Steve wrote:

One thing I wonder was what happened when Heathkit unraveled? what
happened to the thousands of spare parts. Knowing how procurement
and inventory control works, I'm certain that they had hundreds of
SB, round and green, cabinets and thousands of green and black
knobs at the end.

Where did those parts go? I've seen rumors that someone or some
corporation bought up the parts inventory or that a rich ham has a
warehouse with several hundred unbuilt kits.

Did they take a tractor trailer to Dayton and liquidate the parts?
Was there ever a year that someone showed up with 40 SX-117's and
sold them for half price?


I suspect that the individual franchised Heathkit stores went to the
local hamfests and sold off the leftover inventory. At least that is
what happened in Maryland. First the local store offered reductions
on the kits in stock, and all of the demonstrator models that were
in the store, then after all the good stuff (read ham stuff) was gone,
they started showing up at the local hamfests with trailer loads of
heath trash. Weather stations, wiper delays, accessories, ...

All because Schlumberger had to get rid of the kit and computer division
to avoid an antitrust problem when they bought Fairchild.

-Chuck Harris