[GreenKeys] Jerome Oxman's Military Surplus Store + Museum

[Randy and Sherry Guttery]

On 6/7/2011 8:33 AM, Bryan Brodie wrote:
> I thought some folks on this list would find this article interesting.
Brings back a lot of memories - used to live within a couple 
miles of there-  didn't shop there often - as he was more 
into the the "ordinance" end of things, while I was more 
into electronics.  IIRC - that is where I bought my first 
frequency counter - sometime around 1968 or 69 - one of the 
early Beckman's that used neon bulbs behind a vertical row 
of numbers to indicate the frequency. It's been a long time 
- I might have purchased that counter from the surplus place 
in Pico Rivera - also fairly close to where I lived.  His 
store wasn't one of the larger stores, there was a huge one 
in Long Beach - I don't recall the name anymore - but it 
wasn't far from the old Dooley's hardware (Dooley's was one 
of those incredible iconic hardware / department stores of 
the 50s and 60s that covered a city block - had a (IIRC) 25' 
lumberjack out front.  Now it's a school (also - 
interestingly enough showing the impact the store had on the 
area - Dooley's School.  The only one of those old "have 
everything" hardware stores left in the region (and it only 
covers half a block) is Merrits on Hacienda in La Puente).  
Anyway - the really "serious" surplus store was C & H Sales 
on Colorado Blvd in Pasadena.  The store wasn't particularly 
huge -- but the amount of "stuff" they had was incredible.  
They were into electronics, optics, and pneumatics in a BIG 
way.  I found C&H in the early 60s when I got my first 
BC-654.  All I got was the "box".  A couple of trips to C&H 
- and I had a new dynamotor and most of the accessories. The 
dynamotor was in a large metal can - it opened with a "key" 
like a large ham can - or old metal coffee can.  They had 
teletypes, of course (and I recall a WALL full of ARC-5 
radios - must have been nearly a thousand!) - but at the 
time - I hadn't "discovered" them.  Last time we were in LA 
(2006) we went by, but the store itself was closed at the 
time. They have now moved to a smaller location in Duarte. 
Here's where I shopped "back then"... 
<http://candhsurplus.com/history.htm>  If you explore the 
site - you get a "hint" of what they had - but like many 
surplus places today - it's (unfortunately) more of a "junk 
store" than what it was in it's "glory days"...

Thanks for the memories!

-- 
randy guttery

A Tender Tale - a page dedicated to those Ships and Crews
so vital to the United States Silent Service:
http://tendertale.com