Auctions, Surplus, Junk, Scrap, Supplies, Bargain Basements, Discount Houses, and whatever else

Generally located in the North Alabama region, including Huntsville, Muscle Shoals, Madison, Scottsboro, Albertville, Guntersville, Birmingham and other areas.

Basicly, I like a good deal. I also like industrial things, odd stuff, technology, etc. So this is a place where you can find good new & used stuff at good prices; sometimes it's hard to find stuff at near "retail", but mostly it's all kinds of stuff (hard & not so hard to find) at deep discount, pennies-on-the-dollar type situations.

Presented in no particular ordering, at least, not at this time.

  • Mike's Merchandise, now with 3 locations! His website is here. You never know what you'll find here. If there's no price on it, make an offer. Mike is a machinist, so started out mainly in the machinery business--lathes, mills, bits, drills, and the like--but has expanded into anything and everything.

    The Huntsville store is OK, but the merchandise doesn't change all that often. The Decatur store is the newest and is larger than the Huntsville store, time will tell how this one turns out. Both Decatur & Huntsville tend to be "softer" stores than the Guntersville store--that is, they have less grease, grime, unique items, large things, etc than the original store in Guntersville. The Guntersville store is still the best; it's located in an old factory, the "show room" is huge, and they've got tons and tons of stuff in the back & upstairs.

    I go to the Huntsville store at least once a week (I live near it) and make a pilgrimage to the Guntersville store once a month or so.

  • State of Alabama Surplus Sales http://www.adeca.alabama.gov/content/spd/spd_public_sales.aspx Listing of Alabama State Auctions.

  • Surplus Industrial. (256) 386-9808, 401 Holland Ave, Muscle Shoals, AL 35661. These guys got started by going to an auction of a local factory that closed, they bid, and won everything in a huge room that wasn't part of the building itself... it's grown since then. All kinds of machines, equipment, supplies, etc, including PLC's, electrical panels, wire rope, pipes, fixtures, etc. There are basically no prices on ANYTHING here, you have to negotiate.

    It's not a large place, one story steel building, but they are friendly. And there's lots of stuff on shelves that you can't see real easily--you'll have to dig & look hard.

    Only been to it once, but it was great. I hope they are still in business....

  • Unclaimed Baggage. Located in Downtown Scottsboro, this is the world famous place where you buy other peoples airline luggage & it's contents. It's not as good as it once was, and the prices aren't great if you consider what you're buying (I mean, they aren't retail, but then, this stuff's not new either). Everything is pre-priced and definitely non-negotiable. If there is no price on it, they won't sell it.

    There are two or three other "unclaimed baggage centers" in across the street from the original one in Scottsboro.

    Unclaimed Baggage also operates Unclaimed Freight, but it's only open very limited hours on fridays. http://www.unclaimedbaggage.com/

    I don't tend to go here more than once every couple of months... often it's with people who've heard of it and want to see it more than anything else.

  • www.govliquidation.com -- US Army Auctions in Huntsville, AL. If the Army is disposing of it and it's in Huntsville (or on Redstone Arsenal), this is probably how it's going. (Occationally they have NAF or Non-Appropriated Funds sales; these are auctions of equipment, material, supplies that are not Congressionally funded, but paid for by some other means, like dues or fees or memberships). Most auctions are minimum bid of $35 with $10 increments, and the current price is displayed, but some auctions are sealed bid.

    I go to about half of these, but have only actually bid on something once. Stuff tends to go for way more money than I think it should. And you generally have to bid on a 4 foot by 4 foot by 4 foot box of smaller boxes, you can't always tell what's in the smaller boxes or if you can, the one thing you want is surrounded by 150 other small boxes of widgets you really don't want to bid on.

    Govliquidation.com's web interface or auction listings could stand to be better. It's definitely not ebay.

  • www.gsaauctions.gov -- NASA Auctions in Huntsville, AL. GSA sets an opening bid, usually quite reasonable, and it goes from there.

    These were much better when Bentley's Auction was running them, but alas, NASA & Bentley's parted ways and now we have GSA's crappy java-intensive web-auction.

  • www.exclusive-sales.com -- former contract-auction house for Boeing, Teledyne-Brown, Huntsville Hospital & the US Bankruptcy Court, now selling only for U.S. Bankruptcy Court and estate-type auctions. You're typical live auction Formerly doing business as "The Auction Factory", but they've given up their lease at this location.

  • Gadsden Industrial Park. I've never been, but the website always turns up on google. So here it is: http://www.gadsdenindustrialpark.com/Equipment.cfm.

  • Peachtree Quality Salvage aka Freight Surplus Sales. Their website is here. Peachtree Quality Salvage located in Roswell, Ga. (retail outlet) or Freight Surplus Sales located in Cumming, Ga. (Auction outlet). Never been to either, but a friend of mine has been to the Roswell location and has found some great stuff.

  • Huntsville City Auctions So far as I can tell, they are now all run from http://www.govdeals.com/. The site includes many other cities as well as Huntsville.

  • Hammers A small chain of smallish stores, they have a lot of new (inexpensive) clothing (including name brands at LOW prices), chinese-made pottery, a small assortment of tools, some German-Mil-Surplus-Camo, and a fairly extensive selection of Carhartt & camoflauge clothing. I don't really care for Hammers much, it's more "women oriented" in the same sort of way that Mike's is "men oriented".

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    Resume| Mallet Assembly | Rail Photos | Mallet Virtual Tour | Junk stores, surplus, & auctions
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    Last Updated:   Dec 2003
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