I spent my teen years growing up in a northern suburb of Minneapolis, where I became very familiar with Ax-Man Surplus. This was a store where you could find just about anything - and if you didn’t find it there on one visit, you could probably find it there on the next, because their inventory was constantly changing. They had all manner of bizarre and esoteric items for sale - dummy bomb casings, electric motors, a barrel of Jabba-The-Hutt molded plastic heads, random magnets, rolls and rolls of slightly defective scotch tape, parachutes…you could walk in and browse for a couple of hours without being bored. Awesome.
Sadly, my parents moved away from there a few years ago, and now that I live in southeast Michigan, I don’t have much cause to visit the Twin Cities anymore. I miss Ax-Man. Twin Cities Dopers, count yourselves lucky. If you’ve never been to Ax-man, go check one out; it’s entertaining, even if you don’t buy anything.
So…you DO know about American Science & Surplus, right? Right? I mean, where else are you gonna get a beer mug ant farm? They even have a whole section of Robot Partz! As the name implies, a lot of their stuff is surplus, so the inventory changes constantly, though they do try to keep some things in stock.
The best part, or possibly the worst part, is that they do mail order. I’ve bought a lot of stuff from them over the years, and enjoyed almost all of it.
Ax-Man is great. I used to go there (and to Sears Surplus, which was also amazing) with my dad, and I brought my daughter there on her first visit to the TCs. After that, she would come up a couple times a year to load up on taxidermy eyes, dental tools, odd-shaped plastic things, and tiny glass bottles. They had shelves and bins just full of random electronic parts, and they sold some of the most amazing military surplus items I’ve ever seen. Their shelf signs were hilarious too. American Science & Surplus has a similar vibe but not nearly as clever.
I haven’t been there since we moved out of the Cities, but my husband stops in on occasion when he drives up to visit his mother. He always brings me back some bizarre item, so it’s sorta like Xmas.
Ax-Man is indeed awesome - there’s 2 not to far from us. Their copy is hysterical - I want to work for them. Sorry you don’t have any near you, but now you’ve a reason to come back!
Well, to be honest, Ax-Man isn’t the kind of place you’re likely to find unless you know you’re looking for it. Even if you did wander past Texa-Tonka one day when you had some time to spare, which is unlikely, the place looks like a shady auto parts store run by crackheads.
Twin Cities Dopers, count yourselves lucky. If you’ve never been to Ax-man, go check one out; it’s entertaining, even if you don’t buy anything.