my first SWL receiver was from a Boy Scout merit badge booklet (early
1960s) featuring a super-regenerative superhetrodyne multi-tube rcvr. Much
better than some of the later "replacements" (S-38..), except that
cosmetically mine was built on a aluminum baking tin chassis ;-) ;-)

Besides nostalgia, the bands are much more crowded today so those same
older radios don't work as well without help in the selectivity dept...

my most unusual radio was a ham receiver Mosley CM-1 which used the same
tube type thru out the radio ;-) Must have gotten a great buy in surplus?
;-) ;-)

grins bobm

--
************************************************** *********************
* Robert Monaghan POB 752182 Southern Methodist Univ. Dallas Tx 75275 *
********************Standard Disclaimers Apply*************************

Bob Monaghan wrote:
..

my most unusual radio was a ham receiver Mosley CM-1 which used the same
tube type thru out the radio ;-) Must have gotten a great buy in surplus?
;-) ;-)

grins bobm



Boy, the word "surplus" brings back memories. When I was growing up
in Detroit ('50's-'60's) there was a huge store in town called "Gell's
Civilian PX". Anything - and I mean *anything* - ever made for or used
by the military could be found there for amazing prices. More than one
buddy of mine had a SW receiver that was military surplus - heavy, dark,
muscular-looking cabinets with huge dials. Then, almost overnight it
seems, the "Military Surplus Store" was a thing of the past, for the
most part. There is one near me right now. Canteen covers and
post-Desert Storm polyester field jackets is about the extent of the
true "military surplus" they have.

Tony

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Back in the 1940's and 1950's there was an Army surplus store on either
Pearl Street or Pascagoula Street in down town Jackson and that store
had all kinds of Military surplus things for sale to anybody.The only
so-called Military "surplus" store that I know of in this area nowdays
is Dave's Military store just across the Pearl River from Jackson on
Highway 80 in Pearl,Mississippi and that store is the same kind of
modern Military "surplus" store you speak.They have a little Poodle dog
in there and that dog will bark his ass off at anybody who walks in that
store.
cuhulin

That woman down the street around the corner on Carter Circle.
cuhulin

My Hallicrafters S20R. You had to be there. :-)

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Boy, the word "surplus" brings back memories. When I was growing
up
in Detroit ('50's-'60's) there was a huge store in town called
"Gell's
Civilian PX". Anything - and I mean *anything* - ever made for or
used
by the military could be found there for amazing prices. More than
one
buddy of mine had a SW receiver that was military surplus - heavy,
dark,
muscular-looking cabinets with huge dials. Then, almost overnight it

seems, the "Military Surplus Store" was a thing of the past, for the
most part. There is one near me right now. Canteen covers and
post-Desert Storm polyester field jackets is about the extent of the
true "military surplus" they have.

Tony


So, why did the real military surplus stores disappear? I'd think that
the military has just as much, if not more, aging items it could sell
off. What happened?

Steve

So, why did the real military surplus stores disappear? I'd think that
the military has just as much, if not more, aging items it could sell
off. What happened?

I'd guess that their customers disappeared. Shopping at
military-surplus stores just isn't what your typical American consumer
is into these days, just as we don't go to railroad-salvage stores
anymore to buy cases of dented cans of Campbell's soup. Just the same,
there's Sherper's and American Science and Surplus here in the Milwaukee
area that usually have plenty of real, honest-to-goodness military
surplus stuff.

) writes:

Boy, the word "surplus" brings back memories. When I was growing
up
in Detroit ('50's-'60's) there was a huge store in town called
"Gell's
Civilian PX". Anything - and I mean *anything* - ever made for or
used
by the military could be found there for amazing prices. More than
one
buddy of mine had a SW receiver that was military surplus - heavy,
dark,
muscular-looking cabinets with huge dials. Then, almost overnight it

seems, the "Military Surplus Store" was a thing of the past, for the
most part. There is one near me right now. Canteen covers and
post-Desert Storm polyester field jackets is about the extent of the
true "military surplus" they have.

Tony


So, why did the real military surplus stores disappear? I'd think that
the military has just as much, if not more, aging items it could sell
off. What happened?

Steve


"Surplus stores" may have existed before, but clearly they got a big
boost (or were created) after WWII where there was a shift from a massive
war footing to peacetime. There was indeed a lot of surplus, ie things
that were no longer needed by the military. There was a lot of stuff
and it was cheap, for the surplus dealers to grab up and hence for
the customer to guy.

That stuff lasted a long time. I was able to buy a brand new Command
Set transmitter for ten dollars in 1972, I seem to recall that it was
even in some packaging.

As time progresses, such large wars are a thing of the past. Yes,
there has been near constant war somewhere, but it is generally handled
by the usual level of equipment. There are no spikes, where suddenly
massive amounts of equipment need to be bought, and then nobody wants
it afterwards.

So there is much less surplus than there was as a result of WWII ending.

I suspect what there is, is increasingly bought up by other countries
(within whatever rules there are about export), to be used by their
armed forces. It's cheaper than buying new, but since it's a necessity
they can outbid the surplus dealers that remain.

IN WWII, much of the equipment was pretty generic, give or take some
cypher equipment. A radio receiver was a radio receiver, and a teletype
machine was no different from a "civilian" version except maybe it
was painted green.

I suspect more and more, military equipment is specialized. It has
the cypher equipment built into the receiver, and that Teletype machine
is now a computer, that may be built to certain specifications. Given
that, they don't want that stuff to go out on the market, because they
don't want everyone to have those capabilities. Hence I suspect
there is much more that will be destroyed rather than put on the market.

Another fact likely rides on all of this. Surplus was once a relatively
big thing. The stores were small, but I think they tended to be a
bigger part of the culture. The neighborhoods where the stores were
have changed, driving up rent prices and the owners have aged or
even died. So no matter what surplus is still available, it's no
longer distributed the same way.

Michael

wrote:
Boy, the word "surplus" brings back memories. When I was growing

up

in Detroit ('50's-'60's) there was a huge store in town called

"Gell's

Civilian PX". Anything - and I mean *anything* - ever made for or

used

by the military could be found there for amazing prices. More than

one

buddy of mine had a SW receiver that was military surplus - heavy,

dark,

muscular-looking cabinets with huge dials. Then, almost overnight it


seems, the "Military Surplus Store" was a thing of the past, for the
most part. There is one near me right now. Canteen covers and
post-Desert Storm polyester field jackets is about the extent of the
true "military surplus" they have.

Tony



So, why did the real military surplus stores disappear? I'd think that
the military has just as much, if not more, aging items it could sell
off. What happened?

Steve



I think the main part of the reason - not all of it - is this:

There are many reasons we eventually won WWII. The one least
discussed or understood is possibly the single most important one: We
OUT-SUPPLIED the Axis to death! We had, in effect, zero war production
on Dec 8, 1941. In a superhuman effort, we had tied all axis countries
combined by late 1943, and in 1944/early 45, we *really* took off.
Remember, even the big brass thought we would have to invade mainland
Japan to end the war, and that would have been a *massive* undertaking.
Supplies were manufactured with that in mind.

Then, suddenly, it was over, and untold millions of tons of rapidly
obsolescing equipment was left. Consider thousands of surplus stores
all over the USA, and the governmet "attic" kept them supplied until it
all ran out (something like 20 years or more). By that time, they'd
changed the rules, and actual war material production was a fraction of
what it was in 1945, and you are left with what passes for "surplus"
stores today.

As I said, that's not all of it, but it's a lot of it.

Tony


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