A Unique Personalized Gift Idea. Give the Unique Gift of Land

There's a remote corner of southeast Oregon where cattle outnumber humans, trees are usually a mirage, the roads aren't paved -- and nearly 63 million new property owners could come calling.
Harney County isn't about to become Manhattan, though. The land comes only in 1-inch squares. It's part of Own a Piece of America, a promotion that allows anybody to request a tiny parcel in any state.

Scott Moger, a New York marketing guru, is issuing novelty deeds for his 50 holdings, from Louisiana bayou country to an upscale Connecticut subdivision. He says his project indulges the quintessential American fantasy: having a slice of dirt to call your own.

Some people describe the land deal as a lighthearted gift. Others say it's a slick marketing scheme. And some, such as Debbie Sattergren, call it a window into their dreams.

Sattergren, a bowling league manager from Southeast Portland, has told her husband, Robert, they should buy 50 acres in the middle of nowhere if they win the lottery. Fence off a house in the center, let a helicopter deliver food and supplies. Camping is as close as the couple have come. But, while Robert served in Iraq last year as a U.S. Air Force reservist, Debbie stumbled onto the Own a Piece of America Web site. She staked their claim to a speck of Harney County as a surprise for Robert, who is back at his job as a steel fabricator. "I can't afford 50 acres, but I can afford an inch," she says. "I thought it would be a little piece of America just for us."

The Sattergrens' land -- like all property in the promotion -- cannot be sold for profit. Owners do not pay taxes, the Web site explains. They cannot live or build on their land, even if they find a way to squeeze more than a toe onto it. Deeds are not officially recorded with Harney County, because the federal Securities and Exchange commission OK'd them only as novelty items. Owners simply tell Moger they want a square inch and, if they'd like proof, pay $2.95 for an e-mail version of their deed, $8.90 for a printed copy or $29.90 for a plaque at http://www.ownapieceofamerica.us

All land officially belongs to American Acres, a division of Moger's marketing company. He launched this venture to build on a childhood memory. During the 1950s, Moger once ripped into a Quaker cereal box and extracted a promotional deed to the Yukon Territory. To a boy from Brooklyn, this sounded like a wild place.

"It was a wonderful fantasy," he says. "I know I wasn't the only kid on the block with a deed." He stashed the paper away, grew up, went on to a career in marketing. Around 1980, Moger's parents were clearing their house to prepare for a move to Florida. Old baseball cards never turned up, but the Yukon deed did. Moger wanted to resurrect the idea. He spent $40,000 buying inexpensive pieces of land -- at least an acre in every state.

Oregon's parcel was one of the first and biggest, though it cost just $500. The Harney County land has the shortest legal description of the bunch, and Moger hasn't even seen it.

County officials, from the planning director to the assessor's office, didn't realize the property was slated to be a national attraction. It sits in a dry valley several hours south of Burns, as close as county Judge Steve Grasty can tell. Trees are apt to be miles apart, just like cars and homes, the county's elected leader says. If "owners" drove up the road to Fields, Grasty says, "they'd have access to the best hamburger and milkshake in Oregon, bar none." The tiny ranching community is home to about a dozen residents, a two-room schoolhouse and a hotel and cafe. It's not unusual for a remote landscape such as Harney County to catch outsiders' imagination, says Grasty, who still gets ribbed for being a newcomer after 35 years.

He once noticed a local piece of land for sale on eBay. Grasty e-mailed the auction winner, an Illinois doctor who was intrigued by the far reaches of Oregon. When the new owner called, Grasty welcomed him and offered to buy lunch if he visited. And? "I haven't bought him lunch yet," he says. Harney County is so rural, Grasty says, that a slew of visitors to the American Acres site could alarm nearby residents. Plus, he wonders what would happen if the county ever needed that property for a road or other public purpose. Splitting land into millions of pieces would be an almost comical violation of Oregon's land-use laws, which prohibit most rural development. But after reviewing the Web site (www.ownapieceofamerica.com), the state attorney general's office said it seemed to be in good fun.

"The Internet would be a better place if every Web site had disclaimers this good," spokeswoman Stephanie Soden says. Folks aren't flocking to Harney County anyway. About 30,000 people have signed up since the promotion went online last fall, triggering e-mail traffic and blog entries across the Internet. Fewer than 500 have selected Oregon; most opt for sunny vacation spots, perhaps not realizing Harney County is hot and dry much of the time.

On one online message board for bargain shoppers, new landowners joked that they'd pool their slivers of Hawaii. "We now have enough space to plant two Tiki lamps so the welcome wagon can find us!" one owner writes. "Do you want to have the open house at your inch or mine?" Moger, who operates American Acres from his three-person office in Manhattan, says he has not yet earned enough money to pay off his setup costs. But, he admits, of course he hopes to make a profit. If the promotion doesn't work, Moger jokes, he's fond of the Hawaiian property, too, and may retire there. Perhaps a visit to Harney County would change his mind.

New American Citizens Get Land in the United States as Congratulations Gifts

One of the most popular gifts in the past decade for new naturalized Americans upon receiving their U.S. citizenship has proven to be a most unique one; land in all 50 states of the United States, this according to a New York City company which has made it possible.

American Acres, Inc., through its web site Own a Piece of America (www.ownapieceofamerica.us) since the year 2000 has delivered over 300,000 parcels of one-inch plots of land to the newest Americans. Yes, one inch plots, one-square inch in each and every one of the 50 states…called Deeds to the United States.

These symbolic gifts come printed, framed or on a plaque personalized with the new citizen’s name and individually property registration number. The land is representative of the USA. There are mountains, prairies, some desert in Nevada, woods, and land in the Texas panhandle

What at first glance might sound simply like a whimsical concept is indeed much more. The serious significance this item holds for not only new citizens but for all Americans is intense. Proud new citizens for sure have been thrilled with this special gift to memorialize their most important of days. How proud so many new citizens have claimed to be displaying official documents certifying both their new status in America and symbolically representing their land ownership of a “Piece of America.” It’s a very appropriate and meaningful present for anyone just obtaining their American citizenship.
Gift-givers have explained that there might not be a more thoughtful and sincere way to say “Congratulations on becoming a US Citizen” other than by presenting these one-of-a-kind distinctive and prestigious keepsake that will be cherished for years to come. Gift recipients can display their legal Land Deeds in their home and always think of the person who gave them their Deed to the United States. There may be no better new citizen gift that these Deeds to the USA.

Shopping for a difficult person on your holiday gift list? You're not alone. In fact, the search for the unusual and impressive is proving a regular boon to Scott Moger.
When last we looked in on Moger, founder of American Acres Marketing Corp. was announcing plans to sell folks 50 square inches of land and an eight-page booklet describing exactly where in each of 50 states the land is located, for $10 or $29.95, depending on whether it came with a personalized or generic deed. Since then, Moger spent a year and $250,000 buying the land.

His modest marketing strategy has been to send news releases explaining the program. . A similar campaign by Quaker Oats in 1955 was so effective it was hailed at the time by The New York Times as "one of the most successful sales promotions in North American business history," and Moger's program, too, has worked like nobody's business.

Moger's New York office is handling 300 to 400 inquiries a day; half are from grandparents and others shopping for a cute gift. Many are from South Florida, since Moger's own parents live in Sunrise. Half, however, are telemarketing professionals offering to move the product on television or direct mail. Moger says most of the calls result in sales — more than 3,000 since the product debuted on Columbus Day.

"They wouldn't call if they didn't think it was cute," he says. "We are expecting that in the next two weeks before Christmas we will probably sell 6,000 more."
12/9/91

New York – This land is your land, this land is my land – and neither of us has a deed. For as little as $10, however, Scott Moger will convey legal title to one square inch of real estate in each of the United States.

In hopes of winning thee Christmas gift novelty sweepstakes, Moger bought an acre in every state. He’s selling the land is packages of 50 one-inch plots, of which he owns approximately 6.3 million.

The deed prevents you from actually doing anything on your “undivided fractional interest” in America, such as living, building, farming or mining. On the other hand, it’s the ultimate passive investment: no taxes, no insurance premiums, no mortgage payments, no cutting the grass.

Moger, 47, says he got the idea when his parents cleaned out their attic ten years ago. They found an old deed to an inch of the Yukon, which he’d received in a Quaker Oats box in the 50’s. Inspired, Moger spent the next decade buying land, getting permission to sell it, and figuring out how to sell it.

For about $100,000 he got a fair sample of the nation, including inner city Detroit and suburban Connecticut, New Jersey lowlands and Nevada badlands, the Louisiana bayou and the Texas Panhandle. Prices ranged from $3,500, the price of an acre of Hawaiian Ocean View Estates, to around $500.

Although Moger bought into a few well-known communities such as Sundance, Wyo., he usually wound up with places like Township 21 South, Prowers County, Colo., the Black Lick Magisterial District Wythe County, Va., and Lizard Lake, Cass County, Minn.

Although Moger describes his acre in the Florida panhandle as near Pensacola, in fact it is in the next county, “really out there in the boonies,” according to an appraiser.

Buyers are free to visit their land – if they can find it. One of the simpler listings: “The E ½ of the S½ of the SW ¼ of the NE ¼ Section 5, Township 14 North, Range 11 West Salt Lake Meridian, County Box Elder, Utah.” The Missouri plot, at least is on highway 89 in Osage County.

There are also a few landmarks to go by, such as “large scarlet oak tree” in Alleghany County, Md., and the Bluestone River in West Virginia, “as (it) meanders 58 rods to a blinding ditch.

Having accumulated this land, Moger needed to sell it without running afoul of securities laws. After some legal maneuvering – “I spent more on lawyers than land” – he was cleared by New York state and federal Securities and Exchange Commission, which rules he was selling a novelty gift item, not an investment.

While he hopes the “Deed to the United States” will become this season’s Pet Rock, he bristles at the comparison. “We’d like to think this is something that will last,” he says – at least until the Christopher Columbus celebration next year, when “everybody’s going to be very America-conscious.”

Borrowing from the hugely successful sales promotion by the Quaker Oats Co., a New York City man who bills himself as a “modern day Christopher Columbus” is giving people a chance to do what Columbus never did: own a piece of America.

For $19.95, Scott Moger, owner of American Acres Marketing Corp., will sell you a valid deed to one square inch if property in each of the 50 states. Moger has bought an acre in each state, which he plans to parlay into 6,272,640 deeds.

In Iowa, [this story was in the Des Moines Gazette] the acre is in Ringgold County, between Diagonal and Shannon City, on land where a country school once stood, Moger said Friday.

Barbara Bower, Ringgold County treasurer, confirmed Friday that Moger owns the area and pays $10 a year in property taxes on it. “It sure is a good place to live, if you can live on an inch,” she said. Ringgold County is in extreme southern Iowa.

Moger said he got the idea for the Columbus Day promotion from an ad campaign that attracted him as a boy. The Quaker Oats Co., in conjunction with the TV show “Sergeant Preston of the Yukon,” included the deed to an inch of land in the Yukon in each box of its cereal.

20,000,000 kids ran out, stripped the shelves of cereal in a few weeks,” Moger said. “It’s been referred to as the most successful sales promotion in American business history.”

In 1981, Moger embarked on his version of the land buy, at a time when Ronald Reagan was restoring a sense of patriotism among Americans. From the start, Moger planned to launch the promotion in conjunction with the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ 1492 voyage.

With the $19.95 purchase price, a person receives a “deed to the United States,” an eight page booklet that pinpoints the location of each of the 50 square inches being sold. [This now is available as the email version.] People are urged to visit their properties, taking comfort in knowing that Moger’s company will pay taxes on the parcels forever.

“It’s a way to let Americans discover America themselves,” he said. “Columbus never touched America but his voyages gave us all the opportunity to do that.”
Today is the traditional Columbus Day. However, the national observance will be Monday.