[Milsurplus] Canadian Surplus

[WA5CAB at cs.com]

That's interesting.  I wonder how many radio surplus stores ended up 
"invitation only" with the widow?  I cleaned out one here in Houston in the 80's.  
It's basically what got me started in the surplus business (not what got me 
started as a ham and a surplus radio collector - our neighbor W5MO is responsible 
for that circa 1961 when I started to LSU).

In a message dated 7/22/2008 9:45:31 PM Central Daylight Time, 
kargo_cult at msn.com writes: 
> 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
> 

Robert & Susan Downs - Houston
wa5cab dot com (Web Store)
MVPA 9480   
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