labwarehouse.com History
Our labwarehouse.com web site offers a wide variety of laboratory goods at affordable prices. labwarehouse.com was launched in 2002, as a sister company of American Science & Surplus. It is an effort to sell an expanded selection of the laboratory goods that we offer at AS&S, with more technical and complete product descriptions, as well as photographs. Many of the goods offered on this site are surplus. Please check back often as we put up new items on a regular basis. A word of caution: When a surplus item is gone, it is gone. So if you see something you must have, best get it now since we may not have it tomorrow. When we can't find surplus, we may carry regular merchandise that may not be available otherwise, but only if we feel it is good quality at a fair price. As the history of labwarehouse.com is rather short, we’ll move on to the history of AS&S.
American Science & Surplus History
AS&S was established in about 1937. At that time the founder, Mr. Al Luebbers, was working for Western Electric, here in Chicago. Al had a great interest in optics and he noticed that a company next door to the plant where he worked was throwing away reject lenses. He asked them if he could buy the rejects and they said, "No. But you can have them if you will haul them away."
Al and his wife Buddy took the lenses, cleaned and polished them at their kitchen table in the evenings and decided to offer them for sale. They placed an ad in Popular Science offering ten lenses for 50¢ and began to receive orders. Al figured that if they changed the ad to "Ten Lenses for $1" people would think they were better lenses and buy more. So he did. And they did. And the business was launched as American Lens & Photo.
After the Second World War the company expanded, fed by war surplus. Eventually, Al opened a regular store on Chicago's Northwest side called American Science Center and started carrying educational science items.
In the 1970's Al & Buddy's son Jerry joined his parents in the business, eventually taking it over from them. In 1979 he started a catalog operation under the name "Jerryco" and in 1981 he opened a second store, in Milwaukee.
In 1988 Jerry took in a partner, Scott McCausland, who bought out the Luebbers after Jerry's unfortunate death a short time later. After consolidating all operations under the name American Science & Surplus, we started our first web site in 1995. In late 1999 we completely rebuilt our web site and started taking on line orders. In 2000 McCausland retired and sold American Science & Surplus to Philip Cable. Philip, a life-long science geek, continues to grow the business today.
American Science & Surplus Today
American Science & Surplus continues to offer a unique mix of industrial, military and educational items, with an emphasis on science and education. We supply a wide range of unusual and hard to find items (some say bizarre stuff) to the hobbiest, tinkerer, artist, experimenter, home educator, do-it-yourselfer, and bargain hunter.
Customers have used American Science & Surplus items in home made cars, sculptures, precision instruments, home made telescopes, costumes, model railroads, window dressings, holiday decorations, and innumerable science projects. Our items are great gifts, inexpensive supplies, and an endless reason for a giggle or a "Gee whiz!" We try to be scrupulously honest in presenting whatever we know about what we have, and always take it back, no questions asked, if the customer isn't satisfied with it.
To visit the American Science & Surplus web site, www.sciplus.com, click here.
In case you're anywhere in the upper Midwest and would like to visit an AS&S store, here's where they're located:
5316 N. Milwaukee Avenue
(773) 763-0313
Route 38, 1/4 mile east of Kirk Road
(630) 232-2882
6901 W. Oklahoma
(414) 541-7777
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