The “Lehman Brothers” post tag is one that I always think I am going to get to retire, but it is a scrappy little thing and apparently won’t go down without a fight. This week, Lehman – the bank which once had a vice president dedicated to ordering deal toys, tchochkes and other branded schlock – laid down the line with Barclays, and said, give us back the Lehman golf balls in your storage locker or else. From Bloomberg (who gets a LOLFed +1 for this headline for giving us the mental image of Varley clearing his throat and hacking one up, then shipping it across the pond), Lehman Stress Balls Coughed Up By Barclays:

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. has negotiated the return of thousands of Lehman-logoed knickknacks that were mistakenly transferred to Barclays Plc through the sale of the bankrupt securities firm’s brokerage unit.

Tote bags, umbrellas, stress balls, Tiffany paperweights and other items now stored in closets and warehouses from New York to Chicago will be returned to Lehman and sold to pay creditors, according to a court filing yesterday.

Lehman is forbidden from trying to hock the items to BarCap employees, whom you’d have to assume would rather wear hats from their solvent employer anyway. So, if they can’t set up a street stand outside Barclays offices, how are they going to unload the stuff? eBay, of course:

Lehman could resort to the Internet to move the “trinkets,” which are more likely to appeal to former Lehman employees than to collectors, he said.

“EBay might be the best place to sell the merchandise,” Ivy said in a phone interview.

Ex-Lehman employees have been unloading these things on eBay for a while, so the demand for this stuff as novelty/collectors’ items might already be sated. I see a few Lehman items on the eBay right now, but only a few with bids. When you look at the number of items in inventory, expect the market to get very saturated:

Items in storage include: 1,630 green canvas duffle bags with Lehman ribbon, 353 green compact golf umbrellas, 75 Waterford Marquis Treviso crystal clocks, 682 white Lehman coffee mugs, 130 Swiss Army pens, an English beechwood-lined sterling silver box from 1902, 200 Lehman conference pens, 12 pairs of Links of London cufflinks, 24 Screwpull wine openers inscribed “LB,’ 24 Titleist PRO VI golf balls inscribed ‘‘LB,’’ 30 girl Teddy Bears, 18 large, ivory womens’ F&G stretch snap shirts and one Tiffany shooting star.

Who is the poor sod who had to determine and notate the gender of the teddy bears? Not sure there’s anything to-die-for here, but if your initials are LB, maybe this all would merit a further look. Personally, I do own one piece of fail company swag – in my home office, there’s an AIG stock cert which Jason gave me. Seeing as I (and every American) own 80% of the company, that only seems fitting to have, though.