Fair Radio Sales is Closing

[~SIGINT~]

We are loosing yet another icon of the surplus industry.

After being in the surplus electronic military business over 50 years,  I have decided it’s time to retire and close the business. Fair Radio Sales has over 30,000 sq ft of electronic parts and equipment that must go. Over the next several months plan your visit to Fair Radio to stock up on electronic parts, equipment, manuals, vacuum tubes and one of a kind items at lower than hamfest prices. Buy an item, a pallet, or a truckload. Come and make a deal. Cash and carry.

https://fairradio.com/

[NJQA]

I’ve been expecting this (with sadness) for a while.  I don’t know of any other dealer of military surplus electronics left.

It’s hard to appreciate the sheer magnitude of surplus electronics that hit the market at the end of WW2.  Even some 25 years after WW2 (when I got started in ham radio), you could still buy things like ARC5 receivers still sealed in their factory packages.  Heathkit built their company on military surplus components.  There were scores of local surplus stores throughout the country…I can remember several in the Wash DC area where I grew up.  The legends about Radio Row in NYC are unbelievable.

Today, the government would rather destroy their surplus than sell it.  While the reason given is often about embedded security devices, manufacturers like Motorola would rather sell the public new equipment than compete with their own offerings via the surplus market.  There is a case to be made that the commercial aviation manufacturing industry after WW1 was depressed due to the number of surplus aircraft the government sold.  Maybe that is the reason so many aircraft after WW2 ended up going to the scrappers rather than the public.

You can see early catalogs from Heathkit, Fair Radio, G&G electronics, etc here:

https://worldradiohistory.com/Electronics_Catalogs.htm