[Milsurplus] Canadian Surplus

[Hue Miller]

----- Original Message -----
From: <WA5CAB at cs.com>
To: <Milsurplus at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2008 8:44 PM
Subject:  non-Canadian Surplus Stores


> 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).

There was a ham friend of the widow's husband who was the widow's
rep in that he priced the stuff mostly by the lot, and at a smallish fraction
of retail value, naturally. Then there was another elderly ham, W7BCT,
James Barrows SK, who knew both these people from way back. Helen
Zinn and friend Ray would decide when they felt another visit okay, then
let Jim know, and he would contact my friend John Nelson AA7W and me.
Unfortunately, the visits were never frequently enough for me. At most, 3 or
4 a summer. Then the hours were limited, something like 09:30 to 15:00,
whereas i would have enjoyed digging while there was still daylight to help.
Then there was the obligatory lunch break, which i just as well would have skipped, with ham
sandwiches and coffee served by the widow, and conversation. Considering the hours were so limited
and visits so
infrequent, the lunch break couldn't pass fast enuff for me. I suppose i was
on a way different schedule than them. I will always wonder what undiscovered
goodies were packed away in the crates and heavy Navy metal trunks  in
the basement. I remember stacks of MN-26s, a dyno-modulator for the TA-12,
part of an instrument panel for some bomber aircraft, and stacks and stacks of
crates and metal boxes. And so many paper items i could have written Wm.
Zinn's biography for his obituary. -Hue