ILIllinois field entry
American Science & Surplus
West Chicago, IL
A West Chicago surplus labyrinth where laboratory gear, electronics, optics, hardware, craft supplies, models, tools, containers, toys, military leftovers, industrial parts, and objects nobody can quite identify constantly replace one another.
American Science & Surplus turns closeouts, overruns, scientific equipment and miscellaneous industrial leftovers into an employee-owned store where useful tools, educational gear, toys and inexplicable components occupy the same aisles.
Field notes
Why it belongs
Science shop, laboratory supplier, electronics store, hardware counter, craft-supply store, model-and-kit shop, toy store, military-surplus dealer, industrial salvage outlet, and novelty warehouse.
The inventory exists precisely because conventional retail categories failed to find a home for it.
American Science & Surplus has long specialized in the useful, educational, obsolete and inexplicable. The surviving Illinois brick-and-mortar store near Geneva and West Chicago remains open under employee ownership even after the company's mail-order operation ended. Its assortment changes constantly, moving among science and lab gear, electronic components, optics, hardware, tools, kits, models, craft supplies, containers, surplus material, toys, novelties and pieces whose original purpose may be half the fun of discovering them.
Store contents
What you will find
Directory categories
Known for
- Science surplus
- Laboratory gear
- Electronics
- Optics
- Hardware
- Tools
- Kits and models
- Educational items
- Odd industrial components
- Ever-changing surplus
- Employee-owned Illinois store