Earlier quoted context omitted.
There were at least two in Illinois.
The one in St. Charles then.
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Long live American Science and Surplus
61–70 of 118 posts
Re: Long live American Science and Surplus
#62So many surplus stores are gone. Silicon Valley had HSC, where Steve Jobs bought Apple's first oscilloscope. They closed in 2018. Weird Stuff Warehouse closed in 2018. Edmund Scientific in New Jersey closed in 2001. Electronic Surplus [2] is "temporarily closed for maintenance. Fair Radio Sales in Lima, OH closed in 2023.[1] It's cheaper to buy the new stuff from Shenzhen than the old stuff. [1] https://fairradio.com…
AllElectronics in CA, too. I bought out their 10k dual-taper A/C pots during their closing sale; an unusual but powerful taper for audio electronics.
Re: Long live American Science and Surplus
#63[flagged]
I got the spin and win ad, which I was able to dismiss, which is a first. Normally that thing just refuses to go away somebody must be slipping at the ad company.
Was definitely sad to see the temu style spin to win ad as a popup. It's a sign they must really be hurting for money to take that kind of ad deal.
Re: Long live American Science and Surplus
#64I went to one to help me with an idea for a 7th grade science fair when I was a child and the staff helped me figure out which items I needed, which included a bunch of electronics parts and motors I had no idea what I was doing with. They patiently and very enthusiastically explained to me how they worked, how to safely use them, and gave me encouragement on my ideas for the project. They thought it was a cool idea.…
They helped me out for my 8th grade science fair! I wanted to build a shake table to simulate the effects of earthquakes on buildings. (tl;dr: the taller the building, the more flexible it is. At least according to my experiment, which did get me a place at the state finals.) They helped me size the motor and even had an AC one I could plug directly into the wall. This was the Geneva location.
Re: Long live American Science and Surplus
#65I understand lots of people have some pleasant memories....but.... While I didn't know what American Science and surplus are, based on looking at the website they are peddlers of various "store to landfill" junk. Like lots of nostalgic things I'm sure its sad to see it go but it doesn't appear to be the loss of anything significant and doesn't seem to be worth "saving".
Re: Long live American Science and Surplus
#66It's a pity they don't ship to other countries than the US. I looked through their website and saw some fun stuff, but no international shipping.
Send them an email asking for a quote. For a small business like this, I'd expect they can probably ship it to you but the complexities of quoting shipping internationally means they don't have it on the site. Yes, shipping APIs are readily available, but implementing them costs more than the shoestring budget they likely have for the site and would also require integration with their inventory software. I'd be willi…
Good to know, thanks for the explanation!
Re: Long live American Science and Surplus
#67The Best
Re: Long live American Science and Surplus
#68I understand lots of people have some pleasant memories....but.... While I didn't know what American Science and surplus are, based on looking at the website they are peddlers of various "store to landfill" junk. Like lots of nostalgic things I'm sure its sad to see it go but it doesn't appear to be the loss of anything significant and doesn't seem to be worth "saving".
A quick search shows lots of vintage/ex-military “surplus”/parts. Microscopes and optics abound. There are lots of collectors and nerds who’d be happy to buy a pump or an encoder or whatnot (Chris Boden from YouTube, maybe even Alex from Technology Conmections - would be delighted.)
Plus, who doesn’t want a life size 6’4” terracotta warrior for their house to silently take guard? You call it landfill, I say it’s whimsical and fun. Would a Halloween mask that brings a lot of fun also be something you’d consider landfill suited?
Re: Long live American Science and Surplus
#69We used to have the most amazing little electronics store a lot like this called "Ra-Elco" in SLC, Utah, but specifically devoted to every wild bit of electronics you could imagine, ranging from individual little components of every sort all the way up to weird esoteric devices nobody's ever heard of (at least there were a lot I'd never seen before). Totally love these kinda shoppes, and I truly wish they weren't suc…
My understanding is that Ra-Elco essentially moved to Standard Supply after the building burned down. I haven't checked it out myself yet so I can't confirm.
I dunno, but I do know that Standard Supply has a lot of the items I generally need and / or seek out when I'm visiting such places, so that's all good for me. I still miss Ra-Elco, but as long as I can buy the right parts locally when I'm in a real hurry to grab some important little widget or gizmo, that's what matters most to me. Especially important since Radio Shack is no longer at all that kinda store (and hasn't been for many years now).
Re: Long live American Science and Surplus
#70Completely flabbergasted to see one of my favorite stores of all time at the top of HN. This place is an absolute gem and I have countless childhood memories of visiting the Milwaukee Av location. Heartbroken to see they’re in financial distress. If there’s any store worth saving it’s this one.
I actually specifically made a trip to Milwaukee 1/3 for the Harley museum and 2/3 for ASS (that acronym was definitely deliberate). I've enjoyed my visits to ax-man surplus [0] in Minneapolis enough that when I heard about a similar store it was enough to justify a 500mi weekend bike trip. The stores are very similar, but anyone lucky to live near their store knows that the inventory changes enough that each visit i…
When I moved from Milwaukee to Minneapolis I was happy to find Ax-Man existed, but to be fair I’ve only made it in a couple of times. I hope there are still 15 year olds that are amazed when they walk in like I was.
A core memory from back then is the big diver’s helmet way in the back at ASS, and wishing I could buy the weird radar screen/oscilloscope boxes that looked like they came right out of a tank. And how every label for every box of parts or object in the whole store had funny hand lettered descriptions that someone spent a lot of time on.