[Milsurplus] Canadian Surplus

[Ralph Cameron]

All the big Toronto surplus houses were full in the 50's and 60's. ETCO came later but as I recall had lots of the Bendix MN-26 and TA-12s. 

Edwards Supply House had over 2000 No. 19 sets at ine time and sold them for $49.50 ea. Radio Trade Supply and some of the Yonge Street stores would pop up and go out of business just as fast. 

I used to like to rummage under the fence of a place called "Metals & Alloys" that took scrapped aircraft to recycle the aluminum. Plent of Avro Anson fuselages and Harvard trainers went under the knife there. I still have a mechanical drift computer - a hand held circular calculator with polar graph paper so a pilot or navigator could plot his drift, given windspeed and altitude. I remember seeing many headsets and other misc pieces of gear floating around the stacked fuselages and often wonder what treasure I missed. I know my father had a bird when I dragged home a pilot's metal "chair" and plunked in the back yard. 

Those things had a characteristic smell that I only recalled when opening a Gibson Girl a couple of years ago. The paint was as fresh as the day it was made. Funny how you hold onto these things for 35-50 years and then beg to give them away. 

73 
Ralph
VE3BBM
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