sleeping bags too are happy with them as well. At this time our orders are so plentiful from some of those millions that I would not accept any orders from any gsa contractors with delivery no sooner than January 2023 if that soon.

I have received one order from a soldier based at Fort Wainwright Alaska for an Antarctic bag so, he might be a conduit for more individual soldiers to place orders for Antarctic bags. if enough of them get them it might get the attention of upper command. When those without the Wiggy’s Antarctic bags complain about being cold in the issue bag and a friend has a Wiggy’s bag he might say get me one of these bags.

When I started making my nomex Antarctic parka for Conoco Phillips on the north slope those who didn’t have one complained and eventually the Antarctic parka made with nomex or supplex became the standard parka used on the slope. Unfortunately for the oil field workers I stopped outerwear production, but that was so I could concentrate on sleeping bag production. The same thing might happen with my sleeping bags.