[semiquaver]

Completely 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.

[georgeecollins]

I ordered motors and pumps from that catalog as a kid. Can you imagine I used to love going through the stuff they had on a paper catalog!

[throwaway20222]

In person you could also see their supplies of sodium and potassium in sealed glass containers. I always wanted to get my hands on those.

Like you said, so many motors and switches; likely a big part of the reason I do what I do for a living today.

[zrobotics]

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 is a unique experience and you won't see the same things twice.

saveitforparts on YouTube did an excellent tour/example video of ax-man [1] which gives a good idea of the type of store ASS is and the vibe. Even if you aren't local to the upper Midwest, I'd highly recommend donating to keep this store alive. It very much fits with the old-school hacker ethos, and keeping spaces like this alive helps preserve that culture and exposes younger people to the idea of DIY/punk/hacker and the ability to repurpose old/interesting stuff.

Side note, I'm surprised that these types of scientific surplus stores have lasted longer in the upper Midwest than places like silicon valley or near bell labs in NJ. They aren't open for retail anymore and didn't have the same sense of humor, but Surplus Sales of Nebraska [2] is also an excellent example from this area of the country. I hadn't ordered since last year, they had held on to a delightful web 1.0 site up until sometime in the last year and are a legit supplier for really oddball stuff.

[0] https://www.ax-man.com/pages/the-nature-of-surplus

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-uJPIhAUu4

[2] https://www.surplussales.com/

[karlshea]

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.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

I haven't been to Ax-Man in years, despite the fact that I drive up Snelling, past University at least once a month. I have to make the time to stop there one day.

[toast0]

> Side note, I'm surprised that these types of scientific surplus stores have lasted longer in the upper Midwest than places like silicon valley or near bell labs in NJ.

Real estate prices are a big factor. Rents in silicon valley, and I suspect NJ have increased much more than midwest rents. Even if the store location is owned, when the business owners are looking to retire, it's then a question of selling the business with the space or closing the business and selling the space by itself, and the value of the space is probably enough that it doesn't make sense to tie it to a business.

Add a bit of reality that manufacturing and the surplus it generates has mostly left silicon valley and NJ, and it makes more sense to have such a business elsewhere.

[always-open]

Were there ever surplus stores like this near Bell Labs in NJ?