[Milsurplus] Canadian Surplus

[Hue Miller]

----- Original Message -----
From: "2ndjimmy" <jklotz77 at verizon.net>
To: "Hue Miller" <kargo_cult at msn.com>
Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2008 4:58 PM
Subject: Re: [Milsurplus] Canadian Surplus


Hue,

I'm a lurker on the Milsurplus list... and a 60-year Seattle resident.  Seems to me you must have
lived here at some point from several of your conversations.

I remember all those surplus stores too and actually worked for a while at the electronics store on
45th in Wallingford.  It was partially funded by Bill Zinn (name/spelling correct? my memory is 60
years old too) and I made many trips to his several storage garages to help move equipment around.

As an old Seattle resident, you must know then, that the proper term is "skid road" (originally)
after (what is now) Yesler way where timber was skidded down to the mill(s) on the waterfront - and
connotation taken from the character of the people and businesses in that area of course.  I
recommend Bill Speidel's "Sons of the Profits" book, if you haven't read it.

And Remember: Jesus Christ Made Seattle Under Protest!

;-)

Best regards
  - Jim Klotz

[ HM: ]  It's always neat to get some of the rest of the story. I had no idea
whatsoever that Wallingford Surplus was connected with Bill Zinn. I actually
don't think i ever stepped into that store. It was mostly solidstate parts, i
i think? Wm. Zinn must have passed on sometime after this, and a few years
later began the era when we began to get the period by-invitation-only
surplus hunts at his widow's place. There was still TONS & tons of stuff left.
God bless his soul; except for a hardcore packrat like him, some of these
early manuals - like spark and arc equipment manuals - might not have
survived. After the era of the invitation-only visits, apparently the widow too
passed on, and there was a final grand cleanup, at which there was still tons
of stuff. I still wonder where the crated MN-26's went. I heard 2 SW-3's were
found, and wonder how i missed those.
Someone told me that Wallingford Surplus had sold "an old wooden ship
receiver with plugin coils", to a local dentist. That sounded so desirable that
i never forgot that mention. Some years later, Art Corbus i think it was, or
someone else in the club, gave me a lead down in the University District.
When i went down there, it turned out a trio of young Filipino men had a
Marconi 730 ship's receiver. I think they had gotten it from a yard sale and
didn't have much of a clue to what it was. Anyway i bought it, tieing up that
lead from years before. Now i wonder if this came from Bill Zinn's stock. He
had apparently worked for Alaska Steamship Co. supplying and/or maintaining
radios, and in the garage attic i had seen another old ship radio, the RMCA
one with 4 type 10 tubes. I always intended to grab it on one visit, but put it
off, and then the invitations ended with the death of the intermediary gentlemen.
-Hue