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The Almighty Buck

American Science & Surplus Is Fighting For Its Life (arstechnica.com) 46

"One of the few major independent science-surplus/DIY outlets left is American Science & Surplus," writes longtime Slashdot reader Tyler Too. "They've recently launched a GoFundMe campaign to ensure their survival." Ars Technica reports: Now, nearly 90 years after its launch selling "reject lenses" as American Lens & Photo, American Science & Surplus is facing an existential threat. The COVID-19 pandemic and increased costs hit the business hard, so the store has launched a GoFundMe campaign looking to raise $200,000 from customers and fans alike. What's happening in suburban Chicago is a microcosm of the challenges facing local retail, with big-box retailers and online behemoths overwhelming beloved local institutions. It's a story that has played out countless times in the last two-plus decades, and owner Pat Meyer is hoping this tale has a different ending. Ars reports on American Science & Surplus' long history, noting that it was founded in 1937 and has grown from a modest surplus shop into a beloved, quirky institution for makers, science enthusiasts, and curiosity seekers. Over the decades, it evolved far beyond its original niche of lenses and lab equipment. As Meyer, a 41-year veteran of the company, put it: "I've done everything in the company that there is to do... it's been my life for 41 years."

Once known for its robust telescope section and deep inventory of scientific odds and ends, the store has adapted to shifting consumer habits -- some changes bittersweet. True to its DIY spirit, American Science & Surplus is described as a "physical manifestation of the maker ethos," stocked with everything from motors to military gas masks to mule-branding kits. It also carries a rare sense of humor, with quirky signage like a warning that a "Deluxe Walking Cane" is "not the edible kind of cane."

Today, American Science & Surplus faces modern challenges like relocating a costly warehouse and overhauling outdated software and web infrastructure. But Meyer is optimistic, noting that contributions to their GoFundMe campaign represent more than financial help: "It's about supporting local retail during a very challenging time. Who wants to buy everything at Amazon, Walmart, Temu, and Target?"

American Science & Surplus Is Fighting For Its Life

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  • Conspicuously Absent (Score:5, Informative)

    by ewhac ( 5844 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2025 @07:42PM (#65428354) Homepage Journal
    Is there some reason the write-up didn't include a link to the store? [sciplus.com]
    • by leonbev ( 111395 )

      Looking at their sparse and weird product listing, I can see why they might be in financial trouble. You would think that a store called "American Science" would have a good selection of solar panels for experiments, but when you do a search on that, you only get one real option for a 100mA panel and a handful of solar flood lights.

      Likewise, I did a search for 3D printers and found NO printers available and only one roll of filament. But... they have a selection of lawn statues. Why, I don't know.

      • by Frank Burly ( 4247955 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2025 @08:44PM (#65428436)
        A million years ago I got their print catalogs, which were like 60 pages made up of the last two pages of old comic books. The emphasis was on "surplus." They had fresnel lenses for big screen TVs, strong magnets, unbranded auto solenoids, and factory-second microscopes and inflatable rafts. I suspect their impending demise can be traced to more efficient markets for random crap and more efficient manufacturing processes and supply chains. But if they manage to sell four of these Panzer tank sights [sciplus.com], they'll be in the black again.
      • Their primary business is buying and reselling surplus. Think one of those TV shows where people buy abandoned storage units, except commercial liquidation auctions instead of random people's junk.

        I buy stuff from them fairly regularly, and once in a while they have something amazing or a real bargain, but you have to treat it more like a flea market than a store. I got some used 12x48 RGB video wall display panels for example, and deeply regret only buying four of them...
        =Smidge=

  • by Valgrus Thunderaxe ( 8769977 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2025 @07:42PM (#65428356)
    to stay afloat, maybe it's your business model that needs an adjustment.
    • Brother, could you spare a million? Just until I am back on my feet...

    • Considering banks regularly receive taxpayer money to stay afloat, perhaps their business model needs an adjustment.

    • by whitroth ( 9367 )

      Obviously, you're not a nerd, or you'd have known about them... nor do you seem to, now. Go away, this websites for nerds only, not idiot trolls.

  • by Revek ( 133289 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2025 @08:15PM (#65428386)
    I bought some filters and wallets magnifiers.
  • by RitchCraft ( 6454710 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2025 @08:16PM (#65428388)

    I wish I had a few stores like this where I live. Walking through them and seeing all the random stuff gets the mind flowing and ideas brewing. Reminds me of what Radio Shack used to be back in the 70s and 80s and the other electronics shops that used to exist.

    • Growing up, we lived in a tiny southern town. Let's just say education was not emphasized and curiosity made you a nerd/troublemaker/heathen, depending on what you were asking about.

      One of the things that saved me was an army surplus store in the bigger down down the road. Aside from enormous tents and bayonets and such, the owner was a Ham, and sold radio-relevant stuff, too.

      He was a surprisingly nice guy, and over time he encouraged me through getting my license, drilling me on Morse (this was back then

      • Yep, I was one of the town nerds too. Started in electronics, then computer programming and finally HAM related activities. Radio Shack and the local electronics stores were my equivalent to your surplus store. The managers let me play with anything and everything.

    • Your local university surplus store likely has a better selection. I think ebay and other outlets just caught up with what these guys were doing
  • I shopped there many years ago when things like magnets were not in every stop-n-rob. Before WWW was a thing we shopped using these things called 'catalogs' and 'mail'. Finding some obscure items was often difficult, but little specialty companies like this filled the needs. To be honest I was surprised to read that they still exist at all.

  • by kallisti5 ( 1321143 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2025 @08:45PM (#65428440)
    I absolutely love these kind of stores... they were the backbone of my younger self getting all kinds of cool old random stuff.

    *HOWEVER*, I actually blame the stores themselves for their current predicament. I remember prices in surplus stores going way, way up in the mid 2000's. Would I buy a cool old oscilloscope of unknown condition for $75? You betcha. Would I blow $350 on it? No... No I wouldn't.

    The price increases are the reason I stopped going. The whole point of surplus was "cool old shit in bulk for a bargain". Once the value proposition was gone, I stopped caring.
    • Wow, for 350 these days you can buy a decent new DSO. I thought I paid around 350 for my rigol and I know siglent's are essentially the same price. For 75 I might too have got a old school tektronix, but not 350.
    • I absolutely love these kind of stores... they were the backbone of my younger self getting all kinds of cool old random stuff.

      I find that my older self can usually scratch that itch in the middle aisle of ALDI. There aren't many shops where you can find a bench drill between branded pesto and multipacks of baby wipes.

  • Back in the 70s we had a few of these mail-order places. ISTR a place called "Molly's" that sold a fair amount of remaindered parts like passives, LEDs and some subassemblies. I've been to All Electronics (they had two locations, the other one was on Vermont St. in Koreatown, Los Angeles...parking was fun) a few times for oddities specialty connectors for WW2 radio equipment and high-power tapped (i.e. adjustable) wire-wound resistors. Most of these places had fun mail order catalogs.

    Parts evolve so fast th

  • I'd never heard of them. As someone else said, "why didn't you post a URL to them?" Jeez.
    They seem to be a kindly ebay-ish supplier of odds and ends.
    MST3K, while epic in so many ways, was supplanted by the Internet and YouTube. Sad.

    • I'd never heard of them. As someone else said, "why didn't you post a URL to them?" Jeez.

      This is Slashdot. So no one else is going to hear about them either .

  • After speaking to several of my american colleagues a few weeks ago it is very clear that American Science is fighting for its life at the moment and there is definitely no surplus.
  • by sonoronos ( 610381 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2025 @09:51PM (#65428524)

    American Science and Surplus was actually a good source of novelty items, optics, gears and surplus commercial devices in a time before the internet.

    They had virtually everything in mass quantity, along with humorous descriptions to accompany their wares.

    Iâ(TM)m actually surprised that they didnâ(TM)t shutter their doors in the early 2000â(TM)s, after ebay and other direct to consumer web sites made it much easier to find surplus items.

    I donâ(TM)t know why they talk about temu or anything like that. ASS is/was more of a combination of harbor freight, edmund optics, and govplanet. There was very little there that would have been in competition with direct to consumer chinese sites.

    • by pz ( 113803 )

      I used to buy stuff from AS&S back in the day. I went to their web site to see if there was anything I might order to help stave off the wolves. But most of it is utter crap. The actual surplus goods are down to almost nothing. And the utter crap is really, truly, utter crap, like stuff bought from AliExpress.

      Perhaps it is a result of supply --- lean manufacturing means there should no longer be large quantities of interesting stuff on the B2B surplus market, cutting off places like AS&S (and Al

  • Their catalog is a work of art. Even if you don't buy anything (But you should! It's cheap! And good!) it's really fun to read.
    • by Nonesuch ( 90847 )

      Their catalog is a work of art. Even if you don't buy anything (But you should! It's cheap! And good!) it's really fun to read.

      Definitely! Similar vibes to (but pre-dating) Trader Joe's "Fearless Flyer", right down to the cheap paper and retro graphics.

  • Visiting their original storefront in Chicago was one of my favorite excursions when I was young and in need of science fair inspiration or just "stuff" for one of my personal projects.

    Pretty much all the B&M and online surplus electronics stores I used to buy from have faded away or moved to a purely eBay existence.

  • Now Edmund Optics and still in business with lots of good stuff. As a kid I bought from Edmund Scientific. https://www.edmundoptics.com/ [edmundoptics.com]

  • This store reflects a retail model that is simply dead now. You don't go in to a surplus store looking for something specific, as you likely won't find it. You go in with general ideas and you see what you find along the way.

    Unfortunately very nearly nobody shops like that any more. We have a chain of surplus stores where I live, and the last several times I've gone in I've walked back out empty handed as they didn't have anything I wanted. They had plenty of things that other people want, but nothi
  • Part of the problem is we no longer have that tinkerer mentality in the hardware space. What we do have is somewhat curated, ala 3d printing, Ada Fruit, etc... Most consumer electronics are locked down, and much of our manufacturing that lead to these interesting shops has been off-shored, so the supply dries up. It's been a slow progression much of my life.

    Edmund Scientific went full commercial. A little 1cm Ronchi ruling to figure a telescope is now in the $100's...

    Fry's Electronics is gone.

    Al Lasher's

    • by bbsguru ( 586178 )
      My favorite of the genre (OK, I've only been to two) was Weird Stuff Warehouse in Sunnyvale. Between them and Halted Supply Company, there was so much to imagine making use of.

      Both of those are gone now, of course.

      I bought a console table with an embedded 8" trackball (from an old radar station) and spent weeks trying to make use of it. Never found a way to, but I enjoyed the attempt. For all the chatter about 'maker culture' and such, I think the earlier comment about technology moving too fast for

      • by Temkin ( 112574 )

        Weird Stuff Warehouse in Sunnyvale. Between them and Halted Supply Company

        Weird Stuff was always an interesting place to visit. Halted was a bit different if I'm remembering correctly, I think I only made it there once or twice, and once as a seller.

        Another fun thing in the Bay Area maker / techie junk scene was the GSA surplus sales they used to do at Lawrence Lab out in Livermore. I actually picked up a fully functional 19" rack mount ion-gauge controller for high-vacuum (think 10^-6 Torr or higher) chambers for under $100. I cleaned it up, tested it, and sold it to Halted f

      • My favorite of the genre (OK, I've only been to two) was Weird Stuff Warehouse in Sunnyvale. Between them and Halted Supply Company, there was so much to imagine making use of.
        Both of those are gone now, of course.

        Those were the days. Ham Radio Outlet and Computer Literacy Bookstore were nearby as well.

  • On their website there was nothing that would make me look past the first couple pages.
    I'll stick with Archie McPhee's. https://mcphee.com/ [mcphee.com]

  • My grandfather signed us up for the AS&S catalog when I was a kid and I remember him sitting with me as we looked at every page. So many good memories attached to this place. As of writing it looks like they might meet their fund drive. I also want to tell those people who are not able to do a donation is to go buy something from them. Every little bit helps.

Elegance and truth are inversely related. -- Becker's Razor

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