American Science & Surplus

Today I braved the Chicago rush hour to go pay a visit to a store that Paul had tipped me off to a while back: American Science and Surplus. A pretty cool store (with 3 Chicago retail stores) that apparently has had quite a good catalog business for years catering to the science and surplus needs of geeks young and old, and also has a nice website that still preserves some of that old-time catalog feel (note the product pictures that are simple line drawings).

I was in search of a low-voltage solar cell that could drive a small motor for a project I’m working on, and I figured if a store in Chicago had cells, this would be the one. Well, I’m not sure what you would expect from looking at their website (something like a old-time homegrown Radio Shack perhaps?), but when I found the store and walked in, I had to stifle a giggle. Actually, it came out more like a guffaw. It was pure unadulterated adolescent geek madness in there — I felt like I had just walked into some kid’s huge grotty basement that was just stuffed with an incredible array of working and non-working electronic junk, novelty items, and some outdoorsy surplus type equipment that no one had really used or thought about using for years. Yeah, it was pretty cool.

I refer you to the picture, which I am really at a loss to describe as words don’t do it justice. Let me just say that I have no idea why it was hanging in the store, and let me further say that it totally did not seem out of place.

I asked someone about solar cells and they led me to the back, where some dusty window casings were filled with odds and ends. “Here you go,” the kid working the case told me, waving his hand at the case and waiting expectantly for any questions. I peered inside, and saw 3 small plastic bins, for 1V, 2V and 4V cells, each of which was empty save a single 4-volt panel sitting alone in the last bin. I blinked, not sure what to say.

After a few questions and determining that no, they didn’t really have very many cells in stock right now, I thanked them and browsed for a few more minutes and went home. And while I didn’t actually get what I was looking for, seeing the store in itself was well worth it and I wasn’t disappointed at all.

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