Random Inside Great Truck Nuts War That Consumed Lives Of Two Businessmen (11 items)

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  (#11) The Balls Ran Afoul Of The Law, Prompting Free-Speech Debates

  Almost as soon as the various styles of truck nuts hit the streets, complaints about their offensiveness rolled into legislative inboxes around the country. Citing the accessories’ vulgar indecency, upset neighbors, parents, and passersby began calling for their ban on city streets. 

  These complaints led many cities to begin debating whether the objects did, in fact, cross a line of social appropriateness or whether they were protected under the laws of free speech. In one 2011 case, a South Carolina woman was ticketed for sporting a pair. 

  Though a handful of states attempted to make truck nuts illegal, only Florida was successful. Mayor Ken Durham of Edgefield, South Carolina, explained the difficulty in the conflict’s nuance: 

  It's kind of hard, we see both sides of the issue. You got personal freedoms, personal property rights, freedom of speech. And on the other hand, what can't you do in this case to offend people?
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  (#8) The Two Spent Years Using Aliases To Burn Each Other Online

  The aggressive emails and telephone exchanges between Ham and Saller eventually boiled over to the internet. Jumping onto various consumer forums and blogs with names like “Truck-Nuts-Balls,” “Reporter 666,” and "Ripoff Report," the pair continued their ball beef by trash-talking one another’s products and business ethics with a take-no-prisoners ferocity.

  The men slung their insults using a variety of fake names, all the while trying to constantly out one another for leaving fake comments. Eventually, things got so heated that Saller got his attorney involved to try and cite Ham for defamation.

  In the end, each party sent the other an official cease and desist letter. After a few more verbal jabs, the dust settled and they went their separate ways.
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  (#2) They Were Both Pre-Dated By A Woman Who Sold 'Smaller' Nuts

  As the saying goes, “Behind every great man is a great woman.” Interestingly enough, this also appears to be the case for truck nuts. Regardless of whether Saller or Ham was the first to start mass-manufacturing and selling the truck accessories, an unnamed woman from northern Nevada had them both beat by over a decade. 

  According to Saller, he originally got the idea for his brand of ornaments - Bulls Balls - after coming across a woman selling them in the mid-'80s.

  In an interview, Saller briefly explained his first encounter: 

  As far as I’ve been able to find out, there was a woman in northern Nevada who started selling them in the mid-'80s, but smaller, in a different look... Before the internet, it was hard to properly market them.
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  (#3) Bulls Balls Appear To Have Hit The Internet First, But Both Men Tell The Story Differently

  According to David Ham’s retelling of events, he first founded Your Nutz in 1996 after having witnessed a makeshift pair of “large fleshy testicles” waving back and forth on the back bumper of a truck at a rally in the 1980s.

  Though it took some time to find the right manufacturing partnership for his beloved design, Ham was finally able to produce and sell them online - through an as-of-yet unverifiable AOL domain.

  John Saller’s origin story is similar, but with a bit of a twist. While he also admits to having witnessed a woman selling similar testicle-shaped bumper ornaments in the '80s, there are also rumors that the idea came to him more organically. Allegedly, Saller had been offroading with his friends when someone yelled, "‘Go Ernie, show 'em you got balls!’” This reignited his passion for the product, which he then brought to his would-be partner Chad Tombyll, owner of Tombyll Plastics in San Bernardino, California.

  Saller and Ham may dispute which man first had the idea to build his brand, but their internet legacies are cut and dry. A quick dive into web domain registration records shows that Saller’s brand registered online in 1999, while Ham’s registered in 2002. 
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  (#1) Two Men Claim To Have 'Invented' Automotive Novelty Testicles

  It’s hard to say exactly when novelty testicles first started showing up attached to the back bumpers of pickup trucks, but by the mid to late 2000s, they appeared to be everywhere. The rise of the fad itself has been most frequently attributed to one of two men: John Saller or his competitor David Ham. 

  Though it is clear from the pair’s conflict-ridden history that they would certainly prefer to never have their names appear in the same sentence, both lay claim to the original idea of attaching plastic ball sacks to the bumpers of cars and trucks.

  Sellar's brand bears the name Bulls Balls, while Ham went with Your Nutz.
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  (#9) 'I Thought, "Wow, They're Both Dead, That's Amazing."'

  The technicalities of the feud were somewhat behind the two founders, but the air of competition was still thick with hostility. A number of years passed, and, shortly after the passing of his web development partner, John Beaman, Saller decided it was time for him to step down from his truck nuts empire.

  Saller sold the rights to Bulls Balls to his long-time business partner and product manufacturer, Chad Tombyll, in 2013, and left the legacy behind. Just one year later, Saller passed.

  Upon hearing about the passing of Saller and his loyal web developer, Ham called Tombyll to verify the news. Upon learning the truth, he says his response was, “Wow, they’re both dead, that’s amazing.”

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