The demise of the surplus store

[Pa12]

Hercules was the one I remember. On Yonge.

 

[Micawber]

Any flight jackets in there?

That photo would have been '60's/'70's, all long gone now. The old station building itself was renovated and yuppified some years ago and I believe is now a sprigs pre school / nursery.

 

[B-Man2]

That photo would have been '60's/'70's, all long gone now. The old station building itself was renovated and yuppified some years ago and I believe is now a sprigs pre school / nursery.

So all of that equipment just sat there for 25 years or more with nothing being done with it. Probably all of it left uncrated.
Wow! What a treasure hunt it would be to go through all of that stuff today.

 

[JonnyCrow]

I remember when 'Angels' was known as Bermans and Nathans was it not? Over here the Exchange & Mart was packed with tiny classified adverts for surplus and militaria and Millets used to flog proper surplus gear. Back in the olden days when everything was in black and white and my collecting bug was sustained by pocket and odd job money most Saturday markets included one or two stalls flogging surplus military clothing and gear the majority of which was from WW2. We all know the vast majority of stuff that could be bought for very, very little back then fetches good money now, but that is the same for very many things. The passing and ravages of time usually adds value. I have posted here and elsewhere that back then family and family friends would give me 'war stuff' that they considered virtually worthless in monetary terms as there was just so much of it about. Of course that is not the case now. Wardrobes, chest of drawers, garden sheds [including old Anderson air raid shelters and the like], private garages etc all provided rich pickings for brats like me who were fascinated by 'war stuff' that hailed from just a few years before.

The photo below was taken at a surplus dealers that was based in an old station yard in my home town. All those crates contained 'surplus and military vehicle stuff'. The mechanical and engineering material was still safely wrapped and sealed in its wartime Cosmoline. Yards such as this were not uncommon.

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Coming back to a more domestic level things such as school, church and village hall jumble sales would often turn up gems for strange lads like me who were always looking to add to our collections. Here's a little illustrative story, just one of many...
I remember during a Saturday morning wander around town I spied a 'jumble sale' sign and an arrow pointing toward the top of the town centre. Several similar signs led me to a church hall opposite the bus garage. Venturing inside the hall revealed the usual scrum of old ladies of all shapes and sizes, almost all of them wearing those old lady hats or scarves they all wore back then. These old dears counted among their number some real demons who were not averse to using their elbows in your ribs or sensible leather sole shoes to crush your toes if you got between them and the Marks and Spencer or British Home Stores cardigan that they fancied. There was row upon row of tables piled high with old clothing, paperbacks, ornaments, the odd medal, photo albums, prints, amateur paintings, costume jewellery, the odd nice piece of old gold jewellery ... you name it. While you could sometimes stumble across the odd Irvin jacket or trousers, B or C Type helmets, British uniform and battledress jackets, WW1 'Brodie' and WW2 'tin hats', a few medals, 'death penny' plaques, webbing, civvy gas masks [now known to contain asbestos] etc. Given the closeness to the end of the war it is hardly surprising that Axis gear was not so common and was indeed still frowned on in certain venues and or their clientele. All this stuff could be has for pennies or maybe a few bob. Imagine my delight when among the M&S & BHS woolies and the like I saw a cracking WW1 German M-16 helmet complete with supple liner pads and chinstrap resplendent in classic field applied and virtually scratch free tan, green and brown cammo. I paid very little for that helmet and I don't think I have ever seen a better example, decades later I still miss it!

Living where I do plenty of current surplus gear turns up on the likes of FB Marketplace but I don't think I am of the right generation to find the vast majority of it of interest. There is actually a modern surplus store housed in an old WW1 building within five miles of here but I'm afraid that I've never been drawn by any of the synthetic, hi-tech gear I've seen hanging outside.

Enough inane waffle and rambling from me for one night!

Those crates I'll tell you a grapevine story from years ago, military vehicle auction at one of the old Lincolnshire airfields, might have been Binbrook, anyway guy bought a truck, back was laced up, checked it out later, two crates in back with two dismantled military BSA bikes still covered in oil cloth and sealed haha

 

[Micawber]

I have you all beat for my childhood.
Paramore's surplus in Mt Pleasant FL (near Quincy, closest real town is Tallahassee) was DA SHIZNIT.
They had Stuart Tanks out front, an early twin-rotor 1960s helo in front of the gate, twin pack howitzers at the main door, a Mercury pressure suit on a dummy in the office, WW2 drop containers hanging from the rafters, and dozens of buildings out back with all manners of surplus.
So many military vehicles, i couldn't even name them all (the two LARCs were cool to look at).
Oh, he had several WW2 halftracks out back, many of them converted to logging trucks. The only problem was old man Paramore didn't wanna sell the really gee-whiz stuff unless you showed up with an insane amount of money. As I understand it, one of the Stuart tanks was later restored and is in a museum in the Midwest now. God know where the rest of it was. It became a Superfund cleanup site in recent years...
Those photos almost brought a tear to my eye:

https://kentputnamphotography.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/dsc_0185.jpg

https://kentputnamphotography.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/dsc_0156.jpg

See the old store in the background? We'd usually get a Coke and a candy bar there either before or after a visit there. I hadn't thought of that in decades.
Growing up, we never had much money, but my brother and I would often beg Dad to take us out there to drool over all that stuff. Old Man Paramore let us inside the helo and to play inside it for a while. We couldn't get into the Stuart tank at the entrance because it was filled with bees.
My cousin came down from TN once and we all went there, and he bought a Vietnam era tank crew helmet in great shape.
Man, what I'd give to go back there in the 70s and a big wad of cash...

Wow, needless to say my ancient home town here in England couldn't compete with all that stuff.

Same place as my previous photo but these were taken years after when it was winding down in the 1980's....

These show the brace of tracked armour that if memory serves me correctly were hired from this source to the SPR & BoB production Co's. Some of the extensive sets were constructed just a few miles away.

 

[Micawber]

Those crates I'll tell you a grapevine story from years ago, military vehicle auction at one of the old Lincolnshire airfields, might have been Binbrook, anyway guy bought a truck, back was laced up, checked it out later, two crates in back with two dismantled military BSA bikes still covered in oil cloth and sealed haha

Yep, I can well believe it and have heard similar. I'm an old fart who old enough to remember receiving the auction lists [Roneo duplicated and stapled together] sent out via Royal Mail from the disposal auctions regularly held at Ruddington back in the day. None of your sterile online bidding for stuff and vehicles like Withers do back then ...would have been a bit difficult as there was no internet back in the golden olden days..

 

[JonnyCrow]

Yep, I can well believe it and have heard similar. I'm an old fart who old enough to remember receiving the auction lists [Roneo duplicated and stapled together] sent out via Royal Mail from the disposal auctions regularly held at Ruddington back in the day. None of your sterile online bidding for stuff and vehicles like Withers do back then ...would have been a bit difficult as there was no internet back in the golden olden days..

I always believed it was true, yes was through a posted auction catalogue I believe, did you ever buy anything? I grew up near Hull East Yorkshire, I used to love trawling round those old military and airfield sites, anyway the guy who bought the truck he was a oldish guy back then I believe, had the bikes put back together

 

[Micawber]

So all of that equipment just sat there for 25 years or more with nothing being done with it. Probably all of it left uncrated.
Wow! What a treasure hunt it would be to go through all of that stuff today.

No, stock came and went. That said some stuff used to hang around the old style yards like this but it was all worth something and would get sold or traded somewhere along the line.

 

[MauldinFan]

I also remember a few 'old school' style US surplus places. Dover Army/Navy at Dover. Delaware was very impressive in the 90s.
Seattle had two such stores as late as a few years ago. Federal Army/Navy on 1st Avenue in Seattle screamed, "old surplus store," and had a lot of stock into the 2000s. Like many old stores like that, they had an entire wall of awesome stuff that wasn't for sale*. A display case they had included at least two Medals of Honor. I think I heard they'd donated them to a museum due to public outcry.
I worked in Seattle right after leaving active duty in the Army, and on lunch breaks about every week or two, I'd go down to that one and buy a stack of WW2 folding canvas water buckets. I'd get them for about $10 each and sell them online (not through eBay) for about $20 or so if memory serves, through a WW2 Jeep forum. That only stopped once there weren't any more people wanting them, I must have sold a hundred of them like that and the store never ran out. I kept the best condition one they had, a 43-dated one, which is still on my Jeep today.
I haven't been down 1st Ave in several years. I have no idea what it's like today, but I just looked it up and it appears they're still in business.

*I don't know about surplus stores in the UK, but many such stores in the US loved to display items that had a thick layer of dust on them, and the locals knew not to even ask to buy them.

 

[ausreenactor]

Picked up a scarf from ‘Band of Brothers’…

Sat up until 4am one morning to bid on the props when they were listed through an English auction house. Got a B-3 vest. Jeez it was rubbish up close. Sold it a few years ago.

 

[ausreenactor]

Those crates I'll tell you a grapevine story from years ago, military vehicle auction at one of the old Lincolnshire airfields, might have been Binbrook, anyway guy bought a truck, back was laced up, checked it out later, two crates in back with two dismantled military BSA bikes still covered in oil cloth and sealed haha

I hope that these things still happen from time to time. There are some who chase the American cave entrances in Townsville to find all the discarded materiel.

 

[JonnyCrow]

Sat up until 4am one morning to bid on the props when they were listed through an English auction house. Got a B-3 vest. Jeez it was rubbish up close. Sold it a few years ago.

They're in the process of moving and selling some minor stuff, nothing worth having though