Hercules Sales = sold Surplus on Yonge at Wellesley. The strip around there had Electro Sonic, Radio Trade Supply, Paramount Equipment and 2-3 small surplus and parts sellers.
When transistor came along, radios never broke, TV's never broke and the parts and surplus ecosystem went away.
Efrem Kohn came from Israel in the mid 60's and his Uncle Frank and Peter Eben who owned Active Machinery gave Efrem(Freddie) one of their store fronts = Active Surplus. He carried on until Queen W got gentrified and electronics from Taiwan and later China totally swamped Canadian electronics = all died off = no more surplus. The surface mount assembly also made parts salvage by hobbyists a waste for most people. Now there are only Creatron and one other place on College. I had 7 stores in 1985, closed the last in 2002. I was Parts Galore, a few remember me at trade shows, but I went into mining in 1995 and sold my company in 2018 and retired.
Super interesting, thank you for the backstory. I lived in Toronto from 1998 to 2003 and spent quite a bit time roaming around the dustier parts of AS.
Yes, thanks. The Toronto surplus area was minuscule compared to Canal STreet in New York city in the 50's and low 60's.
You might find some rabbit holes on google of the old days?.
