Treasure and trash abound at surplus sale
The USU Surplus sale may not be a holiday-shopping destination, but dozens of bargain hunters and shoppers looking for quirky items scour the shelves daily.
USU Surplus, located in a building on the north edge of the Romney Stadium parking lot, collects items discarded from every USU campus and sells them to the public. The items range from computers to office furniture. Some were manufactured in the 2010s, some in the ’50s.
Three rows of tables laden with computers, monitors and televisions sit near the entrance. Deeper inside, dozens of filing cabinets create walls for a couple of aisles. Size 16 men’s football cleats dwarf pairs of rock climbing shoes on a counter.
Steve Sluder, a Wellsville resident and an electronic technician, rummaged through shelves of discarded lab equipment during a Monday lunchtime. His son, also an electronic technician named Steve Sluder, helped scour the stacks and bins of electronics. A Yesco Electronics badge on his chest labelled the younger Sluder as “Steve II.”
The younger Sluder said the visit to the surplus store was his fourth: His father’s was his father’s first. Neither of the Sluders have bought items – they come mainly for amusement. As they explored the bare-concrete, fluorescent-lit room, most of their comments fell into three categories.
Comment one was the trusted name brand. The younger Sluder held up a long, flat electronic device. “See this box? This is a Heathkit product,” he said. “It’s an electronic crossover: home stereo stuff.”
Later, he showed his father a commercial ice-making machine for restaurant use.
That’s a Manitowoc. That’s a really good ice maker,” the elder Sluder said.
He agreed with his son that the Manitowoc would be a great find if he was in the market for an ice machine.
Comment two was the mystery machine. The younger Sluder picked up a dark grey hulk of plastic about the size of a college dictionary. A Dell computer logo and a connection port on the top gave it away as a dock used to charge laptops.
“Why is that docking station so big?” the younger Sluder said. “That thing’s like a computer in itself.”
His father took a look. They identified a CD-ROM drive, a power supply and several additional ports on the device. The younger
“It’s a whole dollar,” the elder Sluder said.
Comment three was the item the university shouldn’t bother selling. As his father examined a box of VHS cassettes, the younger Sluder tapped a crystal floral vase.
“Vases? What do they have vases for?” he said. “Throw them away for gosh’s sake.”
Though the vase may not bring in much money for the university, the state regulates disposal of its property. Every office and campus associated with the university is required to dispose of property through USU Surplus, according to Scott Jaggi, who manages USU Surplus. Jaggi said the variety of items attracts curious shoppers and people can even find use for the more unorthodox items.
For example, USU Surplus received two salon chairs, decades old and complete with plastic hair-styling helmets, Jaggi said. He said the theater arts department bought one to use as a stage prop. The other is still for sale.
Jaggi said some bargain hunters visit the store on a nearly daily basis, something that wouldn’t have been possible until about two years ago. Formerly, USU Surplus held a bid sale four times a year. Items would pile up in storage and customers would pile up when the sale opened, he said.
“You’d have people lined up two and 300 deep,” Jaggi said. “It was like Black Friday, and then when the gates open, they run in and go nuts.”
Jaggi said sales and clientele have both increased since the sale transitioned to a daily basis. The continual sale presents a more comfortable atmosphere for many customers, he said.
“To be honest, people like me – I wouldn’t shop, I wouldn’t stand in that line for anything,” he said.
Jaggi said he expects sales to be slow through the holiday season, though a few people bolster their holiday shopping with surplus sale items.
“We have people come in here and buy gag gifts,” he said. “Pair of size 16 cleats or something. That’s a good white elephant gift.”
Jaggi said computers and computer parts make up the sale’s most popular category. The store sells computers from labs, flat-screen monitors, speakers, keyboards and other items. He said most of the equipment isn’t cutting edge, but customers will buy old systems to tinker with.
Jaggi said he doesn’t understand why the sale draws comparatively few students.
“We’ve got cheap desks, we’ve got cheap chairs, we’ve got computers,” he said. “We’ve got stuff that a lot of students could use in apartments. I don’t know if they’re all renting furnished places, or they just don’t know about us.”
Tyson Lloyd and Jacque Stuart, two students who check the surplus sale occasionally, said the sale provides low-cost entertainment.
“It’s always an adventure,” said Lloyd, an MBA student. “There’s all kinds of lab equipment. I just saw a ‘DNA Engine,’ it was called, and I don’t know what the heck that is.”
Stuart, a senior studying nutrition science, said the variety of items for sale changes often.
“The more I come here, the less I’m surprised by things, but the first time I came here, I was like, ‘There are staplers here, and what are these things? Old records,'” she said. “Now I’ve come to not be surprised by anything.”
USU Surplus is open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Expensive items, such as vehicles, livestock and industrial equipment, are sold in an auction on the first Monday and Tuesday of every month.
– steve.kent@aggiemail.usu.edu