[Milsurplus] Re: Surplus stores, then and now

[Hue Miller]

John, most of the replies to my previous note have come from the Milsurplus
list. I'll look at the addressee list and if they've not been sent to you also, i'll
see to that.

"TENT SURPLUS"

I think i'll add to this little project. The same fellow,  Bob Williams, also told me
about another surplus operation in Spokane, Washington state. This was a 
"store" operated by a college student. During  the summer college intermission
he would sell surplus electronics from a large army tent. Probably his source was
the government's auction list. I don't believe this "store" had a name, any more than 
any street vendor in the big city nowadays has a  name for his cart. Apparently this
young entrepeneur paid for his university education by this means. The time frame
for both "Tent Surplus" and "Surplus Motel" was early 1960s.

"SALT LAKE INSTRUMENT"

After i moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1995, i didn't waste much time before looking
thru the phone book for any kind of surplus electronics place. I was thinking of a 
scanty lead from maybe 10-15 years before, when a fellow enthusiast had given me
a connector cable, i believe for the No.19 set, and told me he had picked it from a heap
of them on that ground at some surplus operation in or near SLC. Driving down to SLC,
along the highway north of the city i did see some kind of surplus military vehicle sales
lot - but i never did check out that place. I did see a listing for Salt Lake Instrument and
one day i drove over there. This was on 17th South and about 100 West. It turned out to
be a moderate sized industrial building in an industrial services block, with about a half
acre fenced storage lot out back. This lot was crammed with electronic equipment to almost
my height, with a narrow  S-shaped pathway that went from a gate in the fence to the back 
door of his business and continued on thru the metal jungle. I do not exagerate, hills of 
electronic material, both old military communications and old test equipment of every kind, 
5 foot high and higher. The stacks all looked inviting, with tantalizing glimpses of treasures
buried  within, but the stuff was so precariously stacked, and there was no place really to set 
the things as you excavated  items off the top of the stack. I was thinking, i need to get on 
some old clothes, so i don't mind if it gets torn, and do some serious excavating here. 
The stuff had been out there in the open for god  knows how many years. But with the area's 
arid climate, even in winter there was little humidity, and when it did rain, or the snow melted,
it was very rapidly evaporated. Most of the gear, especially military equipment in total metal 
enclosures, for example the ASA radar units and the Navy MQ,  was in quite good shape, and
wouldn't look out of place at any hamfest. On the other hand, on the perimeter i found a Leeds
& Northrup Wheatstone bridge, one of those fine antique looking instruments, where the wood 
cabinet had come completely unglued and was lying there in pieces. This storage yard did not 
seem to make particularly good logic. I went there once and the owner fellow was out in the yard,
taking standard-cells out of old test equipment. He seemed to indicate that these could be sold 
for some money, but i suspected this was more a relaxing pastime for him, same way i enjoy taking
apart old junk electronics at home. On another visit he was inside, just getting started on taking
something apart on the workbench. I looked closer and saw it was a US Navy - Marine Corps 
TBX transceiver from WW2. He explained that he was recovering the relays for their precious 
metal. Anyway he determined, i don't know how, that $35 would adequately recompense him
for the value of the relays. Inside the building were tall storage racks for boxes of vacuum
tubes. He said that every year a Japanese gentleman came by to buy vacuum tubes. When
i heard this, i reckoned Japan prices had to be higher than the swapmeet prices i was 
accustomed to, so i never looked at the tubes. Oh, yes, the TBX front cover was missing.
He told me it was  already gone, hopeless, but i knew it HAD to be out back. Sure enough,
like dowsing, after maybe 40 minutes i had sensed it and dug it out from under a heap.
One time i found a plug-in loop unit for a super-super rare US military HF direction finding
unit, i think this was the AS-81. But, no main unit, that could find, so i left the loop. ( There's
a lesson in that.) The next time i visited, i found the DF adaptor's base unit, but the plug-in
loop was gone! I looked for hours, but it was gone.  I think he had kinda missed the optimum
era to sell off this equipment, and since then it was just gradually disintegrating there in the
yard, and in effect becoming less electronics surplus and more plain scrap metal. But the stacks
were so tall and the boxes and cables  and cords so interlinked, it was really difficult to get to
anything except the units on the very top.
Inside,  i did see one fairly modern item of interest: these were thermoelectric generators used
for emergency powering of radios of some state agency. He was selling these for $75. Perhaps
i should have bought one of those.
I had to move away from Utah a couple years later. Probably if my time there would have been
more stable, i would have excavated some of those piles more, and dragged home some of the
military equipment, but it seemed i never quite had the time. Anyway i understand that business
is gone now. I am certain it was never a money-maker for the owner, at least in the years i saw 
it; more of a diversion for the otherwise retired owner.