Eclectic Electronic Emporiums

I feel sorry for the budding young makers and engineers of today because they will never know the joy of fossicking through the types of hardware stores and electronic emporiums I enjoyed in my youth.

As an aside, I first heard the word “fossicking” from my friend, David Ashton, who is English, was raised in Rhodesia (now known as Zimbabwe), and currently hangs his hat in Australia.

In modern Aussie (and Kiwi) slang, fossicking is often used to mean rummaging, poking about, or searching through things in a leisurely or curious way, especially when you're not quite sure what you’ll find.

David often employs this word in the context of rooting through boxes of bits and pieces from old factories and stores, digging through odds and ends, hoping to stumble upon a hidden gem in the form of a rare vacuum tube, a vintage circuit board, or some forgotten electronic prize.

I’ve come to learn that, in the not-so-distant past, the folks from Down Under used the term fossicking in the context of searching for gold, gemstones, or other valuable items, typically by hand and in a casual or recreational manner. I’m picturing someone poking around a riverbed or hillside with a pick and pan, looking for glimmers of treasure.

I initially assumed that this term originated in antipodean climes, so you can only imagine my surprise to discover that it actually descends from a British dialect. It likely derives from the Cornish word “fossick,” meaning to search or to delve about. This word was brought to Australia by Cornish miners during the gold rush era, which began in the early 1850s and lasted through to the 1890s, but we digress…

Let’s start with hardware stores. These days, such enterprises tend to be large, clean, airy, and brightly lit. Also, they are often part of a chain, which means you find an identical collection of items offered in each store. There are, of course, advantages to this, but there are downsides too, like the loss of mystery and anticipation that accompanied a visit to one of the venerable old establishments in the days of yore.

We didn’t have supermarkets or chain stores when I was a kid in Sheffield, England, circa the 1960s. At the bottom of our road was a small cluster of little shops. In addition to the newsagent, chemist (pharmacy), and post office, we had a butcher, a baker, a greengrocer, a cheese monger, a fishmonger, and an ironmonger (hardware store). I used to find the “monger” portion of these monikers to be a little disconcerting. Would they “mong” me if I did anything wrong? Happily, my mum informed me that “monger” is just another way of saying “merchant” (someone who buys and sells things), so that was a weight off my young mind.

Since I was usually involved in making something or other, I spent a lot of time visiting our local ironmonger. I wish I could truly convey the look and feel of this shop to you, but I fear I will fall short. The dusty and grimy window was jam-packed with so much strange stuff that you couldn’t see anything inside the store from the street. It sold all sorts of weird and wonderful items you couldn’t find anywhere else.

Two little old ladies owned this shop. It was much bigger inside than you might expect after seeing it from the outside. A bell tinkled as you opened the door and entered a different world. Everything smelled old, dry, and crinkly. The walls were lined with ancient wooden shelves covered in dust and packed with indescribable objects.

The ladies stood behind a massive wooden counter. You couldn’t tell them apart. Maybe they were sisters. Perhaps they were Martians. Who knew? Behind the ladies was a wall of shelves holding countless little wooden drawers. Each drawer had a small brass handle and a handwritten label in what appeared to be Elvish script.

Standing in front of the wall of drawers was a tall, well-worn wooden ladder on wheels, like the sort you see in antique bookstores, that rolled across the floor. For some strange reason, whatever item you requested required one of the ladies to hold the ladder while the other climbed it. The lady on the ladder climbed and climbed and climbed until you could no longer see her, but you could still hear her muttering to herself faintly in the distance.

I spent a lot of time and pocket money (allowance) in that shop. I wanted to make a time machine to let me go back and see dinosaurs with my own eyes. I bet it would have worked, but the ironmongers disappeared before I’d finished making it. I walked down to the shops one day, and there it was, gone!

I’ve long wondered where that strange little store went. Maybe I’ll find it lurking down a forgotten alleyway one day. And, if I do, I wouldn’t be surprised to discover the same two little old ladies standing behind the counter.

My life took a new direction when I was about 12 years old. As I’ve mentioned in a couple of earlier columns (see Vunderful Vacuum Tubes and Holy Sizzling Soldering Irons, Batman!), my parents took out subscriptions to two hobby magazines in my name: Practical Electronics and Practical Wireless. Once I started experimenting with electronics, it wasn’t long before eclectic electronic emporiums joined my itinerary of regular haunts.

There was a series of articles in Practical Wireless called “Take 20.” Their tag line was something like, “Less than 20 shillings and less than 20 components” (where 20 shillings equated to one English pound prior to the introduction of decimal currency in 1971).

As soon as I received a new issue, I’d hop on a bus and visit the nearest electronics shop to where I lived. This Aladdin’s Cave of components was called Bardwells, which was established in the mid-1940s (it closed its doors for the last time in 2017). Bardwells was located on one of the lost and lonely back streets near the Abbeydale Picture Palace (Cinema). I’ve heard it described as “one of those dimly lit places that look perpetually closed” and “a back street treasure trove you had to know existed to find it.”

I remember Bardwells as being a shabby old building on the outside. Actually, it was a shabby old building on the inside as well. But if you looked at it the right way (with one eye closed and squinting through the other), you found yourself gazing at a glittering and twinkling treasure trove of possibilities.

In addition to regular electronic components and accessories, along with obscure, hard-to-find electronic components and accessories, every free space in the store was piled high with cardboard boxes stuffed to overflowing with surplus bits and pieces of equipment, like old rotary dial telephones and Strowger switches. I spent countless happy hours rooting through these boxes, and I purchased many interesting items (one day I’m sure I’ll find out what they are, what they do, and what they are for).

Recently, I was chatting with my friend Joe Farr, who was born and bred in the Withington suburb of the city of Manchester, England. There’s a town called Stockport about 7 miles southeast of central Manchester. As both the town and city grew over the years, the boundary between them became blurred (to an outsider, they would appear to be a single metropolis).

Stockport Road is one of the main arterial routes linking Manchester to Stockport. This is more than just a road. It’s lined with shops, takeaways, pubs, Victorian terraces, and a mix of cultures and communities. Joe says that he spent many Saturday afternoons in the 1970s walking along Stockport Road, savoring its share of legendary electronics components and surplus equipment shops.

If I ever do get my time machine working, in addition to Stockport Road, another place I’d definitely want to visit would be Tottenham Court Road in London. In fact, I’d like to visit it multiple times throughout the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. This is because Tottenham Court Road was the dream destination for hobbyists, tinkerers, and engineers seeking surplus electronics, components, kits, and second-hand gear. I’ve heard it described as having been lined with shops selling geeky techno-treasure.

Ironically, it may be that Tottenham Court Road circa the 1960s would be the only place that would have the parts I need to get my time machine up and running in the first place. This is a conundrum indeed.

I moved from England to Huntsville, Alabama, USA, in 1990. By that time, mail-order electronics distributors were in the ascendency, and the days of pokey little electronic stores had faded away… or so I thought.

I’m ashamed to say that I lived here for 23 years before I discovered that Huntsville boasted its own eclectic electronics emporium. I remember bemoaning the lack of such a store to a Huntsvillian friend, who replied, “What about Mock Electronics?”

Sad to relate, I first threw open the hallowed doors to Mock Electronics only a few weeks before they closed forever in 2013, but I remember my time there as though it were yesterday. Upon entering the store, you fought your way through rows of shelves and racks containing a mindboggling collection of old and new “stuff.” When you finally reached the counter at the far end of the store, you saw the salesclerks navigating long, narrow walkways that faded into the shadows. These walkways were lined with shelves jam-packed with drawers and boxes containing a baffling and bewildering cornucopian collection of antique and modern electromechanical and electronic components.

As well as working parts, I found myriad defunct devices that could be used to embellish my hobby projects. For example, in addition to the small vacuum tubes I used as the basis for the audio artifact I described in my Vunderful Vacuum Tubes column, I also picked up five giant tubes, which currently adorn my Prognostication Engine project.

As we see in the video above, I mounted these tubes on top of the Prognostication Engine using vintage ceramic sockets that I picked up at a Huntsville Hamfest. I also added a metal collar to the base of each tube. These collars hold strips of tricolored light-emitting diodes (LEDs).

If you are interested, I would be delighted to discuss the Prognostication Engine in a future column. In the meantime, I’d love to hear your thoughts on all of this. For example, if you are new to the party, are you sad that you’ve missed your chance to see the eclectic electronic emporiums of yesteryear? Alternatively, if you are old, grizzled, and gray like your humble narrator (I pride myself on my humility), do you have any tales you’d care to share about your own experiences in the electronic emporia of yore?

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As always, I welcome your captivating comments, querulous questions, and sagacious suggestions, all of which you can share on Hackster's Throwback Thursdays Discord channel. I look forward to seeing you there.